Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Tuesday 11 December 2012 13:50:42 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 6:07 PM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell AT gmail.com> 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"?
>
> This may be an oversimplification, but looking at this from the
> vantage point of a largely disinterested observer; it does appear
> the problem is that there is a difference between:
>
> "I and only I can exploit this resource for a closely defined purpose,
> no one else may do so, or allow others to do so."
>
> ...and...
>
> "I declare I will not, nor will allow anyone to allow anyone, in
> perpetuity, to exploit this resource for the closely defined
> purposes which I define."

Bingo. So while the license says the former, people who say they want to say 
the latter use the license which says the former. Then say, trust me, 
although it is not in writing, and I refuse to put it in writing, I will not 
make commercial use of the work. (Well, one could read that into the 
situation, else why not put it in writing?)

all the best,

drew