Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Francesco Poli <frx AT firenze.linux.it>]

On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 15:29:17 +0000 rob AT robmyers.org wrote:

> an imaginary Debian Legal listmember's
> objection that it discriminates against a field of endeavor (DFSG-7 
> IIRC).

Just to nitpick: it's DFSG#6 (No Discrimination Against Fields of
Endeavor); see [1] for further details.

[1] http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines 

[...]
> The GPL 3 drafts and the CC 3 license drafts both treat distribution
> as the choke point for DRM. This preserves freedom of use without
> allowing freedom to be stripped for downstream users either by the
> imposition of DRM on users outside of their control or by denying
> users or developers the ability to impose DRM on themselves.
> 
> This is the least worst and the most consistent solution to the
> problem  of DRM.

Wait one second: are you claiming that CC-v3.0draft anti-DRM clause is
equivalent to GPLv3draft2 one?

The one included in GPLv3draft2 (2006-07-27) reads as follows:

|   Regardless of any other provision of this License, no permission is
| given for modes of conveying that deny users that run covered works
| the full exercise of the legal rights granted by this License.

The one included in CC-v3.0draft (2006-10-25) is quoted below:

| When You Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work, You may not impose
| any effective technological measures on the Work that restrict the
| ability of a recipient of the Work from You to exercise their rights
| granted under the License


I think that the GPLv3draft2 one implicitly allows parallel distribution
(at least in cases where the DRM can be applied by anyone): the reason
is that the clause focuses on "modes of conveying", rather than on
imposition of DRM on the work.
Conveying through DRM-encumbered media or channels seems to be allowed
as long as final recipients are not denied the freedoms granted by the
license.  Conveying through a DRM-*un*encumbered media or channel in
parallel to the DRM-encumbered one, seems to be enough to re-enable the
full exercise of the legal rights granted by the license, at least in
cases where anyone is allowed to apply the DRM to modified versions of
the work.


Does the same hold for the CC-v3.0draft anti-DRM clause?

-- 
But it is also tradition that times *must* and always
do change, my friend.   -- from _Coming to America_
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
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