Development of Creative Commons licenses

[James Grimmelmann <james AT grimmelmann.net>]

Javier Candeira wrote:
> drew Roberts wrote:
> > > Another solution would be to change the law, or the doctrine, so music in a
> > > movie *doesn't* trigger share-alike, and is considered "mere aggregation".
> > > We need less strictures, not more.
> > Ah, not all of us agree with that. I like the way it works for songs and 
> > movies. I would like it to work that way for more types of things. Can you 
> > tell me the problems you see arising from my desires?
>
> I am against extending the concept of derivativeness for the same reason
> Strenghtening copyleft by creating more rights (or extending the reach of
> those rights) is solving the wrong problem. The more we lower the bar for
> "derivativeness" or "related works" or whatever the legal term, the more we
> strenghten copyright, and with it the grasp of the copyright cartel over
> culture.

Fortunately, the reach of the copyright cartel's control won't be much 
affected by the definition of "derivative" used in the CC licenses.  The 
cartel doesn't much use CC licenses, so the definitions of terms there 
don't affect the rights the cartel has to sue other people.

Even if CC licenses used a broader concept of "derivative" and that 
change were extended by courts into affecting all of copyright law, it 
still wouldn't affect the cartel much.  They primarily rely on the 
copying and public distribution rights -- and one generally doesn't 
infringe the derivative right without also infringing one of those other 
rights.  A movement in the line of what constitutes a "derivative" work 
changes the classification of works within the space controlled by 
copyright, rather than changing the size of copyright's empire.

This is not legal advice,
James