Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

James Grimmelmann wrote:
> I would say that "weak" and "strong" copyleft are misleading terms  
> because there's a continuum of strength.  A completely non-copyleft  
> license is at the weakest end.  The strongest end (call it CC-SA-to- 
> infinity) would be something like a requirement that the licensee  
> agree to license everything she copyrightable she creates under the CC- 
> SA-to-infinity license.  If she doesn't so agree, she can't use the  
> original CC-SA-to-infinity licensed work at all.

Yes. The terms "weak" and "strong" are clearly relative. I'm not
entirely sure they are even scalar -- there are multiple ways in which a
copyleft can be strong or weak: it can bind larger collections of work
or it can make stronger requirements on the licenses of those works, for
example.

It could even bind sibling works (in this sense, even the GPL is "weak",
because it does not insist that all programs on the same physical medium
are also GPL).

> This conversation started out of a belief that the current version of  
> CC-BY-SA, as generally interpreted, is too weak, and that a strong-er  
> copyleft version of it is needed for Wikipedia integration.

And yet, why is Wikipedia turning away from the GFDL? Other than
complexity of the writing, this is the main difference between the
"Simplified GFDL" (i.e. no cover/invariant texts) and the CC-By-SA.

I think it's likely that the discontent is at least partially with the
very claim of the container-binding copyleft in the GFDL. Thus I think
that Wikipedia might be one of the users who'd balk at an SA+ license.

> We should be careful about  
> calling that strong-er version "the" strong copyleft version CC-BY-SA,  
> because there are a lot of different degrees of strength it could  
> take.  I'm not sure there'll only ever be one possible "strong"  
> version of CC-BY-SA worth talking about, and I wouldn't like to end up  
> in a situation where we need to talk about the "strong strong  
> copyleft" or the "double-strong copyleft" or "beyond strong copyleft"  
> or "PowerThirst copyleft" or the "less strong copyleft."  Especially  
> if something like Erik's final goal -- you can embed a CC-BY-SA+ item  
> in some kinds of larger works that are under free but non-copyleft  
> licenses -- is part of it, "strong" by itself is going to be a bit of  
> a misleading description.

Agreed. I think that for the purposes of the present conversation we
haven't stepped over this line, because (I think) we know what we're
talking about and we're just using the terms as shorthand. But yes, we
must be careful to define what we mean.

There are three possible outcomes of this conversation:

1) Inaction. The CC-By-SA is good like it is, learn to love it.

        I could live with that choice. I haven't found the existing
        terms to be a problem, and I've occasional found them useful.


2) CHANGE the CC-By-SA to make its copyleft stronger.

        I dislike this option, because it "pulls the rug out from
        under" users who are accustomed to the present rules. We
        have enough trouble explaining how things are now, so that
        changing things on people is not so good.

        The principle objectors to the present CC-By-SA are some
        *producers* who feel the copyleft isn't protecting their
        interests or promoting their political/ideological agendas.

        Complexity isn't really an issue for producers (not for
        a long time yet), who have time to read the licenses (or
        should darned well make the time, IMHO).


3) ADD a CC-By-SA+ to meet the requirements of such producers.
        
        This would be my recommendation. It should satisfy
        producers who want the stronger copyleft, and it won't
        surprise users, because it'll be new.

        Furthermore, for those of us producers who are happy
        with the status quo, we can keep doing as we have done.

        I must add the caveat, however: this SA+ needs to be
        thought out carefully! An overreaching copyleft could
        be a fiasco for the commons, which is something CC
        does not need. Any copyleft binding a container work
        needs to allow more variation than one binding only
        derivative works.

        And there need to be scope limits as well:

        If an image is By-SA, must the article containing it
        be By-SA?

        If the article is By-SA, must the entire website be By-SA?

        If the website is By-SA, must the Internet be By-SA?
        
        Obviously, at some point we must draw a line.

> This is also true; there's a limit on how strong a strong copyleft  
> will be enforceable.  I'd guess that sometime before that point, the  
> stronger copyleft actually becomes counterproductive because it deters  
> too many people from using it at all.

The only problem to watch out for is that it will deter users a long
time before it deters producers. Of course, *any* strengthening will do
that -- but there's a point of diminishing returns where the deficit to
users isn't worth the benefit to producers, but the producers concerns
are still more likely to be heard (that's what went wrong with our
copyright system!).

Cheers,
Terry

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