Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Evan Prodromou <evan AT prodromou.name>]

On Fri, 2006-29-09 at 00:30 -0500, Terry Hancock wrote:
> After reading it, I find I'm compelled to agree with your platform 
> monopoly case. It is a "deal breaker" after all.

I hope someone can explain to me why it's a deal-breaker. Nobody, as far
as I know, has a monopoly on any of the different types of works --
audio, images, video, text, or other forms of data. If a work is
available to copy and run on another platform -- say, another music
player or another kind of video disk -- but not on the distributor's, it
will be a huge market pressure on the distributor.

Imagine, if you will, DRM Dave's Web site, with a section for
unencumbered works that can be either played as-is or easily converted
to play on _many_other_ platforms _but_not_his_own_. In other words,
he's hosting files for Works that his customers can't play. His market
advantage over his competitors is nil -- in fact, he's got a
disadvantage, since people can _play_ all the CC-SA music available on
his platform somewhere else, _and_do_more_with_it_too_.

Why is this sad-sack figure with the bullet-hole through his foot an
unacceptable threat to our Freedom?

~Evan