Hello Free Culture: Two issues I've seen on the list I wanted to follow-up on:
First, re the built upon bricks in our remix logo. Yes, we totally stole the icon. I think it was my idea to do so. It was also my fault that we failed to acknowledge it. That was to be my job. I apologize that I didn't. Of course if you object, we'll move on. But I would be really grateful if you didn't. First, in the spirit Nelson wrote about, while I certainly think it was my job to acknowledge the source (and again, mea culpa that I didn't), it doesn't seem appropriate to ask permission. Second, it would be weird if you would object to our building upon your building upon my work. Third, I can't see people are going to confuse the icon with the movement. That's how TM lawyers think. Which is to say, that's how we shouldn't think. But in any case, we'll of course respect your decision which ever way you want to go. Second, with respect to Janet's criticism of CC's "termination of transfer" project. I had written Janet about this, but hadn't heard anything back from her. (Though email seems to be insanely bad these days). As I said to her, this is a hugely important project if we're to liberate a huge amount of scientific material assigned to publishers and now sitting unused and unusable. For remember: this is a tool to terminate an author's transfer to someone else, and that someone else is 99% of the time a publisher. It is plainly correct that this will raise -- in 35 years -- a question about CC licensed materials. In my view, CC authors should have the same rights as any other author. But even if you don't think that, it is useful to note the very difficult process anyone one making work available in a public license would have to exercise the ToT provisions (how do you give notice to everyone using the license?). My hope is that if your movement is successful, copyright law will be radically reformed in 35 years. But whether your successful or not, it seems wrong to give up the cache of culture now locked up by publishers simply because you fear, in 35 years, some CC author might be able to reclaim his or her copyright. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
