Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Gavin Baker <gavin AT gavinbaker.com>]

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On 10/11/07, Mike Linksvayer <ml at creativecommons.org> wrote:
> Please read http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7718
>
> Discuss here.

I'm not a lawyer, and know little about moral rights, but I feel
obligated to try to be helpful.

- From the blog post:
> The intent of this clause, and the balance of the section it is
> located within, is essentially to leave moral rights untouched by our
> license. [...]
> Despite this intent, some -- especially within the Wikipedia community
> -- have read this clause to mean not that moral rights are untouched,
> but that moral rights are being enforced by the license.

This might also be improved by clarifying the language in the
human-readable summary, which currently reads "Nothing in this license
impairs or restricts the author's moral rights."

As an alternative, I'd suggest this, paralleling another clause in the
human-readable form: "The author's moral rights, if any, are in no way
affected by this license."

(FWIW, I think the 3.01 proposed change is clearer than the existing
language, but IANAL, so YMMV. However the legal code may change, I think
the above suggestion for the human readable license is clearer and
should be adopted.)

Aside from the issue of this clause, can I suggest other cosmetic tweaks
 in the license, for 3.01 or a later version? Namely:

1. For the Unported license, where a national flag is displayed for
ported licenses, display an image of the world. Currently, no image is
displayed on the human-readable summary; on the legal license, a flag
shape with diagonal grey bars is displayed. Advantages: Consistency; the
connotation that the Unported license is for generic use in any
jurisdiction (vs. another possible connotation, that "Unported" means
"raw" or "unfinished" in some sense.)

2. For the formal license names, place the jurisdiction within
parentheses, e.g. "Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (United States)
License". Currently, the jurisdiction is included without parentheses.
Alternatively, the jurisdiction could come last, e.g. "Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 License (United States)". Advantages: Reinforce the
message that the licenses are equivalent from one jurisdiction to the
next. ("This is the Attribution 3.0 license, formatted for the U.S." vs.
"This is the Attribution 3.0 U.S. license, distinct from the Attribution
3.0 Brazil license")

Sorry if this discussion took place previously; I'm new on the list.

P.S. You could also take this opportunity to add clauses specifying that
privacy/publicity rights are not affected, as I suggested here:
http://www.gavinbaker.com/2007/09/22/lets-all-sue-creative-commons/

Thanks for all you do!
- --
Gavin Baker
http://www.gavinbaker.com/
gavin AT gavinbaker.com
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