Development of Creative Commons licenses

[James Grimmelmann <james AT grimmelmann.net>]

The big concern in your example is really the hold-up problem.  A bit
like a patent troll, the ill-meaning author waits until someone has made
a highly valuable derivative work and then makes an outrageous demand
for a high license fee.  As you note, the consequence is that people are
afraid to make derivative works at all -- the author would be better off
if she could make a stronger commitment not to charge an unreasonable
amount once she knows what derivatives will be really popular.

Your community-based system is one of answering the problem, by taking
the royalty rate out of the hands of the individuals involved in the
particular transaction, and giving a disinterested set of
editors-at-large that power.  You also flag the two big issues here: how
do you figure out what the community is saying (which could involve
reputation systems, peer review, discussion boards, etc.), and how do
you audit the result.  Auditing is of course a problem in any licensing
arrangement -- even making sure that no one is using an NC work
commercially is a form of auditing, and the problem gets more complex as
the financial flows get more complex.

Something else that has been under discussion for a long time is the
idea of a CC-like system by which the author could make a binding
up-front commitment to charge a particular royalty rate for
commercialized derivative works (or for commercial use in general).  The
Public Radio Exchange is doing something a bit like this with a "points"
system (with standard rates of roughly $0.00, $.50, and $1.00 per minute
as the choices).

James