Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Monday 12 February 2007 09:28 am, Terry Hancock wrote:
> drew Roberts wrote:
> > On Monday 12 February 2007 06:34 am, Javier Candeira wrote:
> >>>>In most cases, there is no problem with the existing licenses. A game
> >>>>engine's copyleft license does not affect the content it plays, nor
> >>>> does the sharealike content license affect the engine used to play it.
> >>
> >>Nobody says that. What we say is that the game *is* the content, not the
> >>engine. So we would like to have completely modifiable games, not just
> >>games whose engine can be modified.
>
> Absolutely. That's why you should use a free content license like the
> CC-By-SA ("Attribution ShareAlike") for the content (NOT to be confused
> with the CC-By-NC-SA, which I regard as a "non-free" content license --
> the BIG problem with "CC licenses" is with these non-free licenses
> flying the same "Some Rights Reserved" banner as important free licenses).
>
> There are really two SEPARATE points here:
>
> 1) ETHICAL POINT: freedom to modify and distribute is essential. (BOTH
> GPL and By-SA satisfy this ethical (or "ideological") requirement).
>
> 2) LEGAL POINT: copylefts on content and code are not binding on each
> other. Thus, it does not matter whether GPL and By-SA are LEGALLY
> compatible or not -- they are compatible because they each make no
> claims on the others' territory.
>
> The issue of "GPL compatibility" is NOT an ethical or ideological issue.
> In ethical/ideological terms GPL and By-SA are completely compatible (or
> at least, I believe this is true -- some people may quibble over details).
>
> You've heard that GPL is LEGALLY incompatible with By-SA, but you are
> arguing against its use on ETHICAL differences. But there basically
> aren't any -- it's merely a legal problem, and in almost use cases that
> I can construct, it ISN'T a problem because of the non-binding copylefts.
>
> This would be true even if the content license were non-free. But I'm
> not promoting non-free licensing for game content.
>
> > I agree. I think the point that the person was trying to make is that you
> > could have one copyleft license for the engine and another copyleft
> > license for the content and the two licenses which would not allow you to
> > mix works of each would not cause a proble mas you are not actually
> > mixing the works in a way the license addresses/prevents.
>
> Yep.
>
> >>Back on the topic. That CC-by and CC-by-sa are compatible with the GPL
> >> and free-enough-for-Debian is, however, a full solution to all my (real
> >> or perceived) quibbles on this matter.
> >>
> >>Thanks for the hard clarification work,
>
> It wasn't THAT hard. ;-)
>
> To be fair though, we are actually white-washing the current situation
> between CC and Debian. The fact is that the jury is still out on whether
> CC's concessions to the DFSG are adequate to satisfy Debian.
>
> The CC attribution requirements were regarded as too stringent for DFSG,
> and CC has softened these slightly to satisfy Debian. I believe this has
> been a complete success. However...
>
> There is a group of people within Debian (I regard them as a small
> minority, and don't think they will sway the consensus of the whole
> organization -- but it's never possible to say that with surety until
> there is a vote) who are both highly hostile to the Creative Commons
> organization and stuck on what I consider a highly broken interpretation
> of how the DFSG terms apply with regard to "Technological Protection
> Measures" (TPM) a.k.a. "Digital Rights/Restrictions Management" (DRM).
>
> They insist that DFSG requires the right to distribute works in an
> obfuscated/cryptographically-locked format that permits the creation of
> sequestered "platform monopolies", allowing derivative content to be
> locked away from general distribution. They base this on the claim that
> disallowing such distribution is a "use restriction".
>
> The opinion of CC supporters (including myself) is that this is a
> violation of the concept of copyleft, and that  a requirement to
> distribute "in clear" is perfectly in line with free/copyleft principles
> (and the DFSG). DFSG has always been interpreted to allow restrictions
> on the "uses" of "copying" and "distributing" works for the purposes of
> ensuring future freedoms of the work (i.e. "copyleft") -- IMHO, the CC
> wording is consistent with that.
>
> Fortunately, Debian has already approved the GNU Free Documentation
> License (GFDL) which has an even stickier "in clear" distribution
> requirement, so it would seem totally inconsistent for them to decide
> against CC. However, there's a lot of "bad blood" between free software
> advocates and the CC, which stems primarily from CC's promotion of
> "non-commercial" licenses, 

I am almost there myself, more because I have asked here on the lists over 
and 
repeatedly for CC to consider the creation of a Free CC logo/banner so that 
those of us who want to promote Free works can do so without giving a tcit 
stamp of approval to no-free works or furthering confusion between the two. 
there has never been a response. Even to point me to a better place / way to 
make such a request. This does not go towards gaining / maintaining my 
confidence in CC.

I am still here and participating in as helpful way as I can and still 
creting 
works which I am putting under BY-SA, but I do feel CC could do better in 
this area.

> so from a political perspective, it's not 
> impossible to imagine them singling CC out.

I would hope it would not come to this.

Do the debian people who feel this way have some other copyleft license for 
non-code works which they recommend instead of BY-SA?
>
> So we're currently still keeping our fingers crossed. ;-)
>
> Cheers,
> Terry
>
>
> IANAL, etc...

all the best,

drew
-- 
(da idea man)