Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

drew Roberts wrote:
>  As big a bug as NC is, I think ND is a bigger one. Exactly what, from
>  a creative comons point of view, can one do with an ND work that you
>  can't do with an all rights reserved work. (I am not saying that I
>  don't prefer ND works or even NC-ND works to "ARR" works, just asking
>  what commons benefit they give?)

I think ND is fine.  Unlike NC it is completely unambiguous in what it 
requires and also in what the effect will be.  IMHO, there is no 
possibility that an author using ND will be confused about the 
possibility of "network effects" or "collaborative leverage" that are 
often the reasons for making a work "free" (i.e. By or By-SA).

I think that NC, on the other hand, creates enormous confusion, because 
people mean so many different things when they say "non-commercial" 
(ranging from "you can't charge for the work itself" to "you can't 
benefit in any financial way from use of the work" to "you can only use 
the work if you are not a commercial entity", etc).

But ND, while clearly "non-free", doesn't cause any confusion. Everybody 
knows what it allows: you can download, you can share, but you can't 
change it.  The typos must remain unfixed!

Seriously, though ND is an excellent choice of license for a political 
position statement, for example, because changes might misrepresent your 
position. The GFDL has elaborate language to deal with "endorsements" 
and so forth, but ND makes it pretty simple.

To directly answer your question, BTW, you can't redistribute an ARR 
work, but you can with ND. In fact, if one hasn't also used NC, you may 
even redistribute commercially.

Cheers,
Terry

--
Terry Hancock (hancock AT AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com