Creative Commons Launches Today 166
Luke Francl writes "On December 16, the Creative Commons is unveiling their commons licenses. Well, their website is up a little early Creative Commons provides an easy way for creators to give away some of their rights under copyright law without wading through hundreds of pages debating the merits of the GPL verus the OPL versus the FDL verus the public domain ad infinitum. By answering three simple questions, the Creative Commons web application selects an appropriate license for you. You can give it a try at the Choose a License page. They've also got a list of all the Creative Commons licenses." Peter Wayner has released his book Free For All under the license.
Slight problem here (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Slight problem here (Score:5, Informative)
on the "Free for All" website. Come on. Not only was the parent an idiot, at least one moderator has propegated this bullshit.
Re:Slight problem here (Score:4, Interesting)
Whoever just updated the site, please confirm this - I fear for my Karma.
Re:Slight problem here (Score:2)
Nice idea.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Again well thought out idea that will hopefully help many people use more open licenses now that they can easily find which one to use.
endless debate (Score:4, Funny)
Because, after all they don't want to impinge on /.'s territory.
warm and fuzzy (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:sharealike = gpl? (Score:1)
Re:sharealike = gpl? (Score:4, Informative)
They're similar in spirit, but the GPL is more specifically tailored to computer code.
Re:sharealike = gpl? (Score:5, Informative)
ShareAlike license [creativecommons.org] -- the one you get if you click just the "sharealike" option when selecting licenses.
And if it is not, what was the need to create another license with the same conditions?
Unlike the GNU GPL, Creative Commons licenses are not be designed for software, but rather for other kinds of creative works: websites, scholarship, music, film, photography, literature, courseware, etc.
There is a pretty good FAQ [creativecommons.org] too.
Re:sharealike = gpl? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:sharealike = gpl? (Score:2)
Because of this, I don't see why they thought it necessary to create a new, almost identical license.
Re:sharealike = gpl? (Score:1)
Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Then again, I don't have the GPL stitched on my pillowcase like some of you.
Re:Interesting (Score:2)
Re:Interesting (Score:2)
License names (Score:2, Insightful)
Makes the Sun Community Source License seem simple.
Gallagher *-O-Matic (Score:3, Funny)
Legalize-O-Matic ?
Sledge-O-Matic, not just for spraying audiences anymore!!
Hmmm... (Score:2, Interesting)
I would also note that depending on the choices you make, you can easily end up with:
(i) a non-Open-Source compatible, non-DFSG-Free license, but one more akin to "source-available proprietary" -"Shared Source" or "Community Source" in Micro$oft/$un newspeak
or
(ii) a license that is Open Source, but not GPL compatible (e.g. recreates the old-style-BSD license, or prohibits commercial, non-proprietary use, which is permitted by the GPL).
This really muddies the waters further, not less, by blurring the distinction between Open and pseudo-open source.
Not really surprising given the O'Reilly involvement - they're known MS-apologists.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, it puts up walls and nicely cuts the muddy water from the clean water from the caustic clear acid.
Not EVERYONE wants a sticky copyleft free-as-in-fanatical license. The moral argument for such licenses should be made on its merits, not through doubletalk and rote intimidation.
Creative Commons could do a bit better if it linked to licenses that each selection was compatible with--and a bit better if it had a reverse lookup, where you could list the license of the source you want to use and you see your options for other licenses.
It's not about religion (Score:2, Insightful)
Nor is it a matter of ethics.
It's not about love, caring, thoughtfulness, kindness, compassion, vision, hope, intellect, wisdom, or sharing.
It's about feeding my kids.
And I'm sorry, and I'm sure I'll get flamed for this for going against typical Slashdot Zealout creedo, but the license that someone uses for their drawings or computer code or music tracks doesn't mean jack in the long run.
So I'll continue to get paid for the hard work I do and I'll continue to raise my kids the way they should be, and give them whatever they need when they need it.
I'm a father for Christ's sake, not the Pope.
Re:It's not about religion (Score:5, Insightful)
You could help with documentation, you could help with testing, you could help in their community assisting others.
That's what sharing is all about, making choices that aren't always just about you.
Who's going to teach your kids that ?
Re:It's not about religion (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh give me a fucking break, dude. Say it with me:
Every human act is selfish.
We all do stuff because it helps us. It makes us feel good about ourself, or gets us credibility, or makes us famous, or makes us money, etc. See?
