Creative Commons In the News

An anonymous reader writes "MSNBC is running an article on a new licensing scheme being used to bring civility to the world of copyright." From the article: "Interest in Creative Commons licenses comes as artists, authors and traditional media companies begin to warm to the idea of the Internet as friend instead of foe, and race to capitalize on technologies such as file-sharing and digital copying." At the same time, mpesce writes "Boing Boing is reporting that the Australian equivalent of the Screen Actors Guild, the MEAA, has forbidden its members to work in Creative Commons productions. 'The MEAA Board decided that it could grant none of the dispensations sought by MOD Films, on the grounds that these would be inappropriate.'"

Comments

Anti-Comeptitive

[PepeGSay]

Does anyone else see the MEAA's decision as anti-competitive?

Re:Anti-Comeptitive

[IntelliTubbie]

Does anyone else see the MEAA's decision as anti-competitive?

Of course. They're a union; it's their job to be anti-competitive. (That is, to protect their members from competition with non-members.) Essentially, the MEAA is a labor cartel, placing restrictions on members' output to boost the asking price.

Cheers,
IT

Non-commercial elements of the Creative Commons

[QuantumG]

The part I dislike the most about the Creative Commons set of licenses is the advocation of non-commercial restrictions, as if they were a good idea. This thoroughly reduces the distribution of the work. Suppose you make an icon set and place it under one of the Creative Commons licenses that has the non-commercial restriction. This means that Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake and all the other commercial Linux distributions can't put your icon set on their CD. It means that only people who contact you directly can use your icon set. That's hardly freedom.

On a totally different note. I was thinking about the part of the GPL that most people really don't get: the offer to supply source code at a later date. More than any other part of the GPL that section really confuses people. Maybe we should make a GPL-lite, where source code simply MUST accompany all binary distributions. That'd clear up the confusion for programs licensed under it at least.

Re:Non-commercial elements of the Creative Commons

[Da_Biz]

I disagree. I've written several prose pieces where I have used Creative Commons to limit how it's used. As the creator and copyright holder of the piece, I believe I have the right to say how it's used.

In my case, I permitted free distribution of the piece, restricted anyone from selling a reprint of it without my permission, and did not want anyone to build upon to work to preserve it's artistic integrity. I'm not entirely sure what's wrong there.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0

Re:Non-commercial elements of the Creative Commons

[schon]

the advocation of non-commercial restrictions, as if they were a good idea.

Maybe it's because people believe that they *are* a good idea?

Suppose you make an icon set and place it under one of the Creative Commons licenses that has the non-commercial restriction. This means that Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake and all the other commercial Linux distributions can't put your icon set on their CD.

First of all, no it doesn't. What it means is that Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake, etc can't put your icon set on CDs that they *sell*. They're perfectly free to include it in a downloadable ISO, or some other means.

Second of all, if someone's making money of something *I* made, why should it not be me? (Or, why is it such a big deