Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <teloscorbin AT gmail.com>]

On 10/2/06, Evan Prodromou <evan AT prodromou.name> wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-02-10 at 10:10 -0400, Greg London wrote:
> For myself, I know that, as the author many
> Attribution-ShareAlike works and organizer of one of the
> largest Attribution-ShareAlike projects around, my
> intention is to ensure that developers of derivative works
> grant the same rights that they were granted. I'm not afraid
> of competition if I can re-incorporate any additions back
> into my work.

So what? What you're telling me is that you only care
about the content in its most limited sense, and you don't
care about how that content may become monopolized
in a particular channel.

You're not a hardware guy, are you? You don't care about a hardware
platform becoming a monopoly, do you?

I happen to be a hardware guy, and I happen to know a
thing or two about how hardware monopoly platforms can
be abused.

Think printers that use encryption to identify ink cartridges as
the same brand as the original, to prevent cheap competition
from 3rd party vendors, and the DMCA to enforce that monopoly.
Think of garage door openers using stupid encryption
and the manufacturer uses DMCA to prevent anyone else
from selling compatible replacement transmitters.

PLATFORM MONOPOLIES.

While I wouldn't suggest using a CC license to prevent
different pieces of hardware from monopolizing their
interconnections.

I think that the CONTENT could just as well be monopolized
on a particular platform. DRM-only players could create
a proprietary channel, and DMCA could enforce the lack
of competition. And while you don't care about that, I do.

I think that were some Free community to work on a
project to create Free content, only to see that content
pulled into a non-Free environment, where the community
itself can't even broadcast, share, copy, or play with the
work in that same channel, then I think that would harm
the community.

Using Encryption and DMCA to monopolize
what ink cartridge your customers can put
in their own printer, is similar in nature to
using DRM and DMCA to monopolize
what content your customers can put on
their own player.

> > Software patent-banning clauses are an attempt
> > to use law to outlaw code! We should allow
> > software patents in GPL'ed code! Preventing
> > patents prevents functionality! Prevents code!
> > We must be Free to make the work Less Free
> > so that we can have this patented functionality!

> There are a number of projects that offer
> software implementing patented techniques
> under the GPL. Yahoo! DomainKeys comes
> immediately to mind:
> http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys

Yeah, I know you can put patented software
into GPL code. But my understanding of it
is that if you do this, you must license the PATENT
so that the patent is Free to be used by anyone
using th GPL code, free to be modified by anyone
using the code, and free to be distributed by anyone
using the code.

If DRM does not restrict the rights to the work,
if it is a transparent wrapper, then go for it,
wrap to your heart's content.

But if DRM restricts teh rights to the work,
the CC-SA license should be revoked from
whomever attempted to enforce that restriction.

I believe the wording of the anti-TPM clause
actually says that TPM cannot be applied
to restrict the rights to the work. I do not
believe that is the same as saying TPM can
never be applied under any circumstances.

If its some transparent DRM wrapper that does
not restrict the rights to the content, go for it.

DRM Dave can charge fifty dollars for a
copy of the DRM-wrapped work,
but then Alice must be allowed to share
that DRM-enabled work with Bob, or
the rights to the work have been restricted
by DRM, and Dave has violated the license.

You want to allow Dave to apply DRM restrictions
to the work so that he can sell a DRM enabled
copy to Alice for Fifty bucks, and use DRM to
prevent Alice from sharing that copy with Bob.
Parallel distribution allows Dave to restrict the
work so that Alice cannot share the DRM-enabled
version with Bob.

You are not making the work more free,
you are making it less free. You are allowing
restrictions to be applied by one individual
and allowing that individual to maintain a monopoly
on those restrictions, and that is not Free.

If DRM does not restrict the rights to the work
and enables the content to be used on some
hardware platform, great.

If DRM is used to monopolize the platform,
if you are using DRM to be the only company
who can sell DRM-enabled works that play
on your hardware player, if you are using
DRM/DMCA to be the only company that
sells ink cartridges that will work on your
printer, then I refuse to allow any amount
of horseshit to call that "Free" in any sense
of the word.

Greg

http://www.couragevow.com
Take the vow.