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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] New Generic and ports

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] New Generic and ports
  • Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2006 19:07:20 +0000

Terry wrote:

Personally, I think that By-SA is a better way to avoid exploitation,
> but I don't think it's as obvious as it should be that it
is a good choice for that.

I'll address the NC issue this way:

There are a number of religious organizations that create material that is designed to be shared with other people. [Religious instruction, Tracts, Translations of Sacred Texts, etc.]

What they want, is for people to be able to use/reproduce their material for specific situations, giving them (the original organization) credit for the material that is used. What they don't want is people/organizations selling/charging a reproduction fee for the material, unless a royalty is paid to them. [Typically, these organizations survive because of the royalty payments they receive.]

Obviously each organization can (and traditionally) has crafted their own "terms of use". There is no uniformity in those "terms of use". For the religious (or educational) body that is using the material, trying to decipher the ins and outs of each of those "terms of use" addendum to the "all rights reserved" status is a time consuming process -- that can be difficult to implement. [More than one church has gone "Oops, we can't use that translation in this document, because we quote 101 verses, and their licence only permits us to copy 100 verses."]
For an organization, dealing with "small users" can cost more than the income from the royalty brings in. [These are typically scaled according to number of copies created, and amount of text that is used. some organizations simply set a base amount, and then add the per copy/per word charge to royalty fee.]

The issue with the By-SA licence in this situation, is that the organization is literally cutting off their oxygen supply. If they wanted to do that, they would simply use the Public Domain Licence.

To simplify matters for both sides, the use of a standard licence significantly lowers operating costs. The CC-NC licence _appears_ to fit that bill. [I'm not sure it does, because of some of the implications in the current CC Guidelines about what it means.(I've written elsewhere about my issues with the CC take on what "NC" permits, and what it denies.)]

Drew wrote:

> And if "Creative Commons" was instead called "Better Copyright
Options"

I think people are treating it as "Better Copyright Options", purely because CC has provided several options to the standard "All Rights Reserved". Instead of having to write a licence for their work, the creator simply grabs a licence that they think does what they want. [ I've seen several instances where an organization has chosen a CC Licence, and explained why they chose it --- and the reasons for choosing it are totally out of phase with what the licence accomplishes.]

Whilst CC would like material to be in an electronic commons, about the only group that thinks that way are people who sample music, or video --- and maybe a few gamers.

xan

jonathon





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