Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

On Thursday 08 March 2007 04:13 pm, Dana Powers wrote:
> On 3/2/07, drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com> wrote:
> > Otherwise, where in law is the difference between a collection and
> > non-collection spelled out. After all, a book is generally a collection
> > of chapters. A chapter a collection of paragraphs. A paragraph a
> > collection of
> > words. A word a collection of letters. Are we gonna display a page and
> > then
> > have a copyright table saying letters 1,5,11 are BY-SA, letters 21,56,75
> > are
> > BY, words 6, 25-60 are BY-SA, words 70-95 are BY, everything else on the
> > page
> > is ARR?
> >
> > I know that is stupid, but can someone who knows tell me where the
> > boundry is
> > legally and how it would be determined?
>
> Here in the U.S., it is sometimes helpful to look at what Congress says:
> http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000101----000-
>.html
>
> and what the Supreme Court says:
> http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/499_US_340.htm

This seems to be coming close to a RTFM response. I trust these lists will 
try 
and not go there.

In any case, thank you for the links. I am not in the US, but US stuff 
interests me despite that fact.

I read the whole thing at the second link. I read down to collective work and 
compilation at the first link.

I may be being dense, but I still don't see how this answers the question I 
was asking in context.

I will try again...

From the GPL:

"Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
collective works based on the Program."

From BY-SA:

""Collective Work" means a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology or 
encyclopedia, in which the Work in its entirety in unmodified form, along 
with one or more other contributions, constituting separate and independent 
works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole. A work that 
constitutes a Collective Work will not be considered a Derivative Work (as 
defined below) for the purposes of this License."

So, a couple of points. I pointed out that the FSF seems to want to control 
the distribution of collective works even though they are not derivatives, CC 
doesn't seem to. People said I was wrong and that the GPL's mere aggregation 
was what CC was talking about. What is the actual situation? How do those 
links help?

People have been saying that using text and pictures in an article is a 
collective work as per BY-SA. No one has said "no" that I recall. Is this 
correct?

That first link says that a collective work is a compilation. Why does BY-SA 
address collective work and not compilation?

If the GPL seeks to control the distribution collective works, why shouldn't 
BY-SA?

Further. Consider this possibility.

BY-SA work. Make a derivative. New work must be BY-SA. (Ignoring for a second 
possible compatible licneses.)

Make a collective work or a compilation that includes a BY-SA work... 
Copyright on collective work or compilation must be BY-SA. Parts of the 
collection or compilation that the "new" author holds the copyright to must 
be BY-SA within the work but can use a license of the "new" author's choosing 
when being used not in conjunction with the first BY-SA work. Works not under 
the control of the "new" author can be used in the collection or compilation 
so long a they have a BY-SA compatible license.

Is that a workable (legally) scheme? (For a suitably modified BY-SA of 
course.) Why is the current scheme better for the commons than the proposed 
one?

> dp

all the best,

drew
-- 
(da idea man)