Re:It's not about religion (Score:1)
Re:It's not about religion (Score:2)
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. What about if someone threw themselves in front of a car to save a little child? It would not do any of what you say, except perhaps get them in the local newspaper for a day, which they would not even know about.
Sometimes people just do things because they think it's the right thing to to.
Re:It's not about religion (Score:1)
How about someone that's so depressed that the kill themselves to save the rest of the world from what they see as there evilness.
what about someone who won't accept a gift because there afraid that it might make someone impoverished.
Re:It's not about religion (Score:1)
This statement is provably false, and the fact that you believe it vehemently enough to post it in bold-face preceded by "say it with me", is just sad. I really hope you figure out that it's wrong someday.
Re:It's not about religion (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's not about religion (Score:1)
Except for that one
Re:It's not about religion (Score:1)
"Genuine charity" is selfish, because makes giver feel good or maybe superior to those, who don't give.
When you give money (or services or...) to whatever cause you deem worthy, don't you feel good?
Re:It's not about religion (Score:1)
Re:It's not about religion (Score:1)
Re:It's not about religion (Score:2)
My words were chosen quite carefully. When I said "aren't always _just_ about you".
Sure, you can view any form of sharing/charity as selfish because "you" get something out of it, and that's certainly the truth. People do feel good about it.
However, the hair-splitting part is, "what's the motivation". I believe if your motivation is to help/share/assist others primarily, then that's sharing/charity.
If your motivation is "I'll feel good/get something out of this by sharing" then that's selfish.
Of course, people are welcome to disagree with my POV after all, this is a pretty personal issue.
Re:It's not about religion (Score:2)
If every human act is selfish then your definition of the word "selfish" is meaningless.
To state it another way, there must exist some human acts that are altruistic in order to give meaning to those human acts that are selfish.
Re:It's not about religion (Score:2)
Re:It's not about religion (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you think IBM release their contributions to Apache, or to Eclipse [eclipse.org] for reasons of "love, caring, thoughtfulness, kindness, compassion, vision, hope, intellect wisdom or sharing"? No, clearly IBM's bottom line is profits for their shareholders.
Open Source *can* be akin to volunteer work, but it isn't always. Alan Cox gets paid good money for hacking the Linux kernel.
On the other hand, would you really want your kids to see the message you've just posted "it's OK to compromise any ethics you have, if it helps you and yours"? Would you care to take your kids into a charity shop, to watch you explain to the volounteer help the folly of their ways? Is that "raising your kids the way they should be"?
Can't wait to meet your kids (Score:2)
The best thing is that I can say is that I hope you inherit the world you're advocating.
Give your kids what they need? So your need trumps everything else? This sounds like pure Marxism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need
Frankly, you shouldn't have bred.
Re:It's not about religion (Score:2)
Re:It's not about religion (Score:4, Insightful)
You may not want to give anyone else's children your work for free, and I understand that. But when someone else offers *your* child a gift for free, and gives you a chance to work one less hour for your children, and perhaps spend one more hour with them instead - well, I'd grab that gift and say thankyou, too.
(And if you don't like the moral aspect, here's a more practical reading: I think it sets a good example for the kids to follow. So, at least, after you've given them all your hard effort for free, they don't turn around and say: "Well, the generosity you showed to me as a child doesn't mean jack in the long run. It's about my feeding *my* kids, grandpa. I'm a descendant, for Christ's sake, not the Pope.")
Friends of the Earth license. (Score:5, Funny)
'you can do anything you like with this so long as you don't vote for or support George W Bush.'
Looks like I'll have to keep the formula for philosophers stone to my self for a while.
Gray-suited legions of evil. (Score:4, Insightful)
This stuff doesn't strike me as being particularly lawyerproof.
Here's hoping I'm wrong.
Re:Gray-suited legions of evil. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gray-suited legions of evil. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd use a license from these people WELL before I'd ever use a license written by RMS.
Re:Gray-suited legions of evil. (Score:2)
BTW, love the subject line
Who will use this? (Score:4, Interesting)
It is not going to replace copyright for music or books (I realise these aren't mentioned, I'm just trying to think of some possible use - theirs are pretty crap and unlikely) for example - the industry wouldn't touch it for obvious reasons.
If it takes off at all, it would be for the benefit of amateurs only, but then, what's the point?
