Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Sarah Pearson <sarah AT creativecommons.org>]

Thanks to all for your comments.

@Luis -- I've done some digging for information about why CC chose to specify synching in the definition of Adaptation, and unfortunately I haven't found anything other than Glenn's blog post announcing Version 2.0, which has a really short description. I'm fairly new to CC, so perhaps someone with more history with the organization will weigh in with more info. In the meantime, I'll continue to dig around to see if I can find anything. 

@Anthony -- Good point about the mutually exclusive collective work vs. adaptation definitions. There are likely other exceptions to the applicable law rule as well. We're going to put together a list of all of those places throughout all six licenses in the suite, and we'll post it to the 4.0 wiki once it's done. It should be a helpful resource for 4.0 drafting. 

@Gregor -- Interesting argument about getting away from applicable local law. I will think more about it and give some thoughts early next week. 

best,
Sarah Hinchliff Pearson
Creative Commons, Senior Counsel

On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 7:42 PM, Gregor Hagedorn <g.m.hagedorn AT gmail.com> wrote:

On 5 January 2012 21:11, Sarah Pearson <sarah AT creativecommons.org> wrote:

The way the licenses currently work, the question of what constitutes a derivative/adaptation is determined by reference to local law. This is the case for purposes of BY-SA and BY-ND. Currently, the only exception is for synching, which is explicitly deemed an adaptation for purposes of the license.

In other words, the determination of whether colorization (or the reverse) is allowed for a BY-ND work has to be answered by reference to applicable law. Different jurisdictions have different standards for copyrightability, so the answer likely varies depending on where the work is being used.

Which is something probably more general to be addressed for CC 4.0: This seems to be a completely unworkable assumption of CC.

What is the local law for a publication that involves people from dozens of countries? On Wikipedia you need to fullfill at least the laws of the server storage facility, of each country of residence of each editor involved, and of the primary audience - please correct me if I am wrong. Of course, anonymity makes it hard to pursue violations, but it becomes more and more common to sue people based on court orders to reveal the identify behind IP addresses or user names.

If I, as a German citizen, upload Belgian photographs of the Atomium (no freedom of panorama and image by necessity made under Belgium legislation), from a Internet provider in the UK to a U.S. server, addressing audiences in all German-speaking countries - what is the local law?

Wikipedia tries to stretch as much as possible:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomium
illustrates with a toy-version of the Atomium taken in a public park in Austria (which, however, is probably a copyright violation in itself...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomium
shows the Atomium itself, and gives a fair use rationale for the US, but it is unclear how the uploaded material could ever reach the US without a copyright violation, given that it is impossible to take the photograph legally.

Summary: I believe Creative Commons needs to overcome as far as possible the assumption that there is anything like applicable local law.

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