Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Jordan Hatcher's lists <lists AT twitchgamer.net>]

On 28 May 2007, at 17:00, cc-licenses-request AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

Message: 5

Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 12:05:46 +0100

From: "Kevin Phillips (home)" <tacet AT qmpublishing.com>

Subject: [cc-licenses] License Jurisdiction Questions

To: "Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts"

<cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>

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A quick series of questions about license impact in different jurisdictions

:

I noticed recently the official licenses for us folks in the UK aren't the

same wording as those in the US.  There's an effective "translation"

obviously because of differences in language.  Interestingly I know of no cc

project for music which offers licenses from different jurisdictions

directly.

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Message: 6

Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 10:51:09 -0400

From: James Grimmelmann <james AT grimmelmann.net>

Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] License Jurisdiction Questions

To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts

<cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>

Message-ID: <465AEC5D.6020800 AT grimmelmann.net">465AEC5D.6020800 AT grimmelmann.net>

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It's not just differences in language; it's difference in law.  The

licenses are customized to express the same ultimate meaning in

different places' legal systems.  The "translations" are carried out by

the various international iCommons groups; whenever CC updates the

licenses, there will be a lag while the license changes are ported into

each country where CC licenses are available.

James

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ok so that makes sense, though where a legal document is concerned would it

not be more prudent to have a release in sync?  That was really the point I

was trying to make, could there not be an issue or disparity due to a chorus

of voices singing from slightly different song books?

3.0 licenses have been around for some time now haven't they?

Kev

I'll second what James said, about the UK law being different.  In addition, the UK is not one single jurisdiction, but much like a federal system (such as the US) is made up of primarily three different jurisdictions -- Scotland, England & Wales, and Northern Ireland.  Whilst most of the IP law in the UK, including copyright, is at the UK level (i.e. applicable in all three) there are several differences in other law between the jurisdiction.  Scotland has different rules for contracts and this necessitated a different CC licence for Scotland.  These difference meant that the CC licence was  a contract, and since it is used by consumers, had to be in plain language to comply with the law. So in actuality, there are two different licences for the UK -- CC Scotland and CC E&W.  NI doesn't have a CC international group as of yet AFAIK.

As far as the licences being different, in a perfect world everyone in all of the individual jurisdictions would be able to update the licences all at once.  But as we are all volunteers, it just doesn't work that way. The Generic CC licence serves as a master template for everyone else to update their licences, and some are faster than others.  

As far as "a chorus of voices singing from slightly different song books", we have that already as there is a wide variety of content licensed under the older CC licences already, and of course all of the individual jurisdictions, even if all 3.0, have different legal systems and so may include other rights or be enforced differently.  For example, some Continental licences include database rights (the Dutch for example).

I noticed recently the official licenses for us folks in the UK aren't the

same wording as those in the US.  There's an effective "translation"

obviously because of differences in language.  Interestingly I know of no cc

project for music which offers licenses from different jurisdictions

directly.

For instance, I create a song and post it to ccMixter for remix, I also post

it's component parts to Kompoz.com for others to contribute.  ccMixter

doesn't support SA licenses, so I select the defacto NC license, Kompoz

allows BY-SA so I submit the component parts there for others to work on

(ie. bass, piano, vocal, drums).  Presumably I'm ok to do this as far as the

licenses go, so far ok?  Well, my submissions to Mixter/Kompoz  I've done

with the license options provided which I'm assuming are available in my

jurisdiction, yes?

AFAIK, there has been no effort to export any of the CC licences other than the main 6 to other jurisdictions. As my friend Andres says, we should have a Statute of Anne copyright licence instead of the "Founders Copyright".

Thanks!

--Jordan

Jordan S Hatcher

jordan at opencontentlawyer dot com

http://twitchgamer.net