Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Sunday 01 October 2006 06:51 pm, Nic Suzor wrote:
> Apologies for the dense post. Trying to make this as clear as possible.
>
> Summary: I believe the licences should focus on the freedom of the
> content, not the monopoly of the players. Unless the licensor chooses
> the NonCommercial option, I don't think they have a clear intention to
> prevent DRM-Dave from wrapping content up and trying to sell it (as
> long as it's clear enough that there is a zero cost clear-version
> available - maybe we can tweak the attribution requirement).

Why should we get into costs? I have some of my BY-SA works that are only 
available if you pay me.

Secondly, I at least have a clear intention of preventing DRM-Dave from doing 
just this. Well not really. He can wrap it up and sell it, he can leave it 
unwrapped and sell it. That is not the issue. I also want to be able to sell 
it to the users on his platform if I wish. I don't want him having a monopoly 
over my works when it comes to the people who use his platform. Some people 
seem to want to give him that. Now if I, or anyone else can wrap it up for 
his platform as well as him, let's go to market.
>
> On 10/2/06, Greg London <email AT greglondon.com> wrote:
> > And if you argue that Dave will never get that
> > large a majority, that there will always be other
> > platforms that play open formats, that will be
> > significant competition against Dave, then...
> > WHY GIVE DAVE RIGHTS TO THE WORKS IF ALICE AND BOB
> > CAN LISTEN TO THE WORK ON SOME OTHER COMMON PLAYER
> > THAT PLAYS OPEN FORMATS?
>
> I think it may be helpful to further break down your use cases.
>
> I'm going to focus on the SA licences, because I don't believe that
> the restriction should apply to attribution-only licences.
>
> SA-Sam releases a music track under BY-SA, but not in a format that is
> playable on Dave's DRM-only player.
>
> (a) anybody has the ability to wrap music in DRM to play on Dave's
> player, but it's a technically difficult process. Alice performs this
> service for Bob and others, and makes a DRM version of Sam's track
> available. Because this may restrict the ability of a users to
> exercise their freedoms, she also makes available a clear-text version
> of the track (the same version she found from Sam's website). Now,
> everyone is in a net positive position. Sam's track is getting more
> distribution, Dave's player is getting a larger music base, Bob can
> listen to Sam's music on Dave's player. This may have the effect of
> increasing Dave's market power, but this is not at this stage a
> problem. We don't mind with these licences that people can use content
> to make money, we just need to ensure the freedom of the content.
>
> (b) as above, but Dave has later rescinded the ability of third
> parties to apply DRM to make things work on his player. Now, Bob can
> listen to Sam's track on Dave's player, but if he wanted to modify it,
> he could not remix it and have it play on Dave's player again.
> However, he can remix it (because he can get the clear-text version
> from either Sam or Alice), and make it available in clear-text. As far
> as content goes, everyone is still net positive; the freedom to remix
> and reuse the content has not been diminished, but Bob can no longer
> listen to derivatives on Dave's player. So far, this is practically
> the same situation as if Alice were prohibited from wrapping Dave's
> song in DRM in the first place, except that any song released before
> permission was withdrawn could still be played. The freedom of the
> content has not diminished, but the usability (and perhaps
> market-share) of Dave's player has increased a little.

This is incorrect as derivatives are now less free.
>
> (c) which brings us to consider what happens when Dave decides to wrap
> Sam's content up himself. Dave wants to ensure that people can enjoy
> Sam's music on Dave's player, and pay for the privilege of doing so.
> Dave takes Sam's content, wraps it in DRM, and releases both an open
> and the DRM version on his site. In order to access these files, you
> have to pay $0.99/song. So far, this isn't a problem - remember that
> we didn't select a NonCommercial licence here, and people are allowed
> to try to make money out of free copyleft content. Now everyone still
> has the same freedoms with regards to the content itself, but Dave is
> able to obtain greater market share, because his player will play
> music from the major labels as well as music created by Sam. Sam is
> also potentially happier, 

Well SA Sam may potentially be happier, but I can tell you BY-SA drew is not 
gonna be happier. That is a fact. Previously, I may have been trying to sell 
my tracks to Dave's people in competition with Dave. My pitch may have been 
"Buy from drew! Support the actual artist and not some middle man. Ensure 
more great sounding drew music!" Now I can't sell my tracks to these people, 
but Dave can. And I am supposed to be happy with this? Forget it! Or do a 
much better job convincing me.

