Development of Creative Commons licenses

[rob AT robmyers.org]

Quoting Evan Prodromou <evan AT prodromou.name>:

> On Wed, 2006-29-11 at 21:20 +0000, Rob Myers wrote:
>
> > >   Since the dominant argument against parallel distribution on this
> > >   list seems to boil down to a critique that the clause provide a way
> > >   to sidestep copyleft,
> >
> > The clause provides a way of removing people's rights.
>
> That's simply not true.

Your own diagram shows the rights that DRM removes. Since DRM also 
removes right
1, the basis of Defective By Design's campaign and Stallman's writing on the
subject, and right 0 can evaporate at the DRM vendor's whim, you are being
optimistic in your appraisal of DRM's giving of rights.

Even if DRM removes only Fair Use when it is applied, the permission 
given by a
DRM vendor can change. Look at iTMS.

We can substitute "denies" for "removes" if that helps.

> Nobody loses any rights from having the clause
> added, and your net freedom is greater with a parallel distribution
> clause than without it.

If we are using Stallman's definition for software, the user is only free if
they have all four freedoms. If we are using the DFSG I think something 
similar
applies. So this "freedom" you are speaking of does not fit the FSD or 
the DFSG,
yet we must accept it otherwise we are breaking the DFSG.

> Net freedoms are increased, plain and simple, even in the worst case for
> platforms where you can't distribute a verbatim or modified version of
> the work to run on that platform.

Within the body of CC licensed work, freedom is reduced as soon as DRM 
is added
to a single instance of a single work. I don't care to shrink that area of
freedom in order to help DRM vendors take users hostage.

But since it looks like Lessig was right when he said that DRM is compatible
with Creative Commons, we are actually having the wrong debate. We should be
aking not whether CC licenses should be altered to allow distribution of DRM
encumbered works, but whether they should be altered to ensure the 
availability
of non-DRM works.

- Rob.