Cc-uk mailing list

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

>Firstly, do creative licences have a commercial element? We would argue they 
>act as a promotional tool and don't necessarily harm sales, but there is 
>little evidence we can find either way. 

It is important to remember that there is more than one CC license. All of 
the licenses can be used to commercial benefit, but not all can be used to 
immediately sell something. 

The Noncommercial licenses allow work to be promoted and later charged for.
The Sharealike licenses allow access to a pool of existing material.
The Noderivs licenses allow work to circulate withouit being used as part of 
a wider work.
The Attribution licenses give publicity.

These can all give important commercial advantages. Of the four, sharealike 
has the most potential for non-promotional commercal advantage. Sharealike 
(and Sampling) will be particularly important for downstream creators who 
will not have to pay crippling legal fees to build on the work of others.

A software company like Red Hat can be viewed as having made its millions by 
adding editorial value to free content (the editorialising being the assembly 
of the distro and the content being the Free Software code).

Cory Doctorow (http://www.boingboing.net, http://www.eff.org) is very 
persuasive in arguing that licensing will affect consumers perception of the 
value of the music, film, literature, etc. that they buy digitally. In this 
respect, Loca's CC-BY-SA music is not just good promotion, it's a good 
investment as I don't have to worry about cracking the DRM when I buy a new 
operating system.

There are examples of commercial use of CC licenses in the CC wbelog and 
featured commoners sections of the site:

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/archive
http://creativecommons.org/getcontent/

>Secondly, Are creative licenses compatible with the potential introduction 
>of criminal laws penalising peer-to-peer software providers who fail to take 
>reasonable care to prevent copyright infringement (Senate Bill 96, January 
>2005)?  

I do wonder about CC licenses and secondary liability. I'm guessing that such 
measures will target technology rather than contracts, so CC should be OK. 
Hopefully.
 
>Thirdly, How do creative licences interact with copyright law? Creative 
>licences seem to endorse peer-to-peer file-sharing while copyright 
>protection measures supported by the music industry seem to focus on 
>eradicating such software. Is this accurate?

The CC licenses are copyright licenses. Without copyright they would not 
function. 

The interesting thing about the CC licenses (and the GPL that inspired them) 
is that they ironise copyright licensing, requiring something other than 
money in return for use of work under the license.

CC have targeted file-sharing as an area to clarify. File-sharing may be 
viewed as the new radio. Or it may be viewed as the new bootleg scene. In 
either case it is a means for promoting music.

For what real musicians think about file sharing, rather than the imaginary 
musicians that the record industry always talk about, see this report:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/07/artists_not_concerned_about_file_sharing/

I sometimes wonder whether CC are just accidentally helping the next 
generation of content billionaires who will make their fortunes off of 
peer-ro-peer as long as there is enough content flowing over the network. :-)

>Fourthly, is there a risk that creative licences will over complicate the 
>law causing practical difficulties for users?

No. They add nothing extra to law. They are simply copyright licenses. CC 
have worked very hard to make the licenses clear and standard, and on that 
basis they will reduce difficulties for users (and producers! Don't forget 
producers! The licenses serve them as well!). 

>Finally, how can creative licences be enforced? Is this any easy than 
>protecting copyright? 

They are copyright licenses so enforcing them is the same as enforcing any 
copyright license. 

I'd like to see a DACS-style organisation that charges people who mis-use CC 
content.

- Rob.