Development of Creative Commons licenses

[rob AT robmyers.org]

Quoting Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>:

> This essentially forbids the use of TPM to restrict distribution of the
> source, but it doesn't actually prevent source (and certainly not
> binary) from being compiled, stored, used, or even distributed in a TPM
> format (but none of these satisfies the source distribution requirement
> -- meaning that you'd have to provide a parallel non-TPM source
> distribution). That is the freedom that Debian wants to see.

GPL-3 does not allow code licensed under it to be considered part of a 
TPM. This
means that GPL-3 makes DRM irrelevent by allowing you both to implement it and
to circumvent it. CC-3 cannot allow you to circumvent DRM because the 
author of
the licensed work is not the author of the DRM (pace Mia's 
explanation), and so
the situation is very different.

GPL-3 allows far more than parallel distribution. It prevents systems being
locked in to DRM, ironising DRM law as earlier versions of the GPL ironised
earlier mechanical copyright law. Whereas Debian want the freedom to allow
systems to be locked in to DRM. This means that they want the *opposite*
freedom for CC-3.

> So, if no one can refute the analogy between "non-TPM/TPM" and
> "source/binary" then I think any remaining objection to the parallel
> distribution idea is nothing more than FUD.  Please convince me of the
> flaw in this analogy, if there is one.  What's different?

Apart from not being able to tackle TPM systems the same way as GPL-3 there is
no source code in CC-licensed works so there is no natural pre-existing break
point for not introducing DRM. For CC licensed work, the work is both source
and binary. I don't need the non-DRM version of a work to make a new DRM work
on my DRM system, whereas I do need the non-DRM source code to make a new DRM
version of the DRM system. The flaw, then, is that each new version doesn't
need source and so parallel distribution is an artificial requirement.

Parallel distribution is either defeatable after one generation (if I 
don't have
to parallel distribute derivatives or offer the original to others in 
the format
of their choice) or a burden to downstream users (if I do). Unless we put our
faith in archive.org, or have a GPL-style clause that requires distributors to
offer non-TPM versions by post for three years (a pointlessly short time for
culture, and a burden at odds with CC's freewheeling take on culture), 
parallel
distribution cannot have the effects claimed for it.

- Rob.