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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Joachim Durchholz <jo AT durchholz.org>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [cc-licenses] CC strategic elements
  • Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 09:41:05 +0200

Hi all,

I have evaluated the discussion I started as "Unbundling the GPL", and have been following a few other threads. Hopefull, I'll be able to express a bit more precisely what I'm after, and why I'd want it.


1. My current understanding of the situation

Here's my idea of CC's mission and how it tries to achieve it.

CC is trying to encourage giving away works that are typically covered by copyright. This includes literature, music, films, and programs, or whatever kinds of works are covered by specific copyright legislation anywhere in the world. (It would be desirable to have a complete list of classes of works and in which legislations they are covered by special rules; discussion fine points would be easier with such a reference.)

One of the things that make CC licenses attractive is that they have been checked using the legal resources available to CC. Anybody who wishes to use a CC license can do so and rest assured that the license will do what he wants, and avoid the cost of legal counseling (if somebody gives his works away, he'll be particularly unwilling to incur legal costs for that anyway).
I think this part of the strategy has unanimous consent.

The next element is that CC has tried to "quantize" the spectrum of licenses. In other words, there is a limited set of substantially different licenses to choose from; it's quite likely that for many people, there's no license that exactly fits their needs, but there's always one that's close enough to their intents.
For users of the works, this means that they will know what they can do with a CC-licensed work without looking up the license more than once or twice, which makes reusing a work more attractive. This is also attractive for licensors because they will know that there will be just a minimum amount of misinterpretation.
Currently, this part of the strategy isn't working too well, at least not while wearing my licensee hat. The recent proliferation of special licenses for specific kinds of works just means that I won't know what a license is anymore.
The strategy itself seems to have consent, but there is dispute about how fine-grained the quantization should be.

The third element is offering licenses that aren't really Commons licenses but that give those who wish to try the CC licenses some intermediate steps.
This part of the strategy is controversial. The ND clause if far too popular for the taste of many, including Lawrence Lessing himself. There's also the example of the FSF that has made the strategic decision not to offer an ND variant of the GPL, forcing the users of its licenses to make a clear decision.
On the minus side, this strategy has prevented the FSF from creating a license for those cases where ND would have been legitimate, polarizing the programmer community into those that are "pro" and "contra" and preventing an unideological discourse.


2. Recommendations

Here's my idea how CC could improve.

a) CC should never offer more than five or six discernible elements, be they license modules that can be combined, or ready-made license combinations with a specific name such as PD.
This means retracting most (if not all) special licenses and rewording the general license terms so that they cover the specific cases.
For example, SA terms can be reworded to that it covers the intent of the GPL without becoming useless for other kinds of works, by adding legal fine print that the licensor grants access to the form of the work that he used to create (or derive) the work himself.
It might make the CC licenses a viable alternative to the GPL (and possibly to other licenses). This would be attractive for those FOSS programmers who find the FSF's agenda attractive but don't wish to associate themselves with their kind of rhethorics.

b) CC should explain the quantization strategy, to reduce the pressure towards finer quantization.
Maybe an explanation on the registratin page for the discussion lists would do.
That would be a fine place to explain basic principles, strategies, and other policy elements so that participants don't waste everybody's time by making unacceptable proposals. The text would have to be reviewed occasionally to keep it up-to-date as CC's policies change.)

c) As to the ND issue, it's not clear whether CC should continue to offer it or not. There seem to be good reasons to do either.


I'm interested in getting a rough idea where everybody stands on the above issues.
This includes the "official" position of the CC.
I'd also like to invite those with whom I had serious flamewars, provided that we all can stick to the issues and leave out motives, backgrounds, or other personals.

Regards,
Jo




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