Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <rob AT robmyers.org>]

On 04/06/2012 03:17 AM, Andrew Rens wrote:
> You can regard me as one of those who are sceptical whether the Debian
> Free Software Guidelines should dictate licences used for many things
> that are not software such as free education resources. Why shouldn't
> the Creative Commons community decide such issues of principle rather
> than have them decided by for Creative Commons by the Debian community?

Debian do analyze licenses thoroughly and their concerns are worth 
listening to. But the same requirements were accepted as DFSG-free when 
Debian legal approved the 3.0 free licenses.

> I've advised many potential users of Creative Commons licences who are
> reluctant to use Creative Commons at all, or plan to use Creative
> Commons Attribution No Derivatives because they are concerned that their
> reputations will be irreparably damaged by a remix of the works which
> they license under Creative Commons. Most have been sufficiently
> reassured by the provision which allows the licensor to require that the
> Attribution be removed to use CC By SA and CC By. If this provision is
> removed then many of those Licensors will choose to use CC By ND, or not
> to use CC at all.

Absolutely. Non-endorsement can be a major issue for institutions in my 
experience.

The solution having to remove attribution on demand might be to have an 
"additional condition" (under the 4.0 proposals) similar to the FDL's 
automatic removal of endorsements on derivatives/adaptations. I think 
this would remove the uncertainty and power imbalance that removal on 
demand introduces.

- Rob.