Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

> Right, it's more that this is the sort of thing that makes people worry
> about unintended consequences of attempts to restrict things that they
> dislike (even if those consequences have not yet been realised) and
> the possibility of reasonable applications of those things.

You can apply DRM to your local copy and play it on your
own hardware player. You just can't distribute that copy.
Alice and Bob can still play on a DRM platform.

It's just that DRM Dave is prevented from using DRM
and the DMCA to prohibite anyone else from apply DRM
to the content, and set himself up as sole source
provider, distributing Open content in DRM-only format.

There are consequences I don't think some people realize
about parallel distribution. Or they do realize, but they
are willing to play them down for one reason or another.
Parallel distribution does nothing when this DRM-only
platform is monopolized by Dave. Folks want to compare
DRM with parallel distribution as if it were teh same
as binary with source distribution, but they fail to
acknowledge the fundamental difference.

Binary with soruce distribution means the original platform
is something that everyone can compile the source on.
Dave may create a binary for a platform, but he must
distribute the source and Alice and Bob would be able
to compile that source on teh same platform.

DRM+DMCA+parallel distribution does not allow Alice
and Bob to enable their content for play on the
original platform.

Dave can distribute content DRM-ed for his hardware platform.
He then distributes an open copy that you can download to your
PC. But DRM+DMCA prevents you from applying DRM to the content
and playing it on the same hardware platform if Dave does not
authorize it.

So, DRM+parallel copy is not the same as binary+source.
And that has consequences that the parallel distribution
folks refuse to acknowledge.

Anti-TPM does not prevent you from applying TPM to your
local copy and playing it on your local player.
Alice and Bob are still able to play the content
as long as Dave gives permission to apply DRM.

But if Dave retracts his permission, anti-TPM prevents
dave from being the sole source provider of Free content
on the platform. No one can distribute DRM enabled
versions of content for one hardware platform and parallel
distribute an open format for some other platform, like a PC.

If Dave is an asshole and prohibits anyone from applying
DRM to his platform, then the DMCA will allow him to
enforce that, and no amount of CC licenseing can do anything
about it. But at least if Dave does do this, then he is
prevented from charging everyone for copies of Free works
through a DRM channel.


-- 
Wikipedia and the Great Sneetches War
http://www.somerightsreserved.org

What happens when one editor prefers
Sneetches with stars on their bellies,
and another editor prefers no stars on thars.