Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

My one and only post for the day.
I'll reply offlist if needed.

> On Wed, 2006-06-12 at 23:50 -0500, Greg London wrote:
>
>> I'd like to hear from other folks around this question
>
> I would be embarrassed to discuss this any longer when we've been asked
> to stop several times.

No one said "stop".
Some readers asked folks to reduce the bandwidth.
I think I made three substantial posts yesterday.
plus a couple posts that were simply,
"could folks answer the question.

> The people who actually make decisions about the CC licenses haven't
> been participating in this conversation for months. The last thing
> they're doing is reading 50 posts a day from you and me.

I posted something yesterday that acknowledged
a concept I had misunderstood about transparent DRM.
This isn't for Creative Commons as much as it's for
you and me to understand this issue. As long as I
keep learning something about the licenses and DRM,
it's worth continuing discussing for me.

If you think you know everything about DRM, and understand
all the issues completely, and know exactly, without a doubt,
the right way things should be done, then you should probably
not get involved in the discussion.

A lot of the bandwidth on the list has been spent trying to
convince the unconvincible.

I asked two simple yes/no questions yesterday.

Under CC-SA, without any DRM clause at all,
without ANTI-TPM and without Par-Dist,

(1) Is it possible for DRM-Dave to monopolize the content?
Can he create a derivative and wrap it in DRM and prevent
anyone from getting a DRM-free copy of that content?

(2) Is it possible for DRM-Dave to monopolize the
distribution and commercial rights on his DRM-only platform?
Can he forbid everyone else from applying DRM to CC-SA content
and set himself up as the sole source provider of CC-SA content
on his platform? Can he then charge Alice and Bob to get
DRM-enabled versions of CC-SA content that play on his platform
and prevent everyone else from selling the same drm-enabled
content and prevent all commercial competition?

These are yes/no questions. Are these possible outcomes
of a CC-SA license with no DRM clause at all?
Or is there some thing about DRM or DMCA or CC-SA
or FairUse law or Copyright law that prevents these
events from happening?

Yes it can happen. or
No it can't happen that way.

Once we agree on whether these outcomes can happen, we can
decide whether it's better to allow some things to happen
in tradeoff for something else.

But here's the deal.

Do you want the people who are NOT involved in this coversation
to understand what CAN happen? Do you want them to understand
the ramifications of no DRM clause? Do you want them to understand
what Dave is permitted to do? Do you want folks to understand
so that they can engage in the conversation?

Or do you want to do something like Benj Mako Hill did
and reply to yes/no questions with something like this:

https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2006-December/004774.html

by answer "yes" to the easy question and not answering the second one
and instead going into a long winded explanation that basically
reiterates exactly what he has been saying all along, that his
solution is the best solution, that there are "complex tradeoffs"
and so on?

How can other readers know what the complex tradeoffs are if
every single person who favors ParDist refuses to acknowledge
what Dave can do yes/no without also throwing in all their
reasons and justifications for their particular solution being
the best solution.

Without any DRM solution applied to CC-SA:
Can Dave monopolize the content on and off his platform?
Can Dave monopolize Distribution and Commercial rights on his platform?

I say yes and yes.

I don't want to hear all these arguments that avoid the question
and go directly to their particular answer. I want everyone on
the list to know what is possible without a DRM clause
so THEY can understand the issue, and so THEY can understand what
DRM clause meets THEIR understanding.

If you can't even acknowledge what is possible, then yeah,
there isn't much point in engaging the conversation because
you aren't trying to come to any sort of agreement or understanding,
you're simply trying to downplay the problems you want to downplay
so you can arrive at the conclusion and solution that you want
everyone to adopt.

Without any DRM solution applied to CC-SA:
Can Dave monopolize the content on and off his platform?
Can Dave monopolize Distribution and Commercial rights on his platform?

Yes or no, can these happen?

I don't care what "weight" or "importance" you give to them.
I don't care what "tradeoffs" you think should be made in
response to them. I don't care what spin you wish to put on
them.

Both questions give an objective description of the
sphere of influence in which the problem occurs.

monopolize content, where? ON AND OFF THE PLATFORM.

monopolize distribution/commercial. Where? ON THE PLATFORM.

So I don't need your subjective assignment of importance
of the issue. I need to know whether you agree that
Dave can monopolize distribution rights and commercial
rights ON HIS PLATFORM.  This is an objective assessment.

I don't need some subjective "this is a complex issue"
I don't need some subjective "this hides the muddiness"
I need to know if these rights can be monopolized in
exactly where it says they can be monopolized.

in a scenario of CC-SA with absolutely no DRM clause at all:
Can Dave monopolize content on and off his platform?
Can Dave monopolize distribution/commercial rights on his platform?

Is this the objective outcome of CC-SA without a DRM clause?

Yes or no?

No need for spin. No need for subjective assessments.
no need for reiterating your solution that addresses
the problem. Just be clear yes or no that these are
real, possible outcomes of CC-SA with no DRM clause.

Can these happen or not?

-- 
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http://www.couragevow.com/
Pass it on.