Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

On Monday 30 October 2006 09:48 am, Jörg Zastrau wrote:
> first some OT:
>
snip...
>
> back on topic...
>
> > [Greg]
> > I think that the thing to keep in mind here is
> > that people who distribute FLOSS works will
> > not look at this as an opportunity for a
> > frivolous lawsuit.
>
> well said - in theory. Two points:
> - The parties tend to read the license literally in case of a dispute
> - and so do people who like to exploit the work of others disregarding
> the intent
>
> so the plain language of the license has to reflect its intentions.
> The license is broken if it is ambiguous.

Plus, something I thought of this morning. There may be mal intentioned 
players out there who would like to do harm to CC in general and take this 
exact route to do so.
>
> > [drew]
> > I am interested in discussing this further
> > as it seems a bit like the question of whether it is OK for me to have my
> > personal staff (who are on my payroll) download NC works to my devices
> > for my later use.
>
> hm... I thought about it and I could come up with all kind of special
> cases. It basically boils down to the problem to distinguish between
> "good" and "bad" DRM-usage if the end user happens to own a DRM
> device. You'll open a can of worms if you try and this is what
> happened. I still believe that the parallel distribution approach
> would be cleaner. From what I read on the mailing list there are
> people that feel this doesn't discourage people enough from using DRM.

The problem some have with the parallel distribution approach is not that it 
doesn't discourage people enough from using DRM,  but that it can lead to 
"platform monopolies" so to me, the trick is to find language that will allow 
DRM that can't lead to platform monopolies and DRM that can. I don't mind 
parallel distribution for the former, but I object to it in the latter. IIRC, 
some feel it is not needed and redundant if the former case.
>
> Now, does the current language of the draft restrict me (assuming I am
> not evil)?
>
> > [Peter]
> > To "distribute" is to make a work available to the general public.
> > Copying is not distribution.

Is this a feature or a bug? How does this line up with how the GPL handles it 
for programs?

all the best,

drew
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