Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Benj. Mako Hill" <mako AT atdot.cc>]

<quote who="Terry Hancock" date="Mon, Dec 04, 2006 at 02:59:20AM -0600">
> A few of us have taken the time to work through these consequences
> and form a consensus, which currently appears to be that TPM+PD is
> an idea that sounds good on a first hearing, but is actually fatally
> flawed, because it undercuts the basic social constructs that
> *create* free-licensed works in the first place.
>
> I think it's reasonable to assume that if anyone had a well-reasoned
> objection to this consensus that they would've spoken up by
> now.

While you, Greg, Rob, and drew have sent more than half of the messages
to this list on subject of the 3.0 drafts (my quick count), the *number*
of people who have spoken up on either side of the issue is much closer
to matched.

Perhaps more importantly, everyone in this discussion (myself included)
seems to be indifferent, at best, to the most popular CC licenses.  Do
you feel that any consensus we might come to is representative of CC
users given that a majority of licenses choose non-SA and NC works and a
good chunk choose ND?

> We've heard a few such cries from the Debian contingent

Not everyone who has objected is from Debian. James Grimmelmann, for
example, has no connection to Debian.

> (IMHO) they haven't really backed up their position well enough.

Since you're still arguing against PD, you probably haven't found those
arguments convincing. Probably, PD proponents could say the same thing
about your position.

> Rather than refuting the argument against TPM+PD, they've essentially
> tried to dismiss it as unimportant.

Opponents have argued that the harm of parallel distribution would
outweigh the benefits. Proponents have argued the opposite. If an
potential for attack is unimportant, we shouldn't have to prevent it at
the expense of other freedoms. Our disagreement is rooted in that
conditional.

> This is why I characterize the pro-TPM+PD argument as "anti-copyleft".

Do you think your copyleft-centric refutation is meaningful in the
context of the majority of CC works which are not copyleft?

Regards,
Mako

-- 
Benjamin Mako Hill
mako AT atdot.cc
http://mako.cc/

Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so
far as society is free to use the results. --RMS