Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <greglondon.1 AT gmail.com>]

The word "freedom" when used in blanket statements to discuss

what CC is all about is confusing, misleading, and inaccurate.

 

The word "rights" is far more accurate, does not mislead anyone,

and does not confuse the purpose of something like CC-NC-ND-BY

with something like GNU-GPL.

 

Those who insist on using the word "freedom" where the term "rights"

is far more accurate, far less confusing, and far less likely to mislead

people new to the world of FLOS, CC, etc, choose some benefit

the word "freedom" gives them over all the problems the word creates

for others.

 

No doubt, the "warm fuzzies" is probably a big benefit.

 

NO ONE seems to argue that the term "rights" is inaccurate.

The only responses given thus far have been (1) dictionary games

that show who "freedom" qualifies under some connotation and

(2) stop talking about it.

 

No one says "rights" is inaccurate. Yet people attack the suggestion

to change "freedom" to "rights". And so the only reason left is that

the people doing the attacking get some benefit from associating

themselves with "freedom" and they don't want to give up that implied

association by changing the term to "rights".

 

If "rights" was inaccurate, then fine, I'd drop the suggestion as a bad idea.

But no one says that. Folks just dance around the fact that "freedom"

causes confusion because "freedom" makes them feel better about

themselves than "rights" would.

 

Tell me "rights" is inaccurate from some kind of legal perspective,

and I'd drop the request. Problem is that it isn't. It's a perfectly

accurate term. But it isn't warm and fuzzy enough for you.

So instead of addressing my point, you tell me to shut up

and talk about everything but what I said.

 

whatever.

 

 

On 4/27/07, Dana Powers <dana.powers AT gmail.com> wrote:

I think this rant has gone on long enough, Greg.

Creative Commons makes no normative claim as to a preferred definition
of freedom.

CC provides legal tools so that authors can make this choice
themselves, knowing that reasonable people can disagree.

In fact, the entire purpose of CC licensing is to reduce transaction
costs by making it clear when users do not have to "ask first."  CC's
primary goal is avoiding a permission culture (easy) not defining and
achieving a free culture (hard).

Of course, there is no doubt that CC would love to enable a Free
Culture, but they have stated again and again that this goal would be
better achieved by other organizations and advocacy groups.  Free
Culture (http://www.freeculture.org/ ) is a great example.

I do hope that you rethink this binary world of "Freedom is" or
"freedom isn't."  I don't even want to know how you would Define
Democracy.  I hate to say it, but this seems to me like just another
example of Radical Absolutism fighting against Liberal Reformism.

Dana

On 4/26/07, Greg London <greglondon.1 AT gmail.com> wrote:
> Can you explain to me why CC should use the
> word "freedom" in a place where they could
> be talking about something as restrictive as
> CC-NC-ND-BY?
>
> That isn't freedom. It's a pittance.
> It is a token given by the original author
> which has no major impact on the community.
> The author could just as easily make the work
> All Rights Reserved and give they work away
> at no cost on his website.
>
> What's that got to do with freedom?
>
> People are seriously kidding themselves
> that they're doing some grand service to
> the world when they use some of the most
> restrictive CC licenses.
>
> They are effectively no different than
> making the work ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
> and offering them for download at no cost
> on the authors website. And yet, no one would
> for a second view THAT as having anything
> to do with freedom. But playing some license
> games, using CC-ND-NC-BY, and doing effectively
> the same thing, same result, but through a word game
> called a license, people think they're doing something
> related to freedom.
>
> CC appears to be encouraging it because it
> encourages people to use their licenses.
> And apparently, that's CC's priority. membership.
> Total number of license users. The types of licenses
> used is irrelevent. And the confusion CC's advertising
> campaign leads to, apparently, is irrelevant.
> All that matters is membership. Which means that
> "freedom" has come to mean exactly the same thing
> as words like "patriot": i.e. "you belong to our group".
>
> And I think everyone on the list knows ex
>
>
> On 4/26/07, Björn Terelius < bjorn.terelius AT gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Greg, can you explain to me why you think that the word freedom on the CC
> homepage confuses people. After all, as far as I remember from the
> discussion, nobody said that ND/NC were Free Software or even free (in the
> common sense).
> >
> > I think that everybody on this list understand the CC licenses.
> Furthermore, the description of each license is so clear that anybody who
> knows th FSF definition of Free will understand that the CC licenses with NC
> or ND does not qualify as Free Software.
> >
> >
> > -Bjorn
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > cc-licenses mailing list
> > cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses
> >
> >
>
>
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>
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