Development of Creative Commons licenses

[James Grimmelmann <james AT grimmelmann.net>]

Hear, hear!

This is a good move for license simplicity and for the commons.

Is there any consideration of renaming the SamplingPlus pair of
licenses, since there is no longer a Sampling license to distinguish
them from?

James

Lawrence Lessig wrote:
> Today we are retiring two of the Creative Commons licenses -- the  
> stand alone Developing Nations license, as well as one of the three  
> Sampling licenses we offer. The reasons for these retirements are  
> both practical and principled.
> 
> The practical reason is simple lack of interest: From the start,  
> Creative Commons has promised to keep our family of licenses as  
> simple as possible. Actual demand has been one of the key indicators  
> of how simple things can be. We estimate just 0.01% of our existing  
> licenses are Developing Nations licenses, and 0.01% are the version  
> of the Sampling license that we are retiring. Those numbers say that  
> these licenses are not in demand.
> 
> The principled reasons are different with each license. The  
> Developing Nations license is in conflict with the growing "Open  
> Access Publishing" movement. While the license frees creative work in  
> the developing nations, it does not free work in any way elsewhere.  
> This means these licenses do not meet the minimum standards of the  
> Open Access Movement. Because this movement is so important to the  
> spread of science and knowledge, we no longer believe it correct to  
> promote a stand alone version of this license. Later this month, we  
> will begin a discussion about adding the terms of the Developing  
> Nations license to 5 of the other CC licenses, and giving users the  
> option to include those terms in their license. (So, for example, you  
> could select a BY-NC license for the developed world, but offer a BY  
> license for creators within Developing Nations.) Because such an  
> option would be attached to a standard CC license, it would not  
> conflict with the principle we are announcing here. Based upon the  
> feedback we get to that idea, we will decide whether to implement it.
> 
> The Sampling License presents a similar concern. Until today, we have  
> offered three versions of the Sampling license. Two of those versions  
> permit noncommercial sharing of the licensed work (SamplingPlus, and  
> Noncommercial SamplingPlus). One (the Sampling License) only permits  
> the remix of the licensed work, not the freedom to share it. There is  
> a strong movement to convince Creative Commons that our core licenses  
> at least permit the freedom to share a work noncommercially.
> 
> Creative Commons supports that movement. We will not adopt as a  
> Creative Commons license any license that does not assure at least  
> this minimal freedom -- at least not without substantial public  
> discussion. We are grateful for the feedback, and for the  
> understanding of those who helped us craft the sampling licenses,  
> both of which got us here.
> 
> This change does not affect any existing licensed work. The links to  
> these licenses, and every Creative Commons license, will always  
> remain valid. The only change we're making today is that we will no  
> longer offer these licenses on our licensing page.
> 
> To read more about these retirements, please visit our retired  
> licenses page at
> http://creativecommons.org/retiredlicenses
> 
> 
> Lawrence Lessig
> CEO
> Creative Commons
> 171 Second Street, Suite 300
> San Francisco, CA 94105
> http://creativecommons.org
> 
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