Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

Well, I said I wasn't going to spend any more time on it, but... ;-)

wolfgang wander wrote:
> For a text, copying it verbatim does not invoke the derivative clause but
> text stays text and is then fully available to any user downstream as if
> it had been just republished on a different medium or host.
> 
> For a photo, without invoking the derivative clause you can: crop,
> shrink, transform its color space, desaturate and raster-print it.  A user
> downstream will most likely get a very different representation of
> your original work.

In these cases, though, how important is the invocation of the
derivative clause (as opposed to just copying)? Isn't the result the
same either way?

ISTM, the main impact is that if I do make a "derivation", I can then
claim to be a contributing author. Are you upset that just cropping and
desaturating aren't enough for someone else to claim part authorship in
your work? Either way, there is still a requirement for attribution and
licensing information, either way your work is being disseminated
freely, either way it remains free to be used and reused.

Also, what's your basis for believing this? I think you're probably
right about merely cropping -- but colorspace transformations? I'm not
so sure, that starts to get creative.

> Furthermore it strikes me as odd that the time syncing of movies and
> sound invokes the derivative clause while the semantic syncing
> of photographs with text (in heavily modified: resized, recropped,
> desaturated) form does not.

The time-sync issue is clearly odd and always was. That's why it has a
special clause.

Does that put us on the slippery slope? I.e. "time-sync control is
expected, so should combining with HTML be?" What will creators of other
media then demand?

Any of this is clearly on the edge, so let me be a little more specific
about what *I* think should be the case (I believe, but am not sure that
this actually is the case with the current license):

1) Placing pictures alongside or interrupting text (i.e. "figures")
should NOT invoke copyleft. This is especially obvious with HTML,
because the text and images are clearly separable elements. It's less
clear with PDF and/or printed media, because separating the images is
more difficult for the user -- but conceptually, they are still distinct
elements.

2) Using a picture within a vector graphic SHOULD invoke copyleft (the
vector graphic must be By-SA). Reasoning: clearly derivative, precise
and semantically meaningful positioning with respect to other drawing
elements (including text).  I would argue that this is the true analog
to 'time-synching audio with video'.

3) Collage of images within a single image result SHOULD invoke
copyleft. The possible exception to this is creating an "inset" or
"array" figure, in which the images are merely cropped and assembled
into a larger image. One might argue that the inset figure is more of a
derivative than the array, because one image partially covers another
(must "cropping" always be rectangular to be uncreative?).

4) Creating a photo-comic (even if the medium is actually HTML) SHOULD
invoke copyleft (same reason as SVG).

5) Sound merely played along with video, but which has no time synch
relation to it (even if it is thematically complementary) should NOT
invoke the copyleft (It's questionable whether this can be meaningfully
determined, though, since most video formats require you to choose a
particular sync relationship -- but that may be like arguing that even
an illustration has an exact position in an HTML or PDF page, even
though the relationship is not semantically important).

I guess the pattern here is this:

* If the image is only linked *by idea* -- that is, it's just an
illustration -- then it should NOT invoke copyleft.

* If the image is integral to the expression of the work -- then it
SHOULD invoke copyleft.

Some possible tests:

If you remove the image, is the work still viable on its own?

Does removing the image fundamentally change the meaning of the work?


Intriguingly, I may lose the "fork pun" case this way. I'm okay with
that. ;-)

Cheers,
Terry


-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock AT AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com