Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell AT gmail.com>]

On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 6:27 AM, Anthony <osm AT inbox.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 5:10 PM, Valentin Villenave
> <valentin AT villenave.net> wrote:
>> On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 7:34 PM, Heather Morrison <hgmorris AT sfu.ca> wrote:
>>> Thank you very much for asking about this. I am strongly opposed to 
>>> changing "noncommercial" to "commercial rights reserved". The 
>>> noncommercial element is often used by creators who are not primarily in 
>>> the commercial realm, and "commercial rights reserved" is not necessarily 
>>> what people mean by "noncommercial".
>>
>> It may not be what they *mean*, but it is what they actually *do* by
>> choosing these licenses.
>
> How so?  Just because the license in some cases allows commercial use,
> that doesn't mean the authors who choose the license are engaging in
> commercial use.

Because they have _reserved_ them— as in they retain them exclusively
and have not extended them to you in the license.  They may choose to
not exercise them or not or separately offer them or they may choose
to do so, but they still have them and can practice them or not.

The proposed name is not "commercial rights practiced only by me"
it's "commercial rights reserved" as in "I reserve the right to mine
this land for oil" .... maybe I'm reserving it because I don't want
anyone do it— and want the land to be a park in perpetuity, maybe I'm
reserving it because I may do it in the future.  Maybe I intend one
thing today but will change my mind tomorrow— The latter might be an
unwelcome surprise for people who adopted and supported a work
believing it to be outside of the commercial realm only to later find
the author exploiting it commercially. Making the behavior of the
license more clear may help avoid that confusion in the future.  For
example, if my decision to promote a work were conditional on it being
"outside the commercial realm" the NC license is _not sufficient_,
regardless of the name but naming it CRR make that more clear. I might
additionally ask for a pledge (of some degree of bindingness) from the
author before helping out.

Perhaps you misread Valentin's message?  I believe the claim with
respect to what authors actually *do* is that they actually reserve
them; not that they put them primary in the commercial realm.