Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Diane Peters <diane AT creativecommons.org>]

Hi Heather,

Thanks for the post.  I'm moving your post over to cc-community for
discussion there, as it doesn't contain a specific proposal for 4.0
(at least not yet).

Diane

On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 9:46 AM, Heather Morrison <hgmorris AT sfu.ca> wrote:
> This is more a matter of interpretation than updating the licenses per se, 
> but I'm not sure what is the best forum to raise this question, so I'll 
> raise it here as well as open access discussion venues.
>
> Many in the open access movement consider CC-BY to be the very embodiment 
> of the spirit of the Budapest Open Access Initiative - giving away all 
> rights to one's work, including commercial rights, for open access. My own 
> take on this is that while CC-BY can provide a useful tool for those fully 
> engaged in the open access spirit, the license is problematic for open 
> access. This is important now that funding agencies in the U.K. are 
> beginning to require CC-BY licenses when they fund open access article 
> processing fees. That is to say, we are now looking at a situation where 
> organizations that do not have any commitment to (or even liking for) open 
> access, may be required to use this license.
>
> Some questions that I think should be raised at this point:
>
> The CC-BY legal code, as I read it, does not mention open access, nor is 
> there any wording to suggest that the license can only be applied to works 
> that are open access. Here is the URL for the legal code:
> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode
>
> Questions:
>
> 1.      Am I missing something in the legal code, i.e. does it say 
> somewhere that this license is only for open access works?
>
> 2.      Is there any reason why a publisher could not use a CC-BY license 
> on toll-access works? (Here I am talking about an original publisher, not a 
> licensee).
>
> 3.      Is there anything to stop a publisher that uses CC-BY from changing 
> their license at a later point in time? (Assuming the license is the 
> publisher's, not the author's).
>
> 4.      Is there anything to stop a toll-access publisher from purchasing 
> an open access publisher that uses CC-BY, and subsequently selling all the 
> formerly open access journals under a toll-access model and dropping the 
> open access versions? The license would not permit a third party to do 
> this, but what I am asking about is if the original licensor sells to 
> another publisher.
>
> To sum up, my perspective is that CC-BY, while superficially appearing to 
> be the embodiment of BOAI, is actually a problematic license with 
> significant loopholes and serious thought should be given to this before it 
> is recommended as a standard for open access.
>
> best,
>
> Heather Morrison, MLIS
> Doctoral Candidate, Simon Fraser University School of Communication
> http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/
> The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Diane M. Peters, General Counsel
Creative Commons
cell: +1 503-803-8338
skype:  peterspdx
email:diane AT creativecommons.org
http://creativecommons.org/staff#dianepeters

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