Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

On Tuesday 10 October 2006 05:08 am, Henri Sivonen wrote:
> On Oct 10, 2006, at 09:39, Jonathon Blake wrote:
> > One organization has a policy of using your local process server as
> > your first notification of a possible copyright violation. Several
> > others are well known for their enforcement of alleged copyright
> > infringement.
>
> Makes you want to quote the KJV, doesn't it?

Something like:

1 Corinthians

6:5 I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man
among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his
brethren?  6:6 But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before
the unbelievers.

6:7 Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to
law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not
rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?

Or did you just mean in general... ~:-)

>
> > Something like that will evolve when people figure out what a creative
> > commons for _text_ means.
>
> Software documentation needs to evolve with the software. Educational
> materials can evolve over time and be collaborative. I can imagine
> that religious commentary could be collaborative in a wiki style.
>
> >  The best current example is Wikipedia, and its relatives.
>
> And they are not NC.
>
> > Copy edits and translations are probably the only significant
> > derivatives for text.
>
> And updated versions of software documentation and educational
> materials. And audiobooks. And movies. (An organization here in
> Finland that desires to become the monopoly ARR licensor of books for
> purposes other that the initial printing also talks about PowerPoint
> slides.)

Plays, novels, screen plays, movies, songs. Filking.

How did this get restricted to a text only discussion by the way?
>
> > My personal experience has been more of both of those for the
> > CC-BY-NC-SA than the CC-BY-SA licenced material.
>
> If the text is NC, the translator has a hard time making money.
> That's not cool.
>
> > For non-profits, the revenue model is not the primary function.
> > My sense is that most organizations that us the NC licence are either
> > non-profits,
>
> Surely it has to be an important consideration if the monopoly of
> potentially making money off the work is held. 

Bingo.

> If it weren't, why 
> should a non-profit care about someone else making a profit?

The other reasons I can see are:

the work is of a type which they believe no one should make a profit on.

they made a mistake or unconsidered choice as you indicate in this post.
>
> > * Software support can generate revenue.  That doesn't exist for text.
>
> It seems to me that teaching courses based on textbooks is a support-
> like service for text.]

A lot like that. I think in some places this is how lawyers operate.
>
> Considering what kind of software license is known as "the MIT
> license" and that potential MIT authors are primarily in the business
> of providing the teaching service, I find it strange that MIT is
> pushing NC and all the ambiguity it entails.

Isn't that "interesting"???
>
> >> NC prevents others from building business on what is potential
> >> usefulness for others but unused surplus for the licensor--or any
> >> attempt degenerates to the permission culture.

There is one other valid reason that comes to mind off the top. To deny 
revenue to the opposition which they will use to fund their continued assault 
on your rights.

This thought sometimes has me wondering if there are ways to tweak BY-SA to 
deny use to such players. I haven't figured out a way to do that though.
> >
> > I haven't done a survey of the type of material that is slapped with
> > an NC licence.
>
> Flickr has lots and lots of NC photos. I'd bet that most
> photographers did not take the photos because they were motivated by
> potential royalties but instead took the photos for personal
> enjoyment. Hence, any usefulness to anyone else is surplus.
>
> There are also lots and lots of blog posts out there that have NC
> slapped on them but whose writers were not motivated by potential
> royalties.
>
> > Most of what I've seen has either been educational, or
> > religious orientated.  In both instances,
> > the only restriction is selling the derivative product --- if there
> > is one.

It seems they would rather prevent the selling of the product but allow the 
selling of derivative products.
>
> At e.g. Helsinki University of Technology, hard copies of course
> material is sold to students. This operation has been externalized to
> a privatized company that was previously the government printing
> office. (Often the parts of the material written by the lecturer are
> available to the world free as in beer on the Web and you would be
> allowed to print it on your home printer but not on the university
> printers. It isn't about collecting royalty to the lecturer.)
>
> This means that NC is a problem for educational material. To me, it
> seems to make more sense to get rid of NC than to weasel it so that
> doing business with NC is OK for educational purposes.
>
> > You are assuming that income generation is the driving force behind
> > the selection of the NC licence.  I'm not convinced that it is.
>
> No, I am assuming that a knee-jerk desire to deny income generation
> for others is the driving force for the selection of NC.

I think this may indeed be the case.
>
> > For
> > both educational and religious material, the driving force is to
> > maximize the distribution, at the lowest cost to the original author,
> > and the end user.  [This gets back to the dual licence: "All Rights
> > Reserved" for the hard copy, and "NC" for the e-text.]
>
> If a tenured educator is paid on a monthly basis, one has to wonder
> if the royalty extracted outweighs the collaboration and distribution
> that is lost due to not being Free as in Free Software.
>
> > For a commentary on _The Gospel of
> > Judas of Keiroth_, the insight it provides are going to be more
> > important than the licence.
>
> But could such commentary be massively collaborative under CC-by-sa?
> Could such a commentary be more insightful?
>
> > ND is as restrictive as NC, perhaps more so.
>
> ND is restrictive in a different way, but even RMS agrees that ND
> makes sense for some works like expressions of political opinion. (I
> believe that many bloggers who are using CC-by-nc had reasons that
> should have lead to CC-by-nd instead.)

I don't actually agree with this as you have stated it. ND (or invariant 
sections) makes sense if you want to have your political opinions ride along 
with another (often unrelated work) but for a pure politicla opinion it would 
be enough to force the removal of your "association" with unapproved 
derivatives. (unapproved non-verbatim copies?)

all the best,

drew
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