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[Jonathan Mitchell <website3 AT jonathanmitchell.info>]

Title: New CC 2.5 licences for the UK jurisdictions

The Scottish CC licences, 2.5 edition, are at last available for use at http://creativecommons.org/license/ ; a direct link to the full text of the non-commercial sharealike is at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/scotland/legalcode . Thanks to all who assisted with suggestions, and congratulations to Andrés Guadumuz at 
http://technollama.blogspot.com/ for using one within minutes of its release!

I am very pleased to say that this edition, which seeks to apply the full effect of the generic licences in plain language in compliance with the European Unfair Contract Terms Directive article 5 http://tinyurl.com/b6r9x , has cut the length of the original by 35-40% with no loss of meaning. On a Flesch readability test, not that I think this is the best indicator of clarity, its score is about 40 against about 26 for the generic. Perhaps, when drafting the 3.0 licences, clarity might be recognised as an important requirement; in the past it hasn’t been, and I think this licence shows it is at least partly possible.

The Scottish licences will now be used as the basis for revised E&W licences, so bringing these into line with the terms of the generic and other 2.5 licences. As some readers of this list will be aware, there have been changes in the direction of the EW project in the last few months which it will hopefully be announcing shortly ; it was thought that, rather than work simultaneously on drafts for different countries in the UK, the Scottish one should be used as the working draft for a revised English licence.

Cheers!

Jonathan
-- 
Jonathan Mitchell QC
Joint project lead, Creative Commons Scotland

Murray Stable, Advocates Library, Parliament House, Edinburgh EH1 1RF, Scotland
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CCS website: http://creativecommons.org.uk/?n=Scotland.Home
Personal website: http://www.jonathanmitchell.info