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cc-sampling - Re: [cc-sampling] What Is The Point Of This List?

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Subject: Development of the Creative Commons Sampling license (or license option)

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  • From: "Glenn Otis Brown" <glenn AT creativecommons.org>
  • To: dj AT webbnet.com, cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [cc-sampling] What Is The Point Of This List?
  • Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 19:21:23 -0800

On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 18:14:03 -0700, "Don Joyce" <dj AT webbnet.com> said:
> I would like to see it all (all the wording) layed out on screen,
> distilled from whatever ideas we've had, and then invite rewritings
> of all the specific wording to suit the masses.

>
> It all needs to be boiled down to a specific set of objectionable
> phrases we can then tweak, transform, or delete.

This is the role of the commons deeds:

http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/sampling/samplingdeed

http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/sampling/samplingdeed+

This is the policy on human- v. lawyer-readable language. (Don, this is
from an email I sent to you and Mark way back when, when we first started
on all this.):

point 1: legalese

I agree with you that that particular sentence is awkward and too
lawyerly. Our whole lawyer-readable versus human-readable split, though,
is something that we're generally going to stick to. Here is the
reasoning on that point (from a memo to our license reviewers early in
CC's history):

"Many of you worried that the wording of our license drafts was too
legalistic and inaccessible for a public license, and that the licenses'
warranties and other boilerplate provisions should be removed altogether.
Your objections were both practical and philosophical: Potential
licensors will be turned off by such language, which in any case is at
odds with Creative Commons' do-it-yourself, lay-friendly mission -- thus
went the argument.

This is a serious and somewhat complicated issue that deserves a thorough
airing. A starting point is simply to note that it is beyond dispute that
ease-of-use by non-lawyers has been Creative Commons' top priority since
its birth. It is, indeed, one of the company's reasons for being. Mindful
of this, we gave our license drafts a stylistic pruning and will likely
perform another before their release.

All that said, it is also important to note that another of Creative
Commons' long-standing goals is to ensure that our licenses are legally
legitimate, relevant, and enforceable -- that they stand the tests of
time, public scrutiny, and even litigation. Without this assurance, our
project risks becoming an exercise in wishful thinking rather than law.

The trick is achieving both aims -- ease of use and legitimacy -- with
the least amount of compromise possible. It's our view that Creative
Commons cannot achieve this joint goal by offering only simple,
plain-language licenses with none of the language that makes them sturdy
legal documents.

Certain provisions, forms, and formalities are essential to the licenses'
relevance in the legal system. To put it another way, we should no more
demand that the legal system not read and speak legal code than we would
ask computers not to read and speak digital code. Both systems choke on
any language other than their native tongues. Our task is not to try to
change those languages, but to translate them for the public.

Moreover, the plain-language-only approach would risk blurring Creative
Commons' organizational identity. Creative Commons wants to ease the
public's access to well-crafted legal documents; it is not our goal to
revolutionize the legal system itself. It is a lamentable fact that legal
language is often requires an interpreter. (I would say the same about
code.) But it's a fact, and one we as an organization should respect. A
major part of CC's brand is that we are making do under the legal status
quo, not trying to change it. (Not directly, anyway.) We are happy let
others take on the age-old battle of democratizing legal code. Such a
worthy fight is outside our scope, as our tech people might say -- as a
matter of both principle and strategy.

This is where our layered approach to the licenses is crucial. We offer
three expressions of each license. First, the human-readable version,
which most users will interact with most of the time: a Commons Deed that
uses icons and the least amount of (plain) language possible to explain
the license's key provisions. Second, the lawyer-readable version: the
Legal Code that can be parsed by courts and their officers. Third, the
machine-readable expression: the metadata that allows browsers and other
web apps to identify and sort the licensed works by their terms of use.

We think that cleanly divorcing the Commons Deed from the Legal Code --
and presenting the Commons Deed as the primary point of reference -- is
the only way to guarantee both accessibility and legitimacy.

In summary: Useless legalese has been cut from our drafts to the greatest
extent possible. Unnecessarily confusing language has also be revised.
The other kind of "legalese," however -- reps and warranties, limitations
on liability, and much of our other legal boilerplate -- will largely
stay."







>
> DJ
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >>Round and round is good. We have time. Discussion is fine.
> >>
> >>Like I said, I'm happy to take all these names to the team, and I'll do
> >>so on an ongoing basis.
> >
> >
> >Yes but if we are all spending time discussing names and then they
> >are just taken to a team who pick one then it is hardly a legitimate
> >and participatory method of choosing the name. Why not start to
> >narrow the field, or somehow allow us to take stock of what we are
> >talking about, otherwise this is starting to resemble a talking shop
> >that gives the *impression* of participation but lacks any real
> >power.
> >
> >It certainly makes me wonder what the point of contributing if there
> >is no end in sight and newbies start us right at the beginning
> >again.. There surely needs to be some structure to how we are
> >forming some kind of consensus or decision..
> >
> >Indeed, there are multiple levels to this discussion, my
> >understanding (possibly misplaced) was that we were able to not just
> >*influence* with its implications of a small group of technocratic
> >'experts' distilling the ideas into 'sensible' solutions. But more
> >radically we could direct, write and hey maybe even name the license
> >so that it reflected the needs and wishes of musicians rather than
> >lawyers... and who is best to make the decisions if about a license
> >that is for musicians to use... not the lawyers thats for sure!
> >
> >And that's not to say I disagree with discussion, its just
> >unstructured, never ending, non-chaired, round and round discussion
> >that I have a problem with...
> >
> >David meme
> >
> >
> >--------THE OPEN SOURCE RECORD LABEL--------
> >
> >L O C A R E C O R D S
> >Stick to What You Don't Know?
> >
> > http://www.locarecords.com
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >cc-sampling mailing list
> >cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org
> >http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-sampling
>
> _______________________________________________
> cc-sampling mailing list
> cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-sampling
---------------------
Glenn Otis Brown
Executive Director
Creative Commons
glenn AT creativecommons.org
+1.650.723.7572 (telephone)
+1.415.336.1433 (mobile)




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