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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] Version 3.0 — It's Happening & With BY-SA Compatibility Language Too

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Mia Garlick <mia AT creativecommons.org>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Version 3.0 — It's Happening & With BY-SA Compatibility Language Too
  • Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 14:56:09 -0800

drew - thank you and yes, this is why we have included the "including but without limitation" language in there. we want to reassure everyone participating in the CC licensing system that we are only going to declare as compatible those licenses which guarantee the same freedoms — we're not going to make BY-SA compatible with BY-NC- SA for example (i hear several hearts momentarily stop beating just at the very thought)...

but we still have to reserve some leeway to review other terms and conditions of the licenses. for example, the FDL does not contain a limitation of liability provision and expressly invalidates anything other than a warranty disclaimer being included with an FDL licensed work. this is a main area of exposure to CC licensors preventing CC from enabling one-way compatibility. by way of further example, the BBC Creative Archive license could be said to guarantee the same freedoms as the CC BY-NC-Sa license *but* (and its a very important but at that) it contains a jurisdiction limitation...


On Feb 12, 2007, at 2:43 PM, drew Roberts wrote:

On Monday 12 February 2007 10:12 am, James Grimmelmann wrote:
Mia Garlick wrote:
the statement is on the compatible licenses page in addition to being
in the license. in relation to (b) — the language as included in both
the page and the license does, imho, limit those licenses that CC can
approve as compatible b/c CC can only approve a license as compatible
which at least meets these conditions.

I am skeptical that the phrase "including without limitation"

I am not up to par right now, but wouldn't including but without limitatoin
mean that those have to be true but they can apply other criteria whichthey
have not listed?

can be
read to put any limit on the licenses that CC can approve. I think my
concern is that that phrase tries to have matters both ways. It's a
restriction of compatibility to those licenses that really are
equivalent, but it still wants to make CC's determination (rather than
actual equivalence) the canonical indication of compatibility.

snip...

Could the language in the license read something more like:

"Creative Commons Compatible License" means a license that is listed at
http://creativecommons.org/compatiblelicenses that (i) explicitly
permits the relicensing of derivatives of works made available under
that license under this License, and (ii) has been approved by Creative
Commons as being essentially equivalent to this License. Creative
Commons will approve those and only those licenses that, in its
judgment, contain terms that have the same purpose, meaning and effect
as the License Elements of this License."?

This would force them to approve all licenses that meet these terms even if
they have other objections. I think that is what the including but without
limitation language is meant to address. Naturally CC's representatives can
speak for it.

I still have misgivings about including the second sentence in the
license, but this approach makes clearer that it's a statement about
CC's intentions, rather than a condition that's part of the license
agreement between the parties to the license. "In its judgment" or some
similar discretionary language also seems clearer than "including
without limitation" in indicating that CC must consider the question in
the first instance, but that its decision is final.

James

all the best,

drew
--
(da idea man)
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