Re:Who will use this? (Score:2, Informative)
Basically, you just increased your potential sales via word-of-mouth exponentially, without anyone involved having to worry about whether or not they're breaking the law or having to contact you for explicit permission. This isn't about "the industry"; they've already designed their business models around the traditional approach to copyright. This is for artists.
Re:Who will use this? (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is that CC is defining a licensing alternative for creators to use independent of signing their life and work away to corporate masters. I applaud their efforts as a reasonable step in freeing artistic works from corporate control. Perhaps with a strong legal infrastructure such as this in place (let's face it, artists typically don't pay much attention to such matters, which is how so many of them end up paupers while the label/studio/publisher profits from their work) we will finally start to see the power of corporate copyright diminish and true (I never thought I'd say this word with a straight face) empowerment of the creators.
You Woefully Miss the Point (Score:4, Interesting)
I will [expressivefreedom.org], for one, and many others already have. [creativecommons.org]
Although this seems like a fine idea in theory, I am having difficulty imagining many situations where people would use it, which would be useful to others.
There is already a bunch of material licensed under their licenses, and numerous other efforts to achieve similar results under which a great deal of good music and prose is licensed. Clearly there are many others who are having little difficulty in finding these sorts of free licenses useful.
It is not going to replace copyright for music or books (I realise these aren't mentioned, I'm just trying to think of some possible use - theirs are pretty crap and unlikely) for example - the industry wouldn't touch it for obvious reasons.
It isn't "replacing copyright" (though drastic copyright reform eliminating the government monopoly entitlements it grants with a more balanced "sales tax as creator royalty" scheme would be highly desirable), it is creating a license that, similar to the BSD License, the FDL, and the GPL, will facilitate a growing commons of material all creative people can use and build upon.
Finally, who gives a fuck about the "industry" as such. Their purposes are already served, and have been so by a century of corrupt copyright legislation bought and paid for from our inexpensively purchased "representatives" in congress. The cultural squatters of New York, Nashville, and Hollywood, and the cartels they have formed, are the reason that the "vast cultural wasteland" of television and the lack of cultural depth in modern society have become so obvious, and such obvious truisms that they have become cliches.
These free licenses aren't intended to benefit the entrenched "industry" any more than the GPL is designed to Benefit the Sun Microsystems and Microsoft's of the world. It is intended to benefit ARTISTS and CREATIVE PEOPLE, not cultural squatters and an industry that has denigrated the art into a mere product of mass production, filtered down to the lowest common denominator.
If it takes off at all, it would be for the benefit of amateurs only, but then, what's the point?
First this is nonsense. One could have made the same inane (and in retrospect obviously incorrect) argument against the GPL, which has benefitted both amateurs (such as Linus Torvalds when he first began writing the Linux kernel) and professionals (such as IBM).
Likewise, the Creative Commons will empower amateurs (such as myself) and professionals. No, it won't empower Time Warner any more than the GPL empowers Microsoft, but it will empower Indy music and film makers (who are often professionals and not amateurs, though they often serve as a bridge in getting new and talented filmmakers noticed).
Second, every professional was at one time in their career an amateur. A great deal of amateur material is crap, but a great deal is also excellent. Having that material available as part of a commons, free to be distributed, improved upon, and incorporated into other, grander works is a very valuable thing to artists, to society, and to the health of our cultural heritage itself. No, it doesn't benefit Disney and Time-Warner, it benefits the tens of thousands of talented artists Disney, Time-Warner, and others of their ilk have traditionally trampled under their feet, and in addition it benefits the rest of us who enjoy and admire such works.
And that is very, very good thing, tripe and propoganda from the "industry" at its shills and astroturfers notwithstanding.
Re:Who will use this? (Score:2)
If it takes off at all, it would be for the benefit of amateurs only, but then, what's the point?
My How to use a compass [learn-orienteering.org] will be available under a CC lisence (Attribute-ShareAlike) or FDL or something similar.
I got an e-mail from a guy who was about to quit is job and go into teaching outdoor skills full-time. He needed good instruction materials, and so he wondered if he could use my material professionally. I said yes, and told him about copyleft and Creative Commons. He thought it was brilliant. When I release this stuff, this means that there will be at least one professional using and contributing back to the project, a big win for everyone.
It's not about amateurs. It is about basing economy on common goods.
Re:Who will use this? (Score:1)
It's not just a fine idea in theory: it's a fine idea in practice. This is exactly the kind of thing I want for releasing my music.
