Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Jim Sowers" <jim AT spincycle.org>]

Hi Andres,

I agree--I don't mind hearing (and telling) lawyer jokes.  At the risk of beating a dead horse, my point is less about being sensitive to lawyers, and more about communicating accessibility to non-lawyers.  In other words, if someone sees "human-readable", it can also imply that mere mortals should not attempt to read the actual license because it will be too difficult; licenses can only be understood by those special people, lawyers.  I know "human-readable" it is meant to be cute and funny, but the other side of the coin is a certain condescension about which I think the drafters should at least be aware.

Jim Sowers

On 11/21/06, Andres Guadamuz <a.guadamuz AT ed.ac.uk> wrote:

To be fair, the line "we all know lawyers aren't human" always gets a
good laugh at conferences :)

There's nothing like a good self-deprecating lawyer joke to break the
ice with non-legal audiences.

Andres

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
> <mailto: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
>     <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
>     > _______________________________________________
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>     >
>
>     --
>     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 <mailto: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/
>
>
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--
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/


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