Development of Creative Commons licenses

[James Grimmelmann <james AT grimmelmann.net>]

I am mildly opposed to the change, but not for deep philosophical reasons.  
There are things to like about the clarity of "Commercial Rights Reserved."  
Given time, I think it would be compatible with the messaging of many 
different kinds of creators and communities.  But at this point, so many 
years into the lifecycle of the NonCommercial licenses, it is better to leave 
well enough alone.  Changing a name that appears on millions of works in 
millions of places will cause a lot of confusion: some people won't know that 
anything's changed, others will be afraid that something deep has changed in 
the license.  Stability of the CC licenses is a top priority; this wouldn't 
help.  It's fine to use "Commercial Rights Reserved" to help describe what NC 
is and does, but the name has been named.

tl;dr: Stare decisis.

James

On 2012-12-10, at 2:27 PM, Kat Walsh <kat AT creativecommons.org> wrote:

> There is one piece of the recent NC/ND announcements I'd like to call
> particular attention to.
> 
> One of the open proposals is to change the name of the NonCommercial
> license to "Commercial Rights Reserved". I've put together a page on
> the wiki (also linked in the previous email) with a description of the
> proposal and some arguments for and against--you can find it at
> http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Commercial_Rights_Reserved
> 
> (I've seen several people comment on and link to it already; thank you!)
> 
> This would be a pretty big change, and we're hesitant to do it unless
> there is strong support. We'd like to hear broader input on it to be
> able to make a decision--please let us know what you think!
> 
> Cheers,
> Kat
> 
> -- 
> Kat Walsh, Counsel, Creative Commons
> IM/IRC/@/etc: mindspillage * phone: please email first
> Help us support the commons: https://creativecommons.net/donate/
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> please consult your attorney.
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