Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>]

> Greg London wrote:
>>  So, what you have yet to make clear here, is if DRM Dave can use DRM
>>  to become the sole source of a work that plays on some DRM platform.
>>  If the solution is "parallel distribution", but the DMCA says only
>>  Dave can circumvent his DRM, then does not that mean that Alice
>>  cannot provide the exact same work in DRM-friendly format for the DRM
>>  platform?
>
> Okay, maybe I see what your point is, but I'm not sure. Why would you
> think that Alice would NOT be entitled to apply her own DRM to the
> work?  What's preventing her from doing that?  Certainly not the license.

It's like the question of whether the fence company owns the fence even
after Alice applies it to her pasture. Or, in this case, its a question
of whether or not the fence company can prohibit anyone from implementing
their fence on someone else's property.

If DRM Dave invented the DRM technology and sells the hardware platform,
which is to say he is an actor such as Sony, then can Dave (Sony)
use the anti-circumvention clause to prevent Alice from applying
their DRM technology to her work so that it plays on Daves (Sony's) PSP?

If the anti-circumvention clause can be abused to the point that
Alice cannot authorize the DRM on her work can be circumvented,
then how outrageous is it to consider the possibility that
the anti-circumvention clause would be used to prevent Alice from
figuring out how Dave's DRM technology works so that she can
apply it to her work? You need to understand how it works to apply
it, and to understand it means you would then also know how to
circumvent it.

And if the DMCA does NOT apply this definition now, how outrageous
is it to consider the possibility that Dave (Sony) wouldn't push
the government (through millions of dollars of campaign donations)
to make it work that way?

The last few decades, if nothing else, have shown that there is
nothing the proprietary folks consider outrageous or beyond their
influence.

So, the worst case scenario is this:
You have to go to some place like iTunes to download Alice's
CC-SA song to play on your iPod. They'll also parallel
distribute an MP3 version that plays on your PC, but the
only way you can get an iPod compatible version of the work
is to go to iTunes and pay a buck to Apple. Alice can't make
an iPod version of her own music because the DMCA, or because
some future version of the DMCA, makes it illegal for Alice
to apply Dave's DRM to her work without Dave's permission,
and Dave wants to be sole source of music to his platform,
so he has no incentive to give that permission.


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