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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] Version 3.0 -- It's Happening & With BY-SA CompatibilityLanguageToo

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: James Grimmelmann <james AT grimmelmann.net>
  • 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 CompatibilityLanguageToo
  • Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 14:20:00 -0500

Mike Linksvayer wrote:
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 17:49 -0500, James Grimmelmann wrote:
I would like to see a greater emphasis by CC in encouraging licensors to be fully descriptive about which license they are using.

Default button and text generated by http://creativecommons.org/license/
describe the exact license used -- almost anyway -- the buttons leave
out version and jurisdiction. (I agree the previous generic-looking and
-reading defaults were suboptimal.)

How can we further encourage licensors to be specific? Suggestions
welcome, but be patient -- it always takes awhile to get buy in from CC,
CC affiliates and the greater CC community, which includes a whole lot
more than just frequent posters to the cc-licenses list (not that we
don't love you all).

A "tell us which license you chose and why" campaign would be a good meme to spread. The new beta license-elements picker is a great idea, and with some interface tinkering, it ought to be the standard way of picking elements. People should be thinking of the licenses as built up from standard elements and reflecting on which freedoms they wish to give to licensees. The traditional multiple-choice interface is reasonable, but not as transparent as it could be.

I also wish that the license naming scheme were standardized on "Creative Commons" + Element 1 + Element 2 + . . . where each element is a restriction on use and no restrictions means public domain. The practice of coining new names for old licenses -- "Wiki," "Music Sharing" -- is particularly pernicious and I wish it would stop. A Great Renaming would be disruptive, I know, but it would be worth thinking seriously about what it would take to get there at some point in the future.

Someday I will help this cause, as well, with a "NonCommercial ShareAlike Considered Harmful" essay, but that will have to wait for more time on my plate.

In general, the goal is to encourage mindfulness about license elements. They are important properties that people should think about, not details to be hidden.

James




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