Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Dana Powers" <dana.powers AT gmail.com>]

Fine.  I'll bite.  Dear lord.

The idea of granting "rights" is likely very confusing for authors and
artists who are used to the world of traditional media licensing.
Rights are what the copyright holder "owns."  Giving rights away is
not what artists who choose NC, for example, intend.  They want to
continue ownership of their distribution, performance, derivative,
etc, rights so they can relicense those rights to commercial parties
down the road.  Moreover, royalties collected by groups like ASCAP,
BMI, SESAC, and SoundExchange are paid to the "rights" owner.  These
"rights" are transferrable, and indeed transferred often in
traditional licensing contracts.  CC licenses don't, however, transfer
these "rights" and any confusion about that point would certainly be a
hinderance to their further use.

Moreover, as a strict legal matter the freedoms offered by a CC
license (from rights holder to end user) are not "rights" per se, they
are privileges conditioned on conformity with the contractual
obligations detailed in the license itself.  a CC license says: if you
do X, you can do Y (without having to ask me first).  That is not a
legal entitlement, that is a bargain between two private parties.  The
real "right" here is that of either party to claim a remedy for breach
of their private agreement from the governing sovereign.

There is a difference between "rights" and "freedoms."  They are
different words.  Of course they have different connotaions and
denotations.  I am certain the phrasing of the CC "elevator pitch" has
been thought through extensively, and no doubt with due regards to the
principles of the Free Software movement.  If you're argument for
changing this pitch is that Richard Stallman says Freedom is something
else, you should know by now that you've got more work to do.

Best,
Dana

On 4/27/07, Greg London <greglondon.1 AT gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
> > > >
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> > >
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