Development of Creative Commons licenses

[mjr AT phonecoop.coop (MJ Ray)]

I suggest replacing 'restrict' in each TPM-ban clause with
'have the intent or effect of restricting'.

This language is already used in CC licensing (Scotland) and it is 
believed to permit copying to TPM media/format along with a non-TPM 
at-least-as-good copy.


It is clearly troublesome for a licence to start restricting what things 
to which works may be copied.  If format-ban clauses become common, it 
will obviously limit various uses and remixes.  Such things should not 
be in the most permissive CC licence.

This suggested wording is slightly more complicated than the current 
draft, but less complicated than spelling out parallel distribution like 
in the alternate draft.  Even so, I do not think that complexity alone 
should prevent the change: if CC wanted the generic to be less complex, 
3.0 should have been based more on the plain and simple language of CC 
Scotland, but I appreciate the need for having something more easily 
comparable with the generic 2.5.

Also, I believe you should not wait until this bug bites before looking 
to fix it, or expect licensees to get exceptions in each case.  This 
suggestion is not preemptive compliance - it's trying to avoid making 
unnecessary work for others.  Let's find the solution in the generic 
licence, if we can.


If there is no general agreement to allow non-restricting TPM in 
general, the TPM-ban clauses should be made optional.  CC seems to have 
refused to take a position on numerous controversies in the past (such 
as Share Alike), so if there is disagreement, it should refuse to take a 
position on whether TPM media may be used and leave it to each licensor.

Finally, please can someone tell us where to find the record of the 
rejections by international affiliates and how the CC decision-making 
works?  I've had a bit of a search of creativecommons.org but haven't 
found details.  I thank the cc-nl lead for explaining his motives here, 
but I'm only guessing about the others.

Thanks in advance for any help,
-- 
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/