Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

Paul Keller wrote:
>  evan uses the PSP exampe (which i still think in the world of free
>  content is marginal at best) to argue for parallel redistribution.
>  this would indeed solve the (marginal) PSP problem, but it would
>  also allow every other downstream user to apply DRM in all other
>  scenarios on all other platforms that do not require DRM.

Well, technically yes, but it removes all motivation for doing so.

Presuming a "parallel distribution" clause, your "downstream DRM
user" has two choices on a platform that permits DRM or non-DRM
files:

1) Distribute DRM version of code and non-DRM version together

2) Distribute only the non-DRM version

He is specifically REFUSED the right to distribute DRM only. That
goes for everyone downstream who might choose to add DRM.

About the only reason you'd want to distribute both is in the "DRM
platform" case, where it's the only way to run the software (or
display the content, etc) on that platform.

If you use the GPL's strong binding between binary and source
as the example, then it would require anyone who distributes the
DRM version to also distribute the non-DRM through the same
channels.

This was recently enforced against Technalign/MEPIS requiring
them to provide all source packages for all of the binary packages
they distributed (even though they were only distributing the
binaries unmodified).

If the "parallel distribution" clause is as strong as the "source-binary"
language in GPL, then I think it should be good enough to prevent
the kind of abuses you fear.

And as for those who desire that "DRM should hurt" -- I'm pretty
sure it still would in the above case.

Cheers,
Terry

--
Terry Hancock (hancock AT AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com