Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Peter Brink <peter.brink AT brinkdata.se>]

drew Roberts skrev:
>
> So, taking this all into consideration, does this mean you disagree
> with Mia? Or do you agree with her and I am too dim or too ignorant at
> this point to see it?

You are neither dim nor ignorant.

Mia’s position seems to be that since the license is non-exclusive, the 
implication (and intention of the license) must be that the terms of the 
license only applies to such copies that includes an explicit license 
statement. I can understand how she comes to this conclusion. On the 
other hand the language of the license explicitly states that the terms 
of the license apply to the work as such and the legal scope of 
protection afforded to a work includes all its copies.

In the end it becomes a matter of interpretation. I think that most 
civil law courts would, mainly because of the (largely non-codified) 
rule that an author never yields more rights than he has explicitly 
agreed to, come to the conclusion that since the author has reserved the 
right to offer other copies of the work under other terms (including 
ARR), it’s up to the licensee to prove that he has had the right to use 
the work in the way he has done. If the licensee cannot prove that the 
copy he has been using includes an explicit license statement then he 
has been infringing the author’s copyright. The burden of proof thus 
lies on the licensee.

The end result is the same as Mia's – but not of (exactly) the same 
reason. I'm aware of that I seemed to reach a different conclusion a 
week or two ago, but I was a wee bit to quick with my conclusions at 
that point.


/Peter Brink