Development of Creative Commons licenses

[James Grimmelmann <james AT grimmelmann.net>]

On Sep 14, 2009, at 3:46 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> Consider this kind of overwhelming majority: 90% think X, 10% think
> !X. 18% of random pairings of creators and users will have conflicting
> understandings of what the license means, or almost 1 in 5.
>
> Even if an author is in the 90% majority—if that author has only 7
> users, there is a 52% chance of at least one misunderstanding. With 29
> users there is a 95% chance, and with 44 users there is a 99% chance.
> If the author is in the minority, a 99% chance of having a
> misunderstanding over allowable uses happens with only two users.
>
> If an author only expects to have 7 users, why not just consider each
> case on its own merits and permit uses individually? If an author
> isn't concerned about license violations why don't they use the most
> permissive licenses? Most authors reported that they have been
> contacted. I am frequently contacted requesting permission for
> activities which are unequivocally permitted by the licenses I use.
>
> With only 90% agreeing on a particular criterion… I can only guess
> that there aren't masses of disputes because people don't enforce,
> even when they don't agree. People tolerate the 'misuse', or they are
> not paying attention; sometimes they give up publishing. Nice guys
> don't sue (or issue takedowns). But ifone off negotiations and "nice
> guys don't sue" are what really keeps the system working, why bother
> having a public license?

There are some other important reasons why we don't see more incidents:

(1) Misunderstandings are only a problem when the author's  
understanding is more restrictive than the user's.  If the roles are  
flipped, then the user either goes away discouraged (and so one ever  
realizes there was a difference of opinions) or asks the author, in  
which case permission is readily granted.  That happens even with  
licenses that are more permissive than NC.
(2) Misunderstandings are only a problem if there's disagreement that  
affects the particular use the user wants to make.  If I and the  
author disagree about scenario A but I want to make a use that  
corresponds to scenario B, our misunderstanding is irrelevant.

James