> because his music is being played on more 
> platforms, reaching more ears, and people still have the ability to
> remix it. They do not have the ability to remix it and play it on
> Dave's player, but that's ok, because there are still clear-text
> versions around. Dave may obtain a high level of market penetration,
> but this doesn't limit the freedom in the music.
>
> It may be undesirable to have a monopolistic restrictive commercial
> provider of portable music players, but I am not convinced that we
> should fight this with copyright licences over the content. The CC
> licences protect freedoms in the content, they're not tools for
> fighting monopolies (or at least, the public perception of them
> doesn't seem to be). If Bob becomes frustrated that he can't remix
> Sam's music and upload it to Dave's player, he should be able to
> manifest demand for a competitive product, a player which can play
> both DRM-music and open music. The content is not less free.
> Restricting Dave from distributing Sam's music doesn't hurt Dave so
> much as it hurts Sam and Bob.

Thanks but no thanks. I will be the one choosing to "hurt" myself in this 
manner and why should you stop me?
>
> (d) finally, Dave wants to use Sam's work as an integral part of
> Dave's player. He incorporates Sam's track into the background music
> in the user interface, for example. The share-alike restriction
> requires Dave to make his user-interface available under the same
> conditions. In this case, I believe that Dave should be required to
> release his user-interface along with all the tools necessary to make
> it work on his player. The licence could be drafted so as to ensure
> that when Dave creates a derivative work under an SA licence, if he is
> going to apply DRM, then he has to provide the tools for others to do
> the same. This is the GPL-example here - when code is embedded into a
> player, the source of the player must be made available. This
> obligation does not arise when someone merely places GPL'd code on
> storage media or a platform which requires DRM.
>
>
> My argument is simple. I believe the Creative Commons licences should
> focus on the freedom of the licensed-content, not the market power of
> players. As long as the content is free, I think Sam will be happy. If
> Dave takes Sam's music and applies DRM, I think Sam will be happy as
> long as there is a clear-text version available (and users know about
> it). If Dave takes Sam's music and integrates it into his code, I
> think that Sam would think that Dave should be required to release
> everything. In the long term, I think even anti-monopoly people will
> be happy, because open formats are being released and maintained by
> everyone who releases them, and there is nothing stopping new actors
> from making players which play open content.
>
> If I were to release a song under CC BY-SA, I would not have a problem
> with Dave wrapping DRM around that song and  trying to sell it through
> his website, as long as he also makes available the clear-text
> version. 

Can you provide us some links to your actual released BY-SA works? Here is 
where you can find some of mine:

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%28creator%3A%22drew%20Roberts%22%29%20OR%20%28collection%3A%28ourmedia%29%20AND%20%2Fmetadata%2Fauthor%3A%28drew%20Roberts%29%29

or you might prefer:

http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145

And some of my GPL Stuff:

http://zbcw.sourceforge.net/

http://code.google.com/p/drsoundwall/

> He may be making money off it, but I didn't select the NC 
> option. The only way to listen to my song on Dave's player may be to
> pay Dave for the privilege, but I didn't select the NC option.
> Listening to my song on Dave's player is not the only way to listen to
> (or remix) my song. People can still get and play with my song. Some
> of those people may choose to pay Dave to use his player, but that's
> not really my concern. If I wanted to stop people from making money
> from my song, I would have selected the NC option.

Well, it is my concern. I am not concerned with stopping him from making 
money, I am concerned with him stopping me from making it. YMMV.
>
> cheers,
>
>
> nic.
>
> The views expressed above are my own personal views and do not
> necessarily reflect those of any other people or organisations.

all the best,

drew
-- 
(da idea man)
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/145261
Record a song and you might win $1,000.00
http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145