Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Anthony <osm AT inbox.org>]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 3:02 PM, Rob Myers <rob AT robmyers.org> wrote:
> 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.

And what do you mean by "Circumvention"?  Isn't Circumvention removing
DRM restrictions without permission of the rightsholder?  If you have
permission (e.g. via a license), there is no Circumvention.

I don't think you'll find a court case where this is established,
because it's so obvious that no one would take it to court.

>> 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

This doesn't make sense.  If you don't want the DRM-encumbered work,
ignore it.  There's no burden imposed on you, and you're no worse off
than if the work could not be legally distributed at all.

It's like one side is arguing that it should be illegal to give away a
cell phone with a disabled GPS, and the other side is arguing that it
should be legal to give away a cell phone with a disabled GPS so long
as you distribute in parallel a cell phone with an enabled GPS.

Why can't we just trust people to not accept the cell phone with the
disabled GPS, if they want to use the GPS?

>> 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.

Great, so we've just gotta talk to the CC lawyers about whether or not
it's possible?

>> 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

True, but not very many people know about that.

I don't think banning DRM distribution will condemn BY-SA works to a
ghetto.  I think it'll just be widely ignored and selectively
enforced.  Which is a very bad thing.