Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

On Wednesday 25 April 2007 09:07 am, Björn Terelius wrote:
> On 4/25/07, drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com> wrote:
> > On Wednesday 25 April 2007 06:15 am, Björn Terelius wrote:
> > > Lets try to keep the discussion constructive. I'll try to summarize the
> > > main topics so far.
> > >
> > > The ordinary CC license does a good job in giving artists an easy way
> > > of choosing licensing conditions for their creations. At present the
> >
> > options
> >
> > > are BY, SA, ND and NC, and there does not seem to be any strong dislike
> >
> > of
> >
> > > these options when applied to content.
> >
> > Just for the record, I, at least, have a strong dislike for ND and NC
> > when applied to content. Possibly because it is done so under a "creative
> > commons"
> > banner, possibly for the issues I have with copyright as currently
> > practiced
> > in general, possibly for both reasons and even possibly for even as yet
> > undiscovered reasons.
> >
> > So, it is not fair to say that there is no strong dislikefor NC and ND.
> > It could be more like not wanting to fight that fight at this time. (Not
> > the words I really want, but I can't seem to find them this morning.)
>
> Ok, sorry. I, too, seem to have trouble finding the right words. :-) I know
> that some individuals dislike the NC and ND even for content. What I meant
> was that, as far as I can tell, the general opinion on this list and the
> official opinion of CC is that both NC and ND are alright and have their
> uses in some cases. The point I wanted to make was that when ND and NC in
> general has been debated on this list, there has been at least as many
> people supporting it, so NC and ND in general should not be brought into
> the debate at the moment. If we started to question the policy of the
> creative commons we would never get anywhere.

But isn't it precicesly because CC doesn't recommend software licenses with 
the equivalent of NC and ND in them that this whole debate started up?
>
> > As Joachim Durchholz pointed out,
> >
> > > the Creative Commons discourages all use of the licenses when applied
> > > to software, because they were not written with software in mind.
> >
> > Would it be good enough for you if CC said that ND and NC-ND were "safe"
> > for
> > software though not "recommended" for such?
>
> Certainly!  I have no problems with the CC recommending programmers to use
> the GPL or some other free license over a mere freeware one. That way, the
> programmer could choose ND if he really wanted to, but stay with GPL if he
> doesn't care. Of course, not only would CC have to say that ND and ND-NC
> are safe, but they must also be safe.
>
> > The GPL and
> >
> > > LGPL may be considered roughly equivalent to BY-SA and BY respectively
> >
> > (but
> >
> > > I would contest this, as the GPL does not have any clear BY clause).
> >
> > This
> >
> > > leaves the NC and ND options.
> >
> > Possibly because the BY clause is too much like the advertising clause of
> > the
> > original BSD licenses?
>
> Still, don't you think that an artist should have the right to be properly
> credited for his work if others use it? If I spend half a year writing a
> program and decide to release it as free and open source, then I sure
> wouldn't want someone to just change the title and a do couple of minor
> changes in the GUI and then release my work under their own name, or even
> worse, attempt to sell it.

No, I don't think that. Is that surprising? I think perhaps that plagiarism 
should have its own law separate from copyright. I think it would be wrong to 
lie and claim you were the original creator of a work if you were not, but I 
think BY should be optional in CC land. I also think a NOBY might be 
interesting combined with SA. (Not sure how to pull one off though.)

If I release Free software, why would it bother me if you sold it? You can 
sell my stuff now if you can. My BY-SA works as well.

I just think that we may be snake bit by BY many generations down the road. I 
think we are not really planning on thousands of bits and pieces over 
hundreds of generations making it inot one small work many years from now. 
Now, if the proper infrastructure was in place, this might not be as big a 
concern for me.

Humblers anyone? (Is that what they are called?)

all the best,

drew


-- 
(da idea man)