Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

James Grimmelmann wrote:
> I am not sure quite what you mean here.  How does a consumer "use dual 
> distribution?"  Do you mean that, having received the work, they are not 
> free to become a redistributor on both platforms?  Or is there some 
> larger freedom at stake?

Greg's DRM Dave scenario clearly demonstrates that a user receiving a
work does not have modify+redistribution rights on that work for the
(DRM-locked) platform on which he uses it.

This is an important freedom which the user does not receive as a result
of allowing DRM distribution. If the platform owner provides a key to
allow DRM encryption, however, then the end user regains that freedom,
because he has the tools not only to put a non-DRM work on the platform,
but also to modify and distribute that version so that it can be put on
the platform.

If the platform owner does not provide such a key, then the work is shut
off from that platform, and the platform is worse for it, which is
politically good. (It may be insignificantly good, as you have argued,
but it is not bad).

This is simply a case of a "liberty or death" clause, no different than
section 7 of the GPLv2: if you can't distribute in a way that preserves
user freedoms, then you can't distribute at all. That's a basic aspect
of copyleft.

It has been pointed out already that Dave could easily provide a key
that allows free works to be DRM encrypted to work on his platform
without compromising the security of DRM-distributed proprietary works.
Thus, Dave's only interest in not publishing such a key is malicious
intent to block free works from working on his platform. This is
sufficiently onerous that Dave's users are likely to complain, above and
beyond the ones who simply refuse to use such a platform.

Cheers,
Terry


-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock AT AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com