I currently labour in obscurity, and one day, when I release another album, I'll probably want some way to promote it - that is, get as many people as possible to hear it, on the theory that a few of them will want to hear it again. One good way for me to do this is to release my music into the world (the Internet is an ideal way to do this), and let it spread by word-of-mouth (word-of-ear?). If somebody hears my stuff and likes it, he very well might buy a CD from me. It's what I'd do myself, and I don't think I'm all that weird.
The Creative Commons licences look like excellent candidates for this. I can use them to declare, legally and explicitly, that people can trade my music. If even ten people buy CDs as a result, I won't complain, since I'm not exactly making a lot of money off my stuff right now. ;) (And that's fine. I decided not to make music to make money. I became an engineer instead.)
Furthermore, I quite like the idea of people taking samples from my stuff and making other things with it. I'd be very flattered if they did. The "derivative works" licence allows me to declare that I explicitly give people permission to do that.
Suppose that Dr. Dre, for example, happens to hear a track of mine, and loops part of it into an Eminem hit or something. A certain small percentage of the people who hear it will like it (the sample, I mean), and will want to know where he got that sample from. They'll find out that it was me, because Dre will - in theory at least - have to give me credit. Then they'll order a CD - and a small percentage of Dre's listenership is still a very large number of people. Therefore, when they buy CDs, I'll get rich and famous :D.
Of course, that example is completely hypothetical and not a little far-fetched. But it illustrates one very practical reason why I consider the sampling of my work a good thing for me. Sampling, to me, is something like free promotion, to say nothing of flattery. The Creative Commons licences allow me to explicitly grant people permission to do it.
Great ideas, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder however, if people may shy away from this great resource simply because it lacks the exposure and "clout" of the GPL? That would truly be a unfortunate outcome.
Cool but.... (Score:4, Insightful)
But i think the trouble is that this selection system will ultimately invite people not to think of the differences between the licences.
Fine, it's nice to select a license quickly, but people won't be able to understand why choose this license instead of another one, or the issues related to each type of licences....
People will prefer this selection method instead of balancing pros & cons (i admit it can sometimes be a real pain if you release a lot of projects), thus losing track of the differences between all the licences...
Re:Cool but.... (Score:1)
Having a set of options, if they meet my criteria for how I want my project to be used makes it much easier. If it covers the key points of what I want a license to cover why should I have to worry with the gory details of a license if one already exists?
I think it is really more of a question that people should think more clearly about how they want their projects to be used. It is not really a question of licensing. Licensing is just a way to see your "vision" come to fruition. I don't see license as what set off a vision, just a means to a particular end.
Jeremy
Re:Cool but.... (Score:2)
And look! I was right.
What about the rest of the world? (Score:5, Interesting)
Are the licenses applicable outside the US?
If so, wouldn't it be nice to provide the license text in other languages (at least the main ones: French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, etc.)?
JB.
Re:What about the rest of the world? (Score:4, Funny)
2. The Right Rights Of Uso. Nothing thinks about this license to reduce, to limit, or to restrict the no rights that appear of right use, the first sale or other limitations in the exclusive rights of the owner of copyright under applicable law of copyright or other laws. 3, License Grant. According to the terms and to the conditions of this license, the licenciador by this means grants (for the duration of copyright applicable) a world-wide, right license to him frees, non-exclusive, perpetual to down exercise the rights in the work according to the indicated thing: in order to reproduce the work, to incorporate the work in or more collective works, and to reproduce the work according to the built-in thing in the collective works; in order to distribute to copies or phonorecords of, it exhibits public, it realícese public, and it makes public by means of a digital audio transmission the work including according to the incorporated thing in collective works; The aforesaid rights can be exercised in all means and formats if now they are known or from now on devised. The aforesaid rights include the right to make the modifications such as they are technician necessary to exercise the rights in other means and formats. All the rights nonexpress granted by Licensor are not reserved by this medio.reserved.
Not Bad.
Re:What about the rest of the world? (Score:1)
Totall Useless (Score:3, Funny)
Good but not good enough (Score:3, Interesting)
I think no license is user-friendly if it can't be understood and bothered to be read by a 10-year old. Consider the fact that legally ANYONE SHOULD read and understand the license of every single piece of software they use and the usage agreement of every single website they visit that has one. In present time this is simply impossible.
