Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <rob AT robmyers.org>]

On 04/23/2012 10:37 AM, David Chart wrote:
> My point was that there are two possible places to be concerned:
> limits on the user, and the ability of a adaptor to close the work
> down.

Closing down a work is simply another term for restricting its recipients.

> DRM+Parallel+Permission to Circumvent means that the user can be no
> more limited than he is in *different* cases that everyone agrees are
> perfectly acceptable under the license.

Such as?

It has not been established that Circumvention can be permitted by the 
licenses. I would be *very* interested to know if it can be, legally 
speaking, under the DMCA and EUCD.

> The same set of permissions means that an adaptor cannot close the
> work down by releasing it DRM-encumbered, because he has to release
> it open as well.

This is burdensome when the work is being distributed and useless when 
the work is not

> Permission to circumvent is probably more useful in solving the first
> problem,

Agreed. If it is possible then allowing it would be more strategically 
useful than banning DRM.

> and parallel distribution more important in blocking the
> second. So I now think the license should include both.

Parallel distribution is a non-solution. It is not currently needed to 
avoid anyone being unable to sell or use work for any hardware devices 
other *possibly* than Blu-Ray players without web access.

> I think banning DRM distribution will condemn BY-SA works to a ghetto
> and create a license that no-one cares about because no-one releases
> any content under it that anyone finds interesting. Thus, I think a
> straight prohibition on DRM would actively harm the cause of free
> culture.

DRM distribution is already banned (individuals downloading content to 
DRM-encumbered devices is IMO not). The ghetto currently contains every 
single CC licensed work. That was 400 million plus at the end of 2010:

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Metrics/License_statistics

- Rob.