Robert A. Knop Jr. wrote:
The first issue seems to be that CC licensing is too complicated. I
don't get this. What's so complicated about it?
It's both mutli-tiered and politically motivated. You can't just say
"This work is Creative Commons", the way you can say "this work is
GPL'd". You have to select a particular license, which means weighing
the pros and cons of the various texts.
After more than a little digging (FAR more than it takes to find either
the OGL or the GPL), I found a list of the six Creative Commons licenses
at http://creativecommons.org/license/meet-the-licenses.
All of these require attribution and sharing, and three require no
"commercial activity." Which, if you dig into the legal code and find
section 4(b), means
"You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3
above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward
commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. The exchange of
the Work for other copyrighted works by means of digital file-sharing or
otherwise shall not be considered to be intended for or directed toward
commercial advantage or private monetary compensation, provided there is
no payment of any monetary compensation in connection with the exchange
of copyrighted works."
Which seems straightforward until you actually want to do something with
it. Does this mean you can't collect donations? Does it mean that you
can't run advertisements to raise funds? Does it meant that you can't
use it by way of proving your mettle in a various arena?
If you give me copies of a copyrighted work which I then sell, am I now
in violation of the CC license?
More to the point:
But what's
complicated about any given license? There are just choices. It's only
complicated if you want to do something that none of the licenses
support
A license WILL be used to do something that it wasn't intended to
support. Especially one that anyone puts anything of value into, and
someone can profit by twising the wording of. OF COURSE the CC works
just fine if everyone plays along and no one tries to rock the boat--but
a license is supposed to ensure that those that try and rock the boat
can't, and I don't think CC succeeds in that fashion.
DM
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