Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Nic Suzor" <nic AT suzor.com>]

On 10/2/06, drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com> wrote:
> Why should we get into costs? I have some of my BY-SA works that are only
> available if you pay me.

no problem with me, lets keep costs out of this.


> > 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?

I have no reason to stop you - you can license however you like. But
the decision that CC makes here will affect how a lot of people
licence, and I'd like that to be clear.

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

I'm a writer, not a muso. I'm talking in terms of music because that's
the language of the discussion so far. You can find my licensed works
(articles and photographs) at http://nic.suzor.com/. I'm not sure this
is relevant to the discussion.

> > 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.

So now we're down to personal preferences. I, for example, would be
happy for a game publisher to use my BY-SA photos in a game, with the
result that the game has to be released under BY-SA, even if the
version sold in the shops is the only one that will play on, for
example, the PS2. As long as the whole is avialable in a format I can
dissect and reuse (on another platform), I'm not convinced it's a
problem. I don't know whether this means I need access to the media on
a lower level (i.e., preferred editing format), but that's another
issue.

Similarly, I'd be happy to have my articles distributed for reading on
a proprietary platform, as long as I'm confident that my readers will
still be able to find the clear-text versions.

I'm not in the position where I'm going to be trying to compete with
Sony for producings games that run on the PS2. I'd love to see a free
software project make and produce a PS2 game using free software and
content, even if it requires them to pay Sony to sign it in order to
obtain commercial release. I know Mia says that this is a non-existent
demographic, but I don't think that we should lock it out before any
possibiliy of it arising.

I'm not supportive of DRM, but I'm not convinced that my copyright
licences are the best way to fight it. It would be a shame if you
couldn't compete on a platform which has overwhelming market-share,
but I think that's a competition issue, not a licensing one.

How do we reach consensus here? If I'm in the minority, and most
licensors agree with you, I'd be happy to drop the argument. I just
think that it is wrong to apporach this from the ideology that we are
going to change Apple or Sony's minds on DRM because they can't
package up CC-licensed works. I know that's not what you're saying
here,  which is why I think we need some way to either (a) achieve
clear consensus amongst the community that licensors generally don't
want their works distributed on DRM-only players, or (b) create an
option for licensors to decide for themselves (with the increased
complexity that that would bring).


nic

--
Nic Suzor
nic AT suzor.com
http://nic.suzor.com/
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