Development of Creative Commons licenses

[James Grimmelmann <james AT grimmelmann.net>]

> Greg London email at greglondon.com 
>
> Do you think maybe you could have actually engaged in the conversation
> on the list first, maybe found out what the issues were, and then
> at least give them reasonable representation on your position papers,
> before you told everyone to swamp the list advocating parallel distribution
> and they don't even know the reasons people are against it?

We have been following the discussions on this list.  Our principal goal
has been to bring more community members into the conversation, so we
chose to give concise versions of the more common positions, rather than
to go into the full depth and detail of the conversations here.

> And I"m just a little aggravated that you put up a position
> statement directing people to the CC-License list without
> making any effort to understand the positions that the people
> on the list had done a lot of work to finally get to.

We have been thinking about these issues for quite some time, including
the arguments made on this list.  Our characterization of them is not
motivated (we hope) by a failure to understand those arguments or by a
desire to mislead others about them.  We simply have a different opinion
about the best course of action.

> The strongest argument for anti-TPM and against parallel
> distribution is made here:
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2006-October/004284.html

We do address this argument.  We may not do so using the same exact
framework that you do, but we argue (a) that CC should not be used as a
weapon against systems monopolies in general, (b) that parallel
distribution solves monopolies over CC-licensed content in the sense
that it allows users to make full use of the parallel copy, and (c) that
introducing a parallel distribution clause takes away no freedom from
the user that she would otherwise have enjoyed to put a CC-licensed work
on the platform.  To me, at least, this exhausts the universe of
possible harms.  Any unfair imbalances of power can be described in
terms of these three (DRM is unfair in general; DRM prevents exporting
CC-licensed works from systems; DRM prevents importing CC-licensed work
onto systems).

I think that our description of the issues fairly alerts readers to your
concerns, even if it doesn't describe them in the full detail you would.
 We linked to Terry Hancock's essay, which discusses the "DRM Dave"
scenario at length.  Again, we have not been trying to hide the  ball,
and we want others to engage both with our views and the views of those
with whom we disagree.  Our goal is wider, more informed participation.

James