Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Mike Linksvayer <ml AT creativecommons.org>]

On Wed, 2007-01-17 at 00:23 +0100, Peter Brink wrote:
> Mike Linksvayer wrote:
> >> On Mon, 2007-01-15 at 14:03 +0100, Peter Brink wrote:
> >>> A derivative work must be the result of a _creative act_ originating 
> >>> from a human being. If a machine down- or upsamples a work there is no 
> >>> creative act involved, it's a just a mechanical transformation. A 
> >>> "thumbnail" is therefore a copy and not a derivative work.
>  >
> >> There is no such thing as "upsampling" so this logic cannot apply to
> >> versions of a work at higher resolution than offered. 
> 
> If you call it upsampling, downsampling or sidesampling or whatever 
> doesn't matter. A "work" must be the result of a creative act - the same 
> goes for derivative works. A mechanical transformation is in itself not 
> a creative act, the result of such a transformation is a copy and not a 
> derivative work. If I scan a picture and make two versions available, 
> one in low resolution and one in high resolution, those two images are 
> _copies_ of the _same work_.

I think you missed my point.  It is impossible to recreate a high
quality/bitrate/resolution work from a low quality/bitrate/resolution
work, mechanically or otherwise.  To do so would be more than creative,
it would be godlike.

So how could offering a low quality version of a work under a license
imply that a high quality version is also offered given there is no
transformation, mechanical or otherwise, that can go from the version
offered to the (higher quality) version not offered?

Just a defender of entropy (as if it needs defense!), not a lawyer.

Mike

-- 
  http://wiki.creativecommons.org/User:Mike_Linksvayer