Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Jessica Coates <j2.coates AT qut.edu.au>]

Hi all (apologies for cross posts)

As some of you will have seen in the community list, CCau have just released 
our v3.0 licences for public consultation 
(http://creativecommons.org.au/v3draft). Or more specifically, we've released 
our BY (http://creativecommons.org.au/materials/BY_v3_Aus_June_08_draft.pdf) 
and BY-NC-SA 
(http://creativecommons.org.au/materials/BY_NC_SA_v3_Aus_June_08_draft.pdf) 
drafts.

We know this isn't the usual process for jurisdiction upgrades, but we 
thought that it was important in this case, because we wanted to know what 
the community thinks about some licensing decisions we've made. Which is why 
I'm writing separately to these two lists - obviously you guys are the 
experts on the CC licences, and so we'd love your opinions.

The two (potentially) controversial proposals we're going with in these 
drafts are:

- Rather than writing the licences as a straight jurisdiction translation 
from the Unported licences provided by CC International, we've decided to 
base them on the plain English licences produced last year by CC Aotearoa New 
Zealand, which they in turn based on the England and Wales licences. Not such 
a controversial idea, seeing it's been done before, but we thought it was a 
good time to seek feedback on this. Also, we've adapted the previous plain 
English licences substantially to align them more closely with the Unported 
licence. Let us know what you think of the drafts.

- More interestingly, we're also proposing to add some language to the BY and 
BY-NC licences that isn't in either the Unported or the previous plain 
English licences. The aim of this language is to clarify how derivative works 
that incorporate BY and BY-NC material can be licensed. This has been a 
problem in our implementation discussions with government, so we thought it 
might be a good idea to spell it out a bit more in the licences. The language 
we're proposing is based on discussion we had with Mia (yes that long ago!) 
and the licensing table on the CC FAQ page - 
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#I_used_part_of_a_Creative_Commons-licensed_work.2C_which_Creative_Commons_license_can_I_relicense_my_work_under.3F
Note that the new language is just a proposal - it isn't finalised yet. But 
we thought we'd highlight it now, in the lead up to the Legal Day in Sapporo, 
when we're hoping to get some discussion about it going.

We're keen to hear what people think about the drafts, and particularly the 
proposed derivative licensing language. Let us know what you think!


Jessica Coates
Project Manager
Creative Commons Clinic
Queensland University of Technology

ph: 07 3138 8301
fax: 07 3138 9598
email: j2.coates AT qut.edu.au