Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <teloscorbin AT gmail.com>]

On 9/28/06, Greg London <teloscorbin AT gmail.com> wrote:
> Debian argues against anti-TPM on the grounds that it will keep Alice and Bob
> off of a DRM-only player. However, if you DROP the anti-TPM clause and
> replace it with a parallel distribution clause, you STILL are not
> gauranteed that Alice and Bob will be able to play the work on
> some DRM-only player.

Greg: "We should have an anti-TPM clause in CC licenses."

Debian: "That will prevent people from porting works to DRM platforms.
We should drop anti-TPM and replace it with paralllel distribution."

Greg: "Anti-TPM only prevents people from porting to monopolistic
hardware platforms. If you drop anti-TPM and replace it with parallel
distribution, you still won't be gauranteed the ability to port to a
monopolistic platform, but you just allowed Dave to do so, since he
owns the platform. Parallel distribution allows Dave to maintain a
platform monopoly, making himself sole source of CC-SA works."

Debian: "But parallel distribution will give you a DRM-free version of
Dave's work. So his monopoly isn't that important."

Greg: "The parallel versions may be nothing more than Sam's original
version of the work. The only way to prevent a platform monopoly is to
have a full anti-TPM clause"

Debian: "But that will prevent Alice and Bob from porting to certain
DRM platforms."

Greg: "Not if the platform allows open formats. Anti-TPM will only
prevent porting to DRM monopoly platforms. And dropping the anti-TPM
clause doesn't guarantee you'll be able to port to those platform, it
only means that Dave may permit it, or Dave can maintain his
monopoly."

Debian: "But parallel distribution will break Dave's monopoly."

Greg: "Parallel distribution doesn't break his platform monopoly. It
only gives you a copy of the work that might only play on your PC. The
only way to prevent the monopoly is a full anti-TPM clause."

Debian: "But that will prevent Alice and Bob from porting to certain
DRM platforms."

Repeat as neccessary.

It would appear that Debian is willing to allow Dave a platform
monopoly and have a work be available on Dave's platform, by allowing
parallel distribution, rather than not have the work on that platform
at all because of an anti-TPM clause.

I am of the opinion that the only platforms this will affect are
exactly the platforms that do not allow non-DRM formats, that are
designed with the intention of creating and maintaining a platform
monopoly, and are not the sort of monopolies that any Gift Economy
shoudl allow. I'm also of the opinion that while anti-TPM guarantees
you can't put the work on monopolistic hardware, dropping the anti-TPM
and replacing it with parallel distribution does not guarantee you'll
get the content on the platform, and allows Dave to take advantage of
his monopolistic platform.

Debian appears to be arguing all of this on the grounds that Alice and
Bob would really like to play the content on some monopolistic
hardware platform that does not allow non-DRM'ed works, and therefore
DRM should be allowed in this situation for Alice and Bob's benefit.

Which, the more I think about it, sounds similar to arguing that Alice
and Bob would really like to use Linux code inside of some Microsoft
Windows application, so why not make an exception to the GPL to allow
the source code to be compiled into windows, for Alice and Bob's
benefit.

The problem, of course, is that allowing TPM might let Alice and Bob
play the content on a monopolistic platform, but it also enables DRM
Dave to take advantage of his monopolistic platform and become sole
source provider of content on his platform. THis opens the barn door
the same way allowing Linux code into Windows would open the barn
door. Sure, Alice and Bob would benefit by having good code in
Windows, but Microsoft would surely abuse the loophole created that
would allow it.