Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Styles <rob.styles AT talis.com>]

I agree with much of what has been said, specifically

+1 for downplaying the norms, these should be PD works and therefore
have no restrictions on my re-use

+1 for making the statement clearly different to CC0, that is it
should clearly communicate a statement about the work, and not be
confusable with a waiver

+1 for making the statement attributable to someone, this has the
potential to allow authorities to appear and get recognition.

In terms of what it gives, even for works that "we know for sure" are
in the public-domain — it gives clarity for those who don't know for
sure. Those who don't know fall into two categories, people who don't
have the knowledge to discern for themselves and computers. The
machine-readable part to sit alongside existing licenses fills an
important gap.

What I'm unsure about is the liability. If I mistakenly release a
copyrighted work, with a PD mark attached, I will still be liable.
Those consuming it from me would likely not be given existing case law
(but ianal). If they were to pass it on the PD mark (my statement) may
help in their defense but is unlikely to absolve anyone fully. Is the
liability issue one of helping reduce the risk of civil proceedings by
consumers (rather than the copyright owner) in the event of a false
statement?

rob



On 10 August 2010 22:55, Brest, Iris <Brest AT carnegiefoundation.org> wrote:
> I agree with what has been said about non-binding norms, and note that 
> several of them are not specific to public domain works and tend to confuse 
> copyright with plagiarism.  But here's a question revealing my complete 
> ignorance about this project as a whole:  How much is the identifier of the 
> work as PD supposed to have done to verify that it truly is in the public 
> domain?  I understand that the intent is not to create liability for error 
> -- although I don't understand how that intent would bind an actual 
> copyright owner -- but since the identifier of the work isn't the author or 
> copyright owner, how much should he, she or it have done to verify, for 
> instance, that this particular edition doesn't have elements still under 
> copyright &c.?  If, as has been suggested, the mark is only meant for works 
> that "we know for sure" are in public domain, what does the mark add?  Iris
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cc-licenses-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org 
> [mailto:cc-licenses-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of James 
> Grimmelmann
> Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 11:35 AM
> To: Development of Creative Commons licenses
> Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Public Domain Mark - Invitation to Comment
>
> I share the concerns that Douglas Campbell has expressed about the 
> difficulty of a non-binding norm project.  Indeed, I'm concerned about the 
> idea of a "group" or a "community" being a relevant actor for purposes of 
> setting norms about the use of public-domain material.  Any such norms 
> should flow with the group or community, not with the work itself -- 
> because that would imply that the group/community could and should project 
> its norms beyond itself, to anyone who comes across the work.  Part of the 
> point of being in the public domain is precisely that one may take a work 
> from one normative community to another, changing its context, its 
> relevance, and its meaning.  That is, there are times when it's actually 
> very important to insist on one's individual, stand-alone, atomistic, 
> answerable-to-no-one legal rights, and the public domain can be a powerful 
> source of such rights.
>
> I understand the attempt to get around those concerns by emphasizing that 
> the norms are non-binding.  But this approach also swims in ambiguity; are 
> the norms meant to have an effect on potential users or not?  That's going 
> to vary from situation to situation, and confusion is likely to result 
> among many possible users.  I think it would be better to release these 
> norms as possible best practices for groups and communities and groups to 
> adopt for themselves, and not to pitch them as applying to anything so 
> broad as all "providers and users of material in the public domain."
>
> I would also add:
>
> It would be better not to say that the copyright holder "failed to register 
> or renew copyright."  Instead, "did not register or renew copyright" would 
> be less normative; "failed" suggests that they should have.  This is the 
> same kind of rhetorical slant that comes from the phrase "fall into the 
> public domain."
>
> What gives the "provider" of public-domain material. in general, the moral 
> right to ask for "respect" in the form of, say, no modifications?  There 
> will be some situations -- families disclosing an author's papers, for 
> example -- in which respect seems like an appropriate principle.  But there 
> will be many others -- say, libraries digitizing 19th-century public-domain 
> books -- in which it doesn't make as much sense.  I doubt that this can be 
> a universal norm.  ("Respect" in the form of clearly identifying any 
> modifications seems more likely to universalize.)
>
> "Contribute discoveries back" is too broad.  If I make a movie based on the 
> plot and characters of an out-of-copyright play, which transposes the 
> setting to outer space, puts all of the dialogue in modern technical 
> jargon, and is filled with special effects, people can fairly disagree as 
> to whether I should also place the movie into the public domain.  There is 
> legitimate principle here, but it is much narrower than the proposed norm.
>
> -----
>
> As for the mark itself, Luis Villa's point is well-taken.  In general, the 
> PDM **needs** to reflect the fact that it is an assertion about the work, 
> made by a third party.  The "No Copyright" clause at the top should, I 
> think, explicitly say, "The person who identified this public domain work 
> believes that it is free of restrictions under copyright law ..."  It would 
> be fine to tweak the language so that it doesn't create any legally 
> enforceable warranties.  But the key point is that the PDM takes the form 
> "A says that work X is in the public domain."  (Does the metadata allow for 
> multiple identifying parties?)  CC0, as Luis points out, instead takes the 
> form, "C, the copyright owner, has placed work X in the public domain."
>
> James
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-- 
rob

Rob Styles
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