Development of Creative Commons licenses

[pcreso AT pcreso.com]

The fairly divided messages on this thread suggest there is a divisive misunderstanding or two distinct positions. I can't actually work out which, and this vagueness I don't see as a good thing in a license intended to simplify & clarify.

Personally, my interpretation of how I use NC is better expressed as CRR.

NC suggests (to me at least) that the work being licensed is not available to be used commercially. However, many works we license ARE able to be used commercially, but under a different licence. The CRR approach better communicates the actual situation regarding how the license works, the NC approach describes the situation for the works under the NC license, but does not give any indication that alternative licenses are (or may be) available.

NC (to me) says the works cannot be used for commercial purposes. Subject closed. CRR says they are not available under this licence but other options (licenses) are possible. The difference between an unequivocable "NO" & a "maybe".
 
I think the two names give different impressions, even if they don't actually provide different rights or restrictions, and because of this I agree with Heather's suggestion that both are supported. We/I want CC licences to provide a good, simple statement that clearly conveys the intent without lots of legalese.

YMMV :-)

Brent Wood

--- On Wed, 12/12/12, Heather Morrison <hgmorris AT sfu.ca> wrote:

From: Heather Morrison <hgmorris AT sfu.ca>
Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Commercial Rights Reserved
To: "Development of Creative Commons licenses" <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Wednesday, December 12, 2012, 6:56 AM

Some thoughts:

An overall philosophical question which I think should be considered in CC development is the impact of encouraging people to use these licenses on how people think about the works that they create. CC is a powerful tool to counter automatic copyright, but if every time someone creates something they think in terms of rights then I think that this accidentally reinforces the idea of "intellectual property". In terms of the current discussion, if every time someone creates something they  use a CC license and have to choose whether commercial rights are granted or reserved, this entrenches the idea that every creation comes with commercial rights.

Noncommercial is not optimal either. However, from a language perspective it is better than "commercial rights reserved" because it gives the creator an opportunity to say that "this is outside of the commercial realm". Things that are outside of the commercial realm can be brought into it - however for some of us, expanding the portion of the world that is outside of commerce is a very important statement, and it's fine if it is vague.

I would also argue in favour of vagueness in some cases over clarity. Creative Commons is about sharing. The concept of sharing is vague, and not understood the same way by everyone. This is true of all abstract concepts, like love, justice, and peace. Some of our best work happens in the realm of the vague - this is the space for expanding our thinking about some very important matters, such as sharing our work rather than locking it down.

Clarity may well be desired in some situations and/or for some organizations. However, it is not clear that the same delineation of rights, or the same definition of commercial, makes sense in all circumstances. Part of the discussion around "noncommercial" has been lack of clarity about what constitutes "commercial".  "Commercial rights reserved" would not make the definition of what constitutes "commercial" any clearer. Then too, the kinds of rights that creators might wish to reserve may well vary - the kinds of rights a book publisher considers reserved for commercial purposes may not be the same kinds of rights that a software developer might expect to reserve.

It may be that what is needed is specific licenses modeled on Creative Commons that are not part of the CC license suite. This will sometimes add clarity - book publishers can say go ahead and do this, but not that - and at other times leave things vague, which I argue also has its benefits.

Finally, rather than insisting that "noncommercial" be relablled "commercial rights reserved", perhaps it would make more sense to add CCR as an additional license element.

best,

Heather Morrison



On 2012-12-11, at 8:07 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 10:17 AM, Alex Gakuru <gakuru AT gmail.com> wrote:
>> Greetings,
>> I am concerned by the plausible effect of “Commercial Rights Reserved“
>> potential of sending legacy copyright‘s chilling effect?
>> Borne of the need to protect the otherwise ‘grey‘ innovation space enjoyed
>> under the current licences categorizations.
>
> I do not understand what you are saying here even if I temporarily
> accept the premise that it is ethical to intentionally write vague
> licenses with for the purpose of fostering misunderstandings and make
> their user's intentions unenforceable.
>
> Can you specifically enumerate an example sequence of events which
> using "commercial rights reserved" instead of "non commercial" may
> result in an unwelcome outcome due to a reduction in "grey innovation
> space"?
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