Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <rob AT robmyers.org>]

On 04/18/2012 10:56 AM, David Chart wrote:
> Should BY-SA prohibit hardcopy distribution (printed books)?

Practical limitations are not legal prohibitions.

If I scan a BY-SA book and OCR the results, I am breaking no law.

> Should you be forbidden to apply BY-SA to a work that is, for example, a five 
> ton granite sculpture?

What about a BY-SA five ton granite sculpture rather than a 3D print of 
a BY-SA .stl file makes me more likely to be sued for copying it?

> It is no harder to copy and modify a DRM-protected version of a
> novel  than a hardcopy novel.

Except when you are taken to court for doing so.

> If the DRM can be legally circumvented, it may
even be a lot easier. In the worst case, you can copy the words while
you read it, which is what you have to do with hardcopy.

That's a big but.

> In the case of the five-ton sculpture, the copying provision is basically 
> moot; it's five tons of rock.

A five-ton sculpture can be photographed, sketched, or copied in 
miniature. All may be acts restricted by copyright.

> However, the creator might still want to allow that if you can, and
> definitely allow the creation of derivative works as long as you sharealike.

If DRM is added to the work they will not however be able to do so 
without risking legal action.

> If you do want to exclude these cases, then I strongly disagree with
> you about the scope of the licenses; I do not think they should be
> restricted to digital culture, and you should certainly be allowed to
> print and sell a BY-SA novel.

I am not talking about practical problems with copying work.

I am talking about legal prohibitions on doing so.

> If you do not want to exclude these cases, you can't rely on "end up
> with versions you are not free to use" as an argument against permitting
> DRM distribution with parallel distribution, because you are permitting
> exactly that situation in other cases. Without even parallel
> distribution, in the case of the statue, and possibly in the case of the
> book.

Being taken to court is a different kind of thing from having to scan a 
book.

When discussing DRM, by "free to use" I mean *legally* free to use. 
People are right to raise practicality as an issue, but the existence of 
analog, allographic art indicates the limits to this for cultural works.

- Rob.