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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] 912 emails about DRM

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Rob Myers <rob AT robmyers.org>
  • To: cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] 912 emails about DRM
  • Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:02:41 +0100

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.




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