Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Mia Garlick <mia AT creativecommons.org>]

comments below.

On Sep 23, 2006, at 4:39 PM, Terry Hancock wrote:

> Mia Garlick wrote:
> >  the substantive one is that, on taking the temperature of the "CC
> >  community" it, for the most part, seems to agree that putting
> >  restrictions on the ability of downstream licenses to place TPM on
> >  content in such a way as to thwart the intent and effect of the
> >  licenses is a bad thing.
> (there appears to be an error here, but I think you are claiming there
> to be a consensus that using TPM to "thwart the intent and effect
> of the licenses" is a bad thing, not the restriction against  
> imposing it).

yes, sorry.
> Technically, that may be true -- but it doesn't lead to a consensus
> on what to do about it.
>
> I've seen at least four positions championed:
>
> 1) parallel distribution (i.e. accept the Debian recommendation)
> 2) leave it like it is in CC 2.5 licenses
> 3) allow DRM/TPM, but explicitly grant permission to crack it

as i indicated in the table circulated on the list earlier, this is  
not imo, a viable option.

> 4) make the DRM/TPM restriction a separate license module
>
> IMHO, all have merits, all have problems, and there's a sizeable
> group of somebodies who doesn't like each one of them.
>
> I personally think that #1 and #3 are compatible, and if both were
> applied, the original intent would be sufficiently safe-guarded while
> permitting the edge cases that Debian is interested in. The most
> important point is that this approach destroys most of the advantage
> of using DRM, so there's little reason why anyone would attempt
> it -- *except* for those specific "DRM platform" applications that
> Debian wants to avoid restricting.
>
> >  the practical consideration is that allowing people to mix and match
> >  their license terms would add more complexity to the license
> >  selection process.
>
> This has always been true, and yet it is the fundamental raison d'etre
> of the Creative Commons to allow precisely this mix-and-match
> freedom.  This stance is contrary to the whole CC concept, so I find
> it a bit bizarre.

no, the CC concept is based on a simple license generator is designed  
to ask three basic questions that focus on types of use that the  
licensor wishes to authorize: do you want to allow commercial uses?  
yes/no; do you want to allow derivatives? yes/no; if yes to  
derivatives do you want to require sharealike? yes.no.

if we start to open the can of worms as to additional, highly  
specific legal conditions people would also like to add to those  
permitted use...then we make it becomes mix and match license  
conditions (not a simplified list of authorized uses) and it becomes  
must more complex than the basic standardized, simplified license  
selection process upon which CC has traditionally been based.

other candidates for specific add-on conditions historically have  
included: making commercial use more nuanced and adding the ability  
to include IP warranties...if we are going allow people to checklist  
legal terminology, then we have to open it up to much more than TPM  
and i don't think we're in a position to do that yet; particularly  
not to solve "edge cases" as you refer to them above, that have not  
yet been shown to be tangible as opposed to hypothetical and  
particularly not given another license which has the same if not a  
broader TPM restriction (the FDL) has been declared Debian-free...

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