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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] Version 3.0 - Public Discussion

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Rob Myers <rob AT robmyers.org>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Version 3.0 - Public Discussion
  • Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 15:28:11 +0100

On 12 Aug 2006, at 10:22, Henri Sivonen wrote:

On Aug 10, 2006, at 23:03, Evan Prodromou wrote:

Again, I'll contrast to Free Software applications running on
proprietary operating systems. If the GPL had forbidden running or
developing a Free app on a propriety OS, there would be no Free
Software today.

When the GNU Project started, they had to bootstrap on proprietary
systems. When CC started there were--and still are--plenty of media
players around that don't require technical protection measures in
the mass-distributed data.

For example, you can distribute DRMless files to iPod users. They put
the files in the one-way iPod cage on their own. The distributor is
not required to apply FairPlay. So the popularity of iPod is no
reason for allowing DRM in *distribution*.

I believe that PSP will also happily play DRMless MPEG-4 movies and
display DRMless JPEG images. Please correct me if I am wrong. All in
all, console games that require signing by the platform vendor are a
fringe case when you consider the whole Free Culture spectrum.

Besides, for a game to be Free, you have to be allowed to make
modifications and run your modified version. If the ability to run
your modified version requires you to go beg for signing by Sony, de
facto the arrangement in non-Free as a whole and fails the Desert
Island test.

This is all correct.

The proprietary OS comparison simply doesn't work. A proprietary OS doesn't prevent me editing the source code on it. A proprietary OS cannot prevent me moving the source code to another platform and compiling it there. And so on. This does not bear comparison to DRM in any way.

A much better comparison would be Trusted Computing. TP would defeat FOSS entryism. So does DRM. If someone only has an MP3 player with DRM on it they have worse problems than not being able to use CC- licensed works.

- Rob.




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