Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

On Sunday 08 October 2006 04:47 am, Andres Guadamuz wrote:
> drew Roberts wrote:
> > First, let me say that it seems you took my question above as some
> > "comeback" whe
>
> First of all, apologies, I can come across a bit snippy, particularly if
> I' writing late and I've been working all day :)

No problem, I know how that goes.
>
> > Personally, I am only interested in BY-SA for my own works and BY for
> > possible use in my BY-SA works.
> >
> > There may indeed be a lot of ND works out there but I don't consider them
> > as being too useful to a creative commons.
>
> I think that ND is still an important element of CC. 

This is where we differ.

> I was checking 
> statistics and as of today, about 23% of Yahoo linkbacks direct to ND
> licences. I think that ND is indeed greatly useful for some types of
> works. 

This I choose not to question. I just question the wisdom of CC having it as 
an "official" part of CC. It just seems to me that ND pretty much kills the 
usefulness of the work for the purpose of use in the world of a creative 
commons.

> I have published a couple of articles using BY-NC-ND because I 
> don't mind if people re-use and re-publish them, but I don't see much
> sense in anyone making changes to the article and re-publishing under
> their name. However, I agree that ND may not be as valuable in other
> fields.
>
> > Well sure, not yet. But in 20 years? If there isn't going to be this long
> > chain of re-use, do we really need a creative commons? Do the majority of
> > people involved in the creative commons actually believe that a creative
> > commons is important?
>
> I think that this is a good question. I have been analysing chains of
> re-use in open source for quite a while, and I think that the derivative
> will eventually be so unique that it is perfectly possible that it will
> be an original work in its own right. This I think applies to all open
> licences. I think of it as evolution, minute changes eventually lead to
> new species.
>
> However, let's analyse an international chain of distribution. Let's say
> that I write a song and release it under CC-BY-SA Scotland licence.
> Somebody in Slovenia takes the song, remixes it and releases it. They
> are under an obligation to republish under CC-BY-SA, but they can choose
> their local version. So the derivative will be CC-BY-SA Slovenia. Then a
> Mexican remixes and releases their version under CC-BY-SA Mexico. Then a
> Colombian musician remixes it again, but they don't use the licence. Can
> I sue for breach of contract? I believe I can, but to sue for breach of
> contract I would have to have third party rights. It would be easier for
> the Mexican musician to sue for me. However, I can easily sue for
> copyright infringement.

My question was, I think, asked in light of a comment that a judge would use 
the licensors jurisdiction except in the case of "really"? transformative use 
in which case the judge would use the licensees jurisdiction. (A dim memory 
makes me think it was not only the jurisdiction but the intent of the 
licensor or licensee.) Also, if I recall correctly, this was following a 
question of the meeting of minds in jurisdictions where the licenses are 
legally contracts.

I understand you take, but I don't think it actually answers my particular 
question.
>
> In my opinion, the fact that all intermediaries are using ported
> versions of the same licence is of no importance to the final result.

Doesn't this assume that it is CC's mind that matters and not the parties to 
the contract? I have already been told that that is not correct.

> By 
> the way, this is also a problem encountered in other copyleft licences.
> Shameless plug here, I have written an article explaining precisely this
> scenario using the GPL as an example. You can find it here:
>
> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=569101
>
> > This was unnecessary in my humble opinion. However, I do know that it is
> > easy for such things to slip in online discussions.
>
> Again, apologies. The assumption that English always prevails and should
> be used by anyone is one of my pet peeves (I'm not accusing you of
> holding this view by the way).

Again, no problem. My take on english is quite complex and I will be happy to 
discuss it if you like, but will not bring that into the list. (You have my 
email if you want to persue it.
>
> Regards,
>
> Andres

all the best,

drew
-- 
(da idea man)
National Novel Writing Month
http://www.nanowrimo.org/index.php
Join me and write a novel in 30 days! Dont delay!