Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

> On Sat, 2006-30-09 at 22:40 -0400, drew Roberts wrote:
>
>> You seem to have faith that we will never get to
>> the point where only Single Source DRM only players
>> are available. I, on the other hand, am not so
>> sure.
>
> One more time: how does an anti-DRM clause help us
> when this happens? You seem fairly convinced of the
> imminence of this scenario, but it's not

Seriously, you're either ignoring everything I've
said up to this point, or maybe I just write too
damn much and you've skimmed over it. It wouldn't
be the first time I rambled on too long.

The argument, in it's entirety, is explained here:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2006-September/004130.html

The situation is describe in bullet 3

:: (3) DRM-ONLY-Monopolistic Dave: Dave's hardware plays
:: only DRM-Enabled formats. And Dave will not give
:: permission to anyone to create DRM-enabled works that
:: play on his hardware. Dave will maintain a monopoly as
:: sole source provider for content on his platform.

I don't understand exactly what your questioning here.
Do you not see this as a possibility? Do you doubt
that DRM-Dave might release a platform that is DRM-only
and that he might not grant permission to Alice and Bob
to apply DRM to their CC-SA content so they can play
it on Dave's platform?

Or is it that your reaction to this possibility is
different than mine? If this scenario occurs, then
I would see DRM-Dave as having a platform monopoly
and he could become a sole-source provider for all
content. That's his point in creating a DRM only
platform, right? And so he's only going to allow
himself and companies who pay him to apply his DRM
to content so that it will play on his platform.

So the other option is that you believe this scenario
is a possibility, but your solution is to allow
Dave the monopoly, simply because you'd rather
Alice and Bob be able to play the content on Dave's
hardware -somehow-, even if they have to pay Dave
to apply DRM to the Free, CC-SA, content, rather
than to have Alice and Bob not be able to play the
content on the player at all?

Either you don't think the scenario is possible.
Or you think that it's better to allow Dave a monopoly
and access the content on his platform than to not
be able to access the content on teh platform at all.

Which is it?

Because personally, I think the scenario is very likely,
and I think that if the choice is either Dave gets to
monopolize himself as sole-source provider for CC-SA
works and charge Alice and Bob for CC-SA content,
OR DRM Dave is denied the right to DRM the content
because of anti-TPM, then I'll go with anti-TPM.

Now, every time prior to this, every time I ask this
question, you answer a different question. And after
all this back and forth, I am still not clear if you
actually understand the threat I am presenting here
or not. So, I'd appreciate it if you could answer the
above scenario first, and then if you'd like to go
on to another scenario, do so after answering the
above one I present.

I believe it is explained rather thoroughly here
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2006-September/004130.html
So, perhaps you can read that through one more time
before answering and before bringing up another scenario.

If Dave can have a monopoly on his platform,
if Dave is the only person who can apply DRM
to content for his platform, and if he is
willing to take advantage fo that monopoly
OF PLATFORM, do you support anti-TPM to prevent
the monopoly?

And how does parallel distribution do anything
to prevent the platform monopoly in this scenario?

It allows access to the work in a different platform,
but you said you're against anti-TPM because it
doesn't allow Alice and Bob to put content under
DRM so they can play it on a different platform.

Parallel distribution does not FORCE Dave to allow
the content on his DRM only player. It only
ALLOWS someone to DRM enable the content if Dave
grants permission. ANd if Dave does not grant permission,
then parallel distribution simply grants Dave the right
to set up a monopoly as sole source for the content
on his platform.

What you seem to be saying is that you'd rather allow
Dave a monopoly and charge Alice and Bob for DRM-enabled
copies of the content, rather than not let Alice and Bob
have copies of the content on that platform at all.

And to me, Dave's monopoly is no longer about Freedom,
is no longer about gift economy, and has become a
proprietary fork, a platform monopoly.  And while
parallel distribution might give Alice and Bob access
to the content on their PC, it still allows Dave the
platform monopoly. Alice and BOb can't get the work
on the platform but through Dave.

And if Dave sets himself up for a platform monopoly,
the gift economy should not allow him to abuse that
position using Free content. No matter how much Alice
and Bob might like to run some Linux software inside
their Windows applications, no matter how much Alice
and Bob might benefit from better linux code running
in their Windows applications, Microsoft cannot benefit
from Free software in their monopolistic system.

The point of copyleft is to protect the gift economy
from proprietary competition. Competition is proprietary
anytime someone can exercise an advantage over the
rest of the community. A platform monopoly is proprietar
competition that could hurt the gift economy, and cannot
be allowed, and is the very thing that copyleft and
sharealike licenses should protect the Gift Economy from.

Greg




>> OK, so why not talk of allowing it only where general users can apply
>> the DRM
>> if they wish?
>
> Because it's really hard to guarantee environmental conditions for
> downstream users. Copyleft licenses usually stop at making sure that the
> work is available for modifying, distributing, etc. Putting demands on
> the distributor to ensure certain conditions of a work (for a computer
> program, say, requiring that no- or low-cost compilers for the target
> language are readily available, that testing versions of the platform
> can be obtained for little or no cost, dot dot dot) would make it
> impossible to distribute programs at all.
>
>>  Or what about a non-distribute on DRM versions of CC files?
>
> That's the case right now, isn't it? Copyright licenses typically can't
> restrict what you do with a work if you don't distribute it.
>
> ~Evan
>
>
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