Re:Good but not good enough (Score:3, Insightful)
On Slashdot and elsewhere, people frequently bandy about terms like theft and copyright infringement as if they were equivalent; in a strictly legal sense they most certainly are not. (I will leave aside the moral issues.) Similarly, people will often use theft, burglary, and robbery interchangeably. Again, beyond sharing the basic idea of taking something that isn't yours, these crimes are very different in nature.
Try going before a court with a well-intentioned but poorly-written contract or license. See how far you get. You should only need to get bitten once before you gain an appreciation of legalese.
Analogy for /.ers: if you feed gcc a text file explaining in plain English the program that you want, will it work? Or do you have to follow rules of syntax, vocabulary, and grammar, understanding that the system only works if you are explicit and precise in your use of language?
Re:Good but not good enough (Score:1)
Re:Good but not good enough (Score:1)
How often do poeple on Slashdot talk about turning their friends, kids, granny to Linux? Have they ever thought about making them read the GPL before they touch any Linux?
I for one would suffice with a license somewhat in this wording:
"You may do with this software and sourcecode whatever you want, as long as you give me credit for anything that is based on or makes use of this software."
I think this is a lot more considerate than Creative Common's version [creativecommons.org] of basically the same license.
Bad for Open Source (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bad for Open Source (Score:2)
Software producers should probably use one of the many open-source software licenses which are customized to the nature of software as a creative work. However, there is a lack of viable liberal licenses for reseach, literary, visual and musical works.
Re:Bad for Open Source (Score:1)
Multiplication of instances beyond necessity (Score:3, Insightful)
There's simply not enough information regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the given licenses, and how they compare to the incumbents, to make them compelling. And if they're not compelling then they're just another 8 licenses to try and pin the tail on when you're starting up a project.
Re:Multiplication of instances beyond necessity (Score:2)
Perhaps it is just you. The big strength (and limitation) of the GPL and BSD license is that they exclusively define rights in terms of software: source code and object code. This works great for software but applies less well to other creative works. For example, the GPL does not handle the problem of a mixed media artist who wishes to use a photograph in a collage. Or the playright who wants to create a drama based around a painting. Or the musician who wants to sample the work of an Middle Eastern music ensemble.
Currently there are no standards for other creative works other beyond public domain and 'all rights reserved'. So actually, I disagree that the idea is to 'forget that GPL, BSD and whatnot ever really existed'. The GPL is great, if you are producing software. BSD is great, if you are producing software. If you are producing textbooks, educational multimedia, film, music, drama, poetry, or just about anything that is not software.
Re:Multiplication of instances beyond necessity (Score:2)
Public domain (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, the Open Source Initiative refuse to certify public domain code as Open Source (they did in an earlier version of the Open Source definition, but not now, according to license-approval@opensource.org). So in a way this is another split between the Stallman / Lessig / FSF camp and the Eric Raymond / OSI camp, even though in theory they hold the same set of criteria for deciding what is free.
Don't use, if you want people to use your code (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the problem, the OpenSource world is all about everyone else. It almost doesn't matter how good your code is, if you aren't using a license I've heard of and understand then I'm not going to bother looking at/using your code.
Here's the simple answer:
In theory you can substitute public domain for the first option, but in reality this is very murky ... and you're probably better off just BSD/LGPL dual licensing.
Remeber you're trying to get technical people to use your product, we are coders, not lawyers.
Re:Don't use, if you want people to use your code (Score:2)
That being said, I'd like to elaborate on the choice of software licenses, though. Rather than thinking about the code, think about what you want to achieve with your code:
Re:Don't use, if you want people to use your code (Score:2, Interesting)
Right now we don't plan to get involved in software licensing at all. Instead, we'll concentrate on scholarship, film, literature, music, photography, and other kinds of creative works. To the extent that we'll deal with types of content that others are already building licenses for -- take the EFF's Open Audio License, for example -- we view that as a good thing. The more ways authors have to get their works out in the public sphere, the better.
Your recommendations may well apply to software, and in all honesty I would probably GPL any software I wrote which I thought had any usefulness at all to others. However, I feel differently about my writing -- I consider it more important and more personal, and though I am willing to post it online for others to read, I have a couple concerns.
Basically I don't want anyone to take credit for something I've written, and I don't want anyone to make a profit off of it if I am not also included in the profiting. I know that I gain these rights automatically whenever I create a work, but it is not entirely clear to the casual visitor/reader what happens to those rights once I've placed something online.
