Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>]

> On 12/3/06, Greg London <email AT greglondon.com> wrote:
>> allows DRM Dave to monopolize the entire CC-SA works.
>> Entire FLOSS community might see their works on
>> Dave's hardware with Dave using DRM and DMCA to
>> charge money to get a copy that plays on his DRM-only
>> player. But no one in the FLOSS community who created
>> any of those works will be able to sell their own
>> versions of DRM-enabled works that play on Dave's hardware.
>>
>> Damage to community: minus 10 times size of community.
>> Say, negative several hundred.
>
> I'm not convinced by this felicific calculus.

Well, better this than be accused of supporting anti-TPM
because I want to turn the license into a weapon.

I've had a whole bunch of crap thrown my way.

Choose your felicificness.

> Everyone can still use and modify the licensed work,

yep.

> but they can't put it back on Dave's hardware.
> They can still use other hardware.

Well, here's the problem with the felicific numbers.
We can't know the numbers without the damage being done.
and the point is to choose the license that prevents
the most damage from being done.

The thing is that there is some sense of scale that
can be predicted ahead of time.

The size of the FLOSS community relative to
the size of the users who have DRM-only hardware.

The FLOSS community is massive compared
to the number of DRM-only players.

That suggests that
the damage to the community by DRM Dave monopolizing his platform
will be larger than
the damage to alice because she can't play CC-SA content on some
obscure DRM-only hardware platform.

You want to make this real, then here's a question:
How many DRM-only platforms exist anyway?

It seems that the more this is discussed the fewer
and fewer DRM-only platforms that exist.

Compare this to how many works have been licensed CC-SA.
How many contributers there have been to ShareAlike projects.

I think it would be safe to say that the FLOSS community
is bigger than the number of DRM-only users by several
orders of magnatude.




> Yes, it is unfortunate that some manufacturers
> can capture the majority of a market and reduce competition.
> But disallowing them from using CC content won't stop that.

sigh.

I'm going to say this again:

I DON"T CARE ABOUT DRM ONLY PLATFORMS SELLING PROPRIETARY WORKS.

I don't give a damn.

Do you understand?

I am not trying to prohibit Dave from Using CC content under
some illusion that he'll go out of business because CC licenses
won't let him use SHareAlike content.

I AM NOT TRYING TO INFLICT DAMAGE ON DRM DAVE.

What I am saying is this:

Allowing DRM DAVE to monopolize a popular hardware platform
could inflict damage on the community as Dave is the only
person who can sell copies on his system, and no one who
contributed to the FLOSS project can.

Imagine having an iCrap that is DRM only and Dave is charging
a dollar to everyone in the FLOSS community to download a
copy of their own content that will play on their iCrap.

If anyone has noticed a pattern on this discussion over the
last few years, it is how absolutely batsh!t people get when
you start talking money. The NonCommercial license is still
a bone of contention for a lot of people. Now imagine that
you contributed a song to some FLOSS community, and you have
to pay Dave a buck to play your own song on an iCrap player.

This isn't like RedHat selling Linux.
Anyone could choose to compete with RedHat
on the exact same hardware platforms.

DRM and DMCA combine to allow Dave a monopoly so that
he can be sole source provider for content on his platform.
That'll piss off a lot of folks in the community.

Yes, there will be some folks who have an iCrap,
and who will be willing to pay a dollar to Dave
to get a DRM-enabled copy of the work for their player.

But given that most hardware platforms I know of can
take open content, I think the multiplier for that
is much smaller.

>
> I think that the total loss to the community of people not being able
> to make use of CC-licensed works on locked platforms outweighs any
> benefit that can be gained from the PD clause. By forbidding Dave's
> use, you are preventing him from exacting some level of harm which
> results when community members see their content locked up and can't
> compete on the same platform. But you are also preventing those
> community members from accessing the benefits of licensed works on
> that platform.
>
> Sticking to the utilitarian analysis, your options become:
>
> PD clause
> (a) +10 to Alice and Bob, who can develop for Dave's platform

but have to pay Dave to get versions fo their works that play on iCrap.

> (b) -10 to each member of the community who want to compete with Dave
> on Dave's platform
> (c) +10 to each member of the community who benefit from being able to
> use CC-licensed works on Dave's platform

and (d) minus big for every member of the community who sees
Dave's ability to be sole source provider selling DRM enabled
versions of their own work and realizes just how sucky it is.



> Of course, the numbers presented are arbitrary

they are relative. That's what counts.
All you need to do is figure out which one
is the biggest win. You don't need an absolute value.

> and this method of decision making is inherently flawed.

Game theory is flawed?
The idea is to map out all the options and figure out
the cost/benefit of each one, and then pick the best.

I suppose we could continue emotive arguments instead.
Someone should accuse me of wanting to put DRM-Dave out of business.
That's always fun.

>> Use of DRM on a redistributed CC work is okay ONLY IF:
>> 1) The work is also made available in an unDRMed parallel version, and
>> 2) Everyone is free to apply the DRM.

What?

This doesn't make sense.

the Anti-TPM clause ALREADY ALLOWS EVERYONE TO LOCALLY APPLY DRM.
You can apply DRM to CC-SA works. You just can't distribute.
The only restriction would be whether or not DRM-Dave allows it,
will make the tools available to apply his DRM to someone's work.

The Anti-TPM clause as currently proposed already allows part 2.

And if DRM-Dave will allow people to freely apply DRM to works
so they can play on his DRM-only platform
[ i.e. (2) ]
then DRM-Dave isn't trying to monopolize his platform,
and his versions of the work would have transparent DRM
meaning teh rights to the work wouldn't be restricted,
so you can get a parallel copy from the platform.

If you would accept (2), then you've already got that in
the Anti-TPM clause as it is proposed now.

I think people are misunderstanding that something
like the SnowGlobe thingy isn't a TPM.
Content burned into ROM isn't a TPM, so the manufacturer
isn't required to provide a parallel distrubution.

Someone puts CC-SA works into a book,
they wouldn't be required to provide a parallel copy either.

If folks are thinking ParallelDistribution is going to
give them a back door to SourceCodeDistribution Requirements,
I think they misunderstand that TPM only applies when the
hardware has some sort of gatekeeper that allows some people
to exercise a right, but not others.

If the snowglobe doesn't allow anyone to copy-out the
content, then it isn't TPM, and parallel distribution
won't kick in to give you a free electronic copy.


-- 
Take the Courage Vow
http://www.couragevow.com/
Pass it on.