Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

drew Roberts wrote:
> This is where I think it could be helpful for the law to take note of Free 
> Copyleft licenses.

> [snip]

> I am not totally sure that I fully buy my line above, but I certainly think 
> a 
> person should get a Free Copyleft license to any images taken of them by 
> any 
> photographer in any place not taken at their instigation should they wish 
> to 
> use the image under such a license.

drew, this paragraph totally changed the meaning of the previous lines
for me, and now I'm confused by your email (clearly I wasn't
understanding what you meant).

I think that you (and everyone) discussing the idea of "rights granted"
either under statute or license, should (for clarity) be very specific
about WHOSE rights you mean.

I think this will not only promote better communication on the list, but
also clearer thinking for yourself. In this situation, we have at least
four, maybe five, possible distinct rights-holding entities in the work:

1) The person photographed
2) The photographer
3) The person publishing the photograph online
4) The person downloading the photograph from a website
5) A person wanting to make a derivative/adaptation of the work

Photo-releases involve 1 and possibly 2. The release may be worded to
include 3 & 4 under various terms.

5 is distinct with CC licenses, because only derivatives can be
re-licensed to a later or alternate-locale license (which, after our
little "Spanish moral rights" discussion, which appears to indicate that
some locales have far more risky and restrictive licensing than others,
I'm beginning to think is awfully important).

Also, we should remember that far more can be granted by statute than by
license, so the model of a statute as "granting a license" can be a
little shaky. It means a lot more to say that something is
"non-copyrightable" than just to say that it's "in the public domain"
(copyleft is an attempt to mimic this distinction, but it's imperfect).

Cheers,
Terry

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock AT AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com