So the Creative Commons licenses provide a fast, headache-free way for me to share my works while also spelling out what my intentions are. For example, I selected the "Attribution, No Derivatives, Non-commercial Use" license for one of my plays [koden.org].
Any reader curious about what rights have been granted can easily find out, and if a dispute arises, I can point them to a legally sound resource supporting my position.
This particular play was available online previously as a locked down PDF, which was not a solution I was particularly happy with, but which seemed workable at the time. I am much more comfortable with the present license, which incidentally forbides the very digital restrictions I felt the need to impose before.
This is no big loss, in my opinion. My goal is to share, not to police, and the licenses that Creative Commons offers help me achieve that goal in a satisfactory way.
Really good idea! (Score:1)
I would REALLY like to see something like this site, but slightly more involved, with a few more questions (with the description popup tips you can click on) where the end result is either a funky name like "Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial License" or GPL or something like that if the answers you picked to the questions actually fit GPL. Having only the funky names for responses doesn't seem complete enough to me.
Koan (Score:5, Funny)
The master immediately slapped the disciple upside his head.
"Master, why did you strike me?"
"We have no need for yet another free software license!"
The disciple was suddenly enlightened.
Re:Koan (Score:5, Funny)
One day, the disciple said unto the master: "Master, there are so many free software licenses with so many different requirements that nobody can possibly remember them all. I shall design my own set of unified free software licenses to replace all the others, and thereby set us all free!"
The master immediately slapped the disciple.
"Master, why did you strike me?"
The master said nothing, and the disciple went away.
The next day, the disciple returned to the master, but before he could say anything, the master immediately slapped the disciple.
"Master, why did you strike me again?"
"I did not strike you again. Yesterday, I struck you with my left hand. Today I strike you with my right hand. Tomorrow I shall kick you."
The disciple was suddenly enlightened.
Gag me (Score:1, Funny)
Go Rich go, let those synapses fire away w/those big eyeballs while we all gag.
Ibiblio.org-Creative Commons sites (Score:2, Informative)
You can check it out by going to the home page http://www.ibiblio.org [ibiblio.org]
You might find it interesting to see the licenses in action.
Potential Recursion Problem (Score:3, Interesting)
as soon as i saw the story, i went to the site and started on the merry path to licensing out some content (maybe some pictures [biztos.com] or something)...
but the license i was most interested in, Attribution + Share Alike, seemed to present a recursion problem.
with software licenses this isn't such a big deal, because a big fat license and attribution file can be included (license.txt) and often is.
but with something like a picture, the attribution and/or copyright notice is not realistically going to be longer than a "normal" URL.
i send them a note about this, which i quote below. hopefully somebody has greater insight into this than i do, because to me it looks like you could end up doing a whole lotta work building your license.html pages on your website (mary in the example below) or you're more or less begging to be plagiarized.
the example:
i take a picture, you (joe) modify it, someone else (mary) modifies that, and it gets printed in a magazine. what's the credit? "foto by frost/joe/mary" or "foto by mary/joe/frost" or....?
this gets really complicated if, say, i provide a bland little picture and joe crops and enlarges it to make it interesting and then mary uses it in a collage that's really beautiful... wherein mary is really the primary author of her piece, and i am the author of the source of a component thereof. and what if mary has used fifty such pieces? soon there is more attribution than she can reasonably expect to print next to pictures of the collage (which she has, after all, been required to license)... do we then have an attribution link?
and in such a case, if all the original elements were licensed through creativecommons, would there be a way, on that website, to show all the attributions within one URL (with licenses)?
if i license something with "Attribution + Share Alike" that itself uses things licensed with "Attribution + Share Alike," i probably need to include those licenses' links and attributions within the creativecommons link to my page... at a very minimum.
Re:Potential Recursion Problem (Score:1)
Re:Potential Recursion Problem (Score:1)
obviously it's in the spirit of the license to have all authors duly credited even if there are a lot of them. on the other hand that's a daunting task when you get into things like collage, or a whole website, or...
i imagine a technological solution to this, maybe complexcopyright.org or something.
further musing: is ALT sufficient attribution for an image on the web? if i make a whole site with graphics of "Attribution+Share Alike" license, can i just have one "image credits" link at the bottom of each page?
