Cc-uk mailing list

[Cory Doctorow <doctorow AT craphound.com>]

Hey, Podromos! Thanks for sending this out, and for all the work it 
represents. It is a substantial and heartening advance on the previous 
version. I have three reservations, though; two minor and one major:

Minor:

* The use of "owner" instead of "rightsholder." Even WIPO prefers the 
latter to the former; the word "owner" implies that IP is not a 
metaphor for property, but property itself, and I have only heard the 
term "owner" applied by maximalists in reference to themselves in an 
effort to cloud the issue; I usually bust in and say, "owner? Look, I 
*own* my house, which means that it doesn't enter the public domain 70 
years after I die; I *hold rights to* my books, because they *do* enter 
the public domain after I die."

* I'm not clear on what "sublicensing the work" means in this context, 
nor why a user would not be allowed to do so

Major:

The issue of Moral Rights raised in this and the previous draft invites 
disaster for CCUK. I will never license one of my works under a license 
that allows me to revoke it later on the grounds that I have been 
"defamed" -- and I believe that anyone who *does* take or grant a 
license under these terms is courting disaster.

The spirit and practice of CC is CERTAINTY, the certain knowledge that 
you MAY do x, y and z, and that you may rely upon your ability to do x, 
y and z not changing. If we include moral rights in this license, we 
remove all certainty from the process. Anyone who takes a license under 
these terms can never be sure that her art will be allowed to circulate 
and be enjoyed because at any time, the original author may 
capriciously enjoin her from publication. We are asking people to build 
a library on a foundation made of shifting sand and straw, and it will 
be a terrible thing if we allow this to pass.

At very least, I believe we should make NO MENTION of moral rights. An 
author may or may not choose to assert moral rights, but we're not 
endorsing such a thing, at least.

At best, we should require licensees to WAIVE moral rights, as is 
standard in every UK publishing contract I've ever signed. The reason 
it is standard is that moral rights allow authors to capriciously 
destroy collective works in which their creations form a small piece, 
from magazines to collages.

I know we've talked about this before in private -- I hope that you can 
see your way clear to removing the moral rights clauses from the 
license (or better still, replacing them with waivers of same).

I've made more small edits  in redline -- see attachment.

Attachment: CC-UK v3(P)CD.doc
Description: MS-Word document

Thanks again,

Cory

On Sep 21, 2004, at 11:08 AM, Prodromos Tsiavos wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> We have tried to incorporate most of your comments into version 3 of 
> the
> license, which I am posting today for further comments.
>
> In the past one month we have worked on making the license more 
> compatible with
> CC 2.0 while retaining the plain language. We are also working on an
> alternative version which is closer to CC 2.0 but it is not ready for 
> release
> as yet. As soon as we have it ready I will post it.
>
> So, to answer Rob’s and Jonathan questions:
> (a)     v.3.0 is the latest version of the license but it has not been
> finalised as yet.
> (b)	We are expecting CC to approve the licenses by the end of 
> September, so
> we need to have your comments by the beginning of next week.
> (c)	You may check v.3.0 and let me know what you think about the 
> changes we
> have made and whether they address your concerns.
> (d)	The licenses are not finalised as yet so your comments are 
> welcome. I
> could not release v.3.0 before as I only got the latest internal 
> feedback on
> Friday.
> (e)     We will only make the license publicly available once it has been
> approved by CC.
>
> Thanks
> Prodromos
>
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