Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

drew Roberts wrote:
>  OK, so what equivalent to having to allow people to circumvent the
>  DRM and to allow them to sign their own binaries for the system. can
>  we come up wiith in the case of CC works? I have not yet figured out
>  how to word a "source code" clause into the CC licenses myself. As
>  much as I would like to.

Greg London's point up thread is that *by design* and therefore, in a 
legally enforceable way, DRM providers may design their system such that 
developers cannot legally give away the necessary key to sign "binaries" 
(i.e. DRM'd content) for their platform.  If the song were licensed 
under GPLv3, the "Corresponding Source" as defined in GPLv3 would be 
illegal to distribute (because it includes that key), and thus, it would 
be illegal to distribute the song in DRM'd form (meaning they'd be 
barred from that platform).

I think the fact that GPLv3 would be as prohibitive as the proposed 
CC-By-SA-3 language is interesting, and pretty important from Debian's PoV.

I don't if it's been mentioned here, but of course, Debian has also 
expressed doubts about the GPLv3 being compatible with the DFSG.  OTOH, 
we know from a political perspective that if the FSF adopts GPLv3, then 
Debian is going to bend or change the rules to admit it, no matter 
whether it meets the existing DFSG.  CC may need to insist on the same 
respect, or not play.

Another interesting point is that people fighting the anti-DRM clause 
(including specifically Linus Torvalds) in GPLv3 have said that the GPL 
is the wrong place to fight DRM, preferring to apply anti-DRM clauses to 
artistic works (as the CC licenses do), while recently we've seen 
arguments here that the CC licenses for artistic works are the wrong 
place (and presumeably that it's better to do it in the licenses for the 
software?).

Clearly we all need to decide who does need to do the fighting and how, 
or we'll wind up with no one doing it, which would be the worst 
outcome.  As things sit, I find I'm agreeing with doing it in the CC 
licenses.

Cheers,
Terry

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