Development of Creative Commons licenses

[wolfgang wander <wwc AT lns.mit.edu>]

>> Sorry - couldn't resist...
>
> Well, consider yourself riposted. No hard feelings on my side anyway. :-D

Thanks Terry,

   I feel riposted and deservedly so. I know I came off swinging too hard and
I apologize.  I see now that you didn't try to misrepresent my statements but
just misunderstood them.

   I hope to be more constructive and have a suggestion for a license change
below that would address at least some of your reservations..

   Just a short look back though:

> I *absolutely* am entitled to judge your psychological statement based
> on your *reporting* of it (your own words):
>
>> See it this way: for the wildlife images I take I need equipment that
>> costs me in the range of several thousand dollars.  Now contributing
>> images to The Free Pool is a real charitable giving, as much as
>> contributing GPL code to a GPLed software product.  If I know that my
>> contributions can only be used by people who share my belief in Free
>> content am glad to give my work away.  What I happen to see though is
>> that many commercial, all-rights-reserved web sites pick up my content
>> and seem to have every right to do so.  And by doing this I cut directly
>> into the income stream of commercial photographers who like me have to
>> pay for their equipment to take these photos.  Thats a game I am not
>> willing to play.
>
>
>> Interesting to see however how you 'know' in your head what they or we
>> are thinking...
> Yes, language is like that: you tell me what you're thinking, and
> magically, *I know what you're thinking*. <sarcasm>Amazing!</sarcasm>

Now see - you read there 'commercial' and don't read on 'all-rights-reserved'.
I have complained about commercial ARR sites, not about commercial sites.
I'm perfectly fine with commercial re-use as long as the content is published
under a Free license.

So when you say:

>>> The fact that I'm making
>>> money, partly enabled by their content is going to piss them off, if
>>> they really have this "I'm giving to charity" and "I don't want to
>>> undercut commercial competition" idea in their heads. If that's what
>>> they are thinking, then they are really thinking in terms of NC, not SA
>>> licensing.

and accuse me of thinking NC and not SA you are without any <sarcasm>
misrepresenting me - but this was surely just a misunderstanding.

To give you a little perspective - I'm friends with some really talented
photographers who are not very fond of the concept of giving high quality
images out for free.  Clearly they want to make a profit and making one
is not a bad thing per se.  Now there I come and explain to them: 'Wait,
I'm not giving anything away for free - I'm publishing via CC-by-SA and
anybody who decides uses my images must give something back, this is a
a quid-pro-quo'.  With this explanation I can get by and even find
some who are interested in the idea.    Now my nice argument has lost
all its thrust with the current CC-by-SA interpretation, hasn't it?

At the core of our disagreement lies the notion of force and control.

Lets assume we have a WPSAL - a Wolfgang's Perfect Share Alike License.

You say: if I release content under this license I force anyone to
release their content under a similar conditions.

I couldn't agree less.  I want to ensure (or control) that anyone who
chooses (by his free will, not by me releasing my images) to use my
content, to give back to - quid-pro-quo - for what he has used from
the Free pool.

> I mean, sure, I'd love to be able to *encourage* more people to use free
> licenses, but the argument this thread is addressing is *forcing* people
> to use free licenses on works that are essentially wholly their own.

I'm not forcing anyone - they chose to use my image rather than their
own or a PD one, knowing full well that if they do so they have to
release their content Share Alike.  This really is the crux of
our misunderstanding.

> The only thing I am licensing verbatim is MY OWN TEXT.

And yet are you really 'forcing' everyone to use the text verbatim?

No you are not - anyone who chooses to publish your text can either
do this 'verbatim' or decide against using your content.  I believe
there are very similar concepts behind your and my thinking...

And since great minds think alike:

>  I have a gut feeling that you are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. And my personal
>  experience is that my gut is usually right.
  (this *IS* a verbatim copy of my hero Stephen Colbert, isn't it?)

there is a good chance that we'll find an understanding at some point ;-)

To overcome some of the problems you have outlined, especially the ones
of publishing images of different license origins, would it be possible
to state  in a future Share-Alike-like license that

Aggregations with works of any license are allowed as long as

   a) the aggregation itself (not all the content) is
      released under a SA-like license.
   b) content the 'aggregator' has created and has a copyright for
      (i.e. text, images, soundtracks) is released under a
      SA-like license as well.

This should enable you to use fair use images with your text, and generally
aggregate any kind of combinable images but would also require publishers to
give back to the Free pool in a SA manner.

        Wolfgang