Re: Public review period for Creative Commons 2.0 license draft
I did a quick review after seeing the message to debian-legal; the *changes*
look fine (several are very valuable improvements, such as the addition of
"or copyright law" to the first clause). But I never did review the
original licenses, which I should....
From the point of view of Debian, it looks like
* the Attribution, Attribution-ShareAlike, and ShareAlike licenses are
intended to make works DFSG-free.
* the others aren't, but are intended to make works freely distributible
(material under them can go in the non-free archive)
If anyone on debian-legal notices impediments to either thing, they're worth
pointing out so that CC can try to fix them.
I spotted the following problem in part of the text which isn't actually part
of the license:
"Except for the limited purpose of indicating to the public that the Work is
licensed under the CCPL, neither party will use the trademark "Creative
Commons" or any related trademark or logo of Creative Commons without the
prior written consent of Creative Commons."
Too broad. This denies legitimate, otherwise-legal uses of the trademarks,
such as for commentary and criticism (uses which will not cause confusion
about the trademark to the public). It also doesn't specificallly grant a
license to use the trademarks. What you want to say is something more like
the following:
Creative Commons grants everyone a license to use the trademark "Creative
Commons" and related trademarks and logos to indicate to the public that the
Work is licensed under the CCPL. Creative Commons reserves all other rights
to its trademarks under trademark law; nobody may use the tradmark "Creative
Commons" or any related trademark or logo of Creative Commons without the
prior written consent of Creative Commons, except as allowed under trademark
law. (rest of paragraph follows as before)
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