It's not all about code (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's not all about code (Score:2)
Basically, the GPL and BSD license only deal with a and b within a specific media. These licenses do not cover phonorecords, public performance, public display or digital audio transmission.
This is probably totally off topic (Score:2)
To make matters worse, AT&T often wanted the BSD team to include features that would force all the BSD users to buy a newer, more expensive license from AT&T. In addition, license verification was never a quick or easy task. McKusick says, "We had a person whose fulltime job was to keep the AT&T licensing person happy." In the end, he concludes, "They paid us next to nothing and got a huge windfall."
HmmmmmmCan a license be licensed under itself? (Score:1, Funny)
something simple for a change (Score:1)
Sure, as someone pointed out above, this may mean I may not have to investigate and think about the differences between existing licenses. Well, IMO, that would be a 'good thing'. I have other things to think about.
And imagine all those for who english is not their mother tongue. With this license, I would only have a few words to teach my francophone colleagues. Actually, come to think of it, I'm sure a lot of anglophones can't understand legalese either...
This would actually be my main critique of OS: so much of it is needlessly complicated.
Too many long licenses, short and/or inaccurate or no docs/installation notes, ideological camps all over the spectrum and so little plain speak.
Looking for blog software recently, I was unable to find something that I thought worked well that I could maintain (I guess I'll have to learn to use Perl). Sorting through all the different projects, I wished people would say "we started this slash port because we wanted something in our fave language"/"we think slash is a great idea, but has a poor architecture and would be easier to maintain written in an OO language".
For the most part, and on most OS projects, No such luck. Although this idea introduces even more licenses, it's still a step in the right direction: simplicity. Now, if we could make it that easy to find/compare OS software...
By answering three simple questions... (Score:2)
2) Do you want any large coporation to get their asses sued for using your code?
3) Are you hot?
this is useful (Score:2, Insightful)
the varous open source software licenses have to deal with all the complexity of a medium where each product is compound, divisible, modifiable and copiable. that's why they're either very very short or very very long. For anything more restrictive than the MIT license's 'whatever, dude, but i made it', it gets complicated.
what cc are trying to do, like many others, is take the principles of the open source movement, and some of the lessons learned there, and apply them to the broader field of creative production. Unlike many others, they're trying to make it easy to use, without concealing the complexity of the subject, and I think they've pulled out exactly the right three questions to do that.
I get this kind of question all the time: i'm one part programmer and one part artist, most of my friends are wholly one or the other, and it's hard work trying to make sense of open source to writers, activists, people who just make things. The open part they tend to like, but the source part makes no sense at all. compile what?
Still, they eventually get this vague idea that someone else could take what they're doing, do something interesting with it and bring it back, and the light bulb goes off: their creative monologue will turn into a conversation, they'll gain ideas and confidence and get better at what they do. But how? And where to start? Go to GNU? I don't think so. Even opencontent.org gets all hair-shirt legal at you.
CC is friendly, supportive and prepared to put the money into lawyering things for the benefit of others. It would benefit from more historical and ideological context, a bit of cheering up and more clear recommendations to go with the questions, but I for one am grateful for a bit of potentially important work well done, even if I never use it because the GPL works fine for what I make.
I use a Creative Commons license (Score:2)
I started using their license ideas on my web site a few weeks ago.
Pardon a small plug, but you can get my free web books (under a CC license) here [markwatson.com].
-Mark
Re:I use a Creative Commons license (Score:2)
1. stop posting as an AC - it is better to know who one is speaking with!
2. I get very positive feedback from my free web books - try a google newsgroup search for comments on my web books. Better yet, try reading one.
Apache is given away for free; is it crap? I have my own motivations for spending about 10 hours per week working on my free web books - and most of that motivation is unselfish
-Mark
I want the inverse (Score:1)
Ya, that's the ticket!
There's no BSD-style option (Score:1)
Last Post! (Score:1)
Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this.
The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame.
-- Chuq Von Rospach
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
i agree (Score:1, Troll)
i liked it better before they came around.
Re:-1 Offtopic (Score:1, Troll)
Re:-1 Offtopic (Score:2, Informative)
or really? [openoffice.org] besides, microsoft has the OPTION (read: not it's primary, default format)
openoffice has been xml for quite a while now, and I'm sure there are others as well.
oh yeah, why do you have me listed as a foe? hope I'm not raining on your parade.
sorry man, my bad.
Re:-1 Offtopic (Score:1)