Re: creative commons
Jeff Carr <basilarchia@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 01/09/07 02:10, MJ Ray wrote:
> > Hardly. CC fans seem to see nothing wrong with discriminating against any
> > field of endeavour, such as commerce or technical protection.
>
> I wonder if that's an accurate description of the position of the
> Creative Common's lawyers. It seems lots of questions have been raised
> and the lawyers there are thinking about the issues.
I've no idea about CC's lawyers. They seemed very uncommunicative and
CC as a whole seemed opaque.
> [...] Let me start with this general background premise:
>
> The creative commons is a group that is an ally to Debian and the free
> software movement. We have a bunch of world class legal minds trying
> to help work within a legal framework to provide protection for
> various projects and works that can help the free software movement.
> The CC lawyers are trying to draft a generic, useful and good license.
>
> I think that's worth keeping in mind and repeating on this issue :)
Why? Because if it's posted often enough, people may start to believe
it, despite the growing amount of evidence?
I saw this recently and I can't put it any better:
"So what this shows is a basic philosophical difference between
Creative Commons and the Free Software movement. Creative Commons
may have been in some sense inspired by the Free Software movement,
but it isn't similar to the Free Software movement. The Free Software
movement starts by saying: these are the essential freedoms, everyone
should have these freedoms, we're going to work to establish and
defend these freedoms. Creative Commons doesn't say anything like
that. Creative Commons talks about helping copyright holders exercise
their power flexibly. A totally different philosophical orientation."
Richard Stallman, answers to questions following the talk "The Free
Software Movement and the Future of Freedom", 9 March 2006
http://fsfeurope.org/documents/rms-fs-2006-03-09.en.html#q6
The above 'general background premise' is incorrect. Free software is
about freedom, while CC is about building legal frameworks. Sometimes
free software and CC may be fellow travellers, but I've seen little
evidence that they are allies.
Therefore, the rest of the argument is weak, relying on faith in an
incorrect premise.
> In the conversations like the ones you sent links for above, there are
> many theoretical examples of how the license may be used for bad or
> non-DSFG purposes. Those are mostly ignored by the CC guys (as far as
> I can tell) and are unconvincing for me for the same reason:
>
> The lawyers are looking for legal problems. Positive feedback about
> the legal aspects are helpful.
I'm fairly sure that it is legally possible to discriminate against fields
in the ways that CC seem to want to. I have no desire to strengthen their
tools for that discrimination.
The problems with CC are freedom and democracy. Those are not necessarily
legal problems for the lawyers.
> One good read on the subject of
> potential legal problems I've seen:
> http://fr.creativecommons.org/articles/sweden.htm
National differences seem to increase the usefulness of CC licences, so
I'm surprised and disappointed to see someone conclude 'It may also need
to have a common jurisdiction and court for all licenses'. That would
attempt to impose one court's rule over the world and could introduce a
large fee for most users, discriminating against people not usually
subject to that court. See all the arguments about choice-of-venue
clauses in here in the past.
> I remain unconvinced that the CC lawyers and advisers don't have
> reasons to add an optional non-commercial clause for a purpose that
> will be important to free software in the future and in alignment with
> the intent of the DSFG.
So we should trust that CC lawyers are a good priesthood?
What would convince you that discriminating against commerce is incompatible
with free software?
Essentially, my main complaint against 'non-commercial' licensing is that
they are Rich Man's Licence, requiring people to fund various things to do
with it out of their own pocket.
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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