Development of Creative Commons licenses

[James Grimmelmann <james AT grimmelmann.net>]

rob AT robmyers.org wrote:
> Quoting Nic Suzor <nic AT suzor.com>: not doing. :-)
>
> > If Lucas took CC-licensed works, otherwise complied with the licence
> > by releasing the movie (or his modifications of the cc-licensed works,
> > if they are separable from the rest of the movie and the entire movie
> > is not required to be released under the licence), and he needed to
> > apply a TPM in order to get it distributed, fine.
>
> This would be if the movie counts as a collective work.

Rob is right here.  Exceedingly few movies will be "collective works." 
Here's the CC definition:

"Collective Work" means a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology or 
encyclopedia, in which the Work in its entirety in unmodified form, 
along with a number of other contributions, constituting separate and 
independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole. 
A work that constitutes a Collective Work will not be considered a 
Derivative Work (as defined below) for the purposes of this License.

The only kind of movie I can think of that meets that definition is a 
set of several shorter movies.

If the movie resembles the original enough to trigger copyright in the 
first place, it's probably a derivative work, not a collective work. 
Either Lucas takes so little that it wouldn't matter whether he took 
from a CC-SA or non-CC work, or he takes enough that the movie is a 
derivative work and the whole thing has to be licensed CC-SA if 
distributed to the public.

James