On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Geoffrey Plourde<[email protected]> wrote: > The Commons Force proposal represents a clear and present danger, both for > whoever hosts it and participates in it. It is not for a third party to > intervene in a contract between two people and only two people.
This kind of attitude seems to me to be a byproduct of the fact that, despite being intended to help fix the flaws in the copyright system, Creative Commons and other free licenses are "hacks" that are built on top of copyright. The construction of CC licenses as contracts between copyright owner and user is part of the hack, but not necessarily ideal for promoting a robust creative commons (in the lower case, general sense). If a copyleft license is being violated, that is potentially of concern beyond the two legal parties, since properly using the license would mean that derivative works are also part of the commons and available for others to use and adapt. And more broadly, a society that values the commons and with effective norms for following CC licenses properly is better for everyone who contributes to and partakes in the commons. Widespread awareness of the costs and benefits of joining the commons versus cutting oneself off from it is a prerequisite for copyleft to work properly (i.e., to incentivize further contributions to the commons). Some recent related reading I found interesting: http://www.copycense.com/2009/08/is_creative_commons_good_for_copyright.html -Sage _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
