Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Bob Morris <ram AT cs.umb.edu>]

"You have to write clearly in order to understand where your mistakes in 
thinking are."
   Attributed to Hugo Bedau, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Tufts 
University



Jim Sowers wrote:
> When I was in law school, back in 1986 ;-(  I took a contract writing
> class.  It had a lasting effect on me.  We practiced writing in plain
> English -- the teacher worked for Bank of America, and because they 
> had lost
> some cases because courts had found their contracts to be 
> unintelligible to
> the average consumer (the other party to the contract), BofA found 
> religion
> and started re-writing their contracts.
>
> We studied a law review article by Richard Wydick, Plain English for
> Lawyers, which is now in its 3rd edition as a book, and which I 
> mentioned in
> an earlier post to this list.  The SEC has also imposed a "plain English"
> requirement on filings.  I think CC has done a pretty good job on this 
> front
> (with the notable exception of the excessive, and I would argue improper,
> use of the word "such" as a definite article, see my earlier post).
>
> Nevertheless, I think the line at the bottom of the deed that reads 
> "This is
> a human-readable summary ..." is unfortunate.  Obviously, CC intends 
> to say
> that it is a simple summary for non-lawyers.  Some will think that I'm 
> being
> too sensitive here, however, I believe that using the term 
> "human-readable",
> aside from reinforcing some of the nastier stereotypes about lawyers, 
> also
> reinforces the idea that lawyers use a different, incomprehensible
> language.  I find that two types of lawyers tend to do so: those not
> confident enough to make things simple -- e.g., afraid to replace "any 
> and
> all" with just "any", and those who are pompous and throw in every
> heretofore and therewith to add to the cloak of mystery around what it 
> is to
> practice law.  Finally, some of the worst examples come from non-lawyers
> trying to "write like lawyers".
>
> Thus, I would change the terminology to reflect "summary" v. "detailed"
> rather than "human" v. "lawyer" -- as even the detailed documents 
> should be
> eminently readable by humans; those are the kinds of documents really 
> good
> lawyers write.
>
> Jim Sowers
> Lawyer :-)  (DJ, Dance Teacher, Motorcycle Adventurer)
>
>
>
> On 11/21/06, Andres Guadamuz <a.guadamuz AT ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> > Luis,
> >
> > While I don't know if there was any sort of doctrinal consideration with
> > the creation of the Commons Deed, I can tell you that at least in
> > Scotland we drafted the licences under the requirement of writing form
> > contracts in "plain intelligible language" contained in section 6 of the
> > the UK's Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999:
> > http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19992083.htm
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Andres
> >
> > Luis Villa wrote:
> > > Hey, all (but really primarily to the lawyers on the list :)-
> > >
> > > As I was stumbling through Contracts this morning (specifically, a
> > > lecture on interpretation of contracts) I was reminded of the human
> > > readable versions of CC contracts/licenses. The question that came to
> > > mind: were those inspired by any particular strain of academic thought
> > > on license legibility/usability? Or did they just come out of a
> > > general ease-of-use impulse? If there was a strain of academic thought
> > > on the issue that was inspirational or otherwise important, any
> > > pointers to where I could start reading?
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance- let me know if my question itself is 
> > incomprehensible
> > :)
> > > Luis
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > cc-licenses mailing list
> > > cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Andres Guadamuz
> > AHRC Research Centre for Studies in
> > Intellectual Property and Technology Law
> > Old College, South Bridge
> > Edinburgh, EH8 9YL
> >
> > Tel: 44 (0)131 6509699
> > Fax: 44 (0)131 6506317
> > a.guadamuz AT ed.ac.uk
> > http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrb/
> >
> > IP/IT/Medical Law LLM by Distance Learning
> > http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/distancelearning/
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > cc-licenses mailing list
> > cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses
>
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>
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>   

--
Robert A. Morris
Professor of Computer Science
UMASS-Boston
ram AT cs.umb.edu
http://www.cs.umb.edu/efg
http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram
phone (+1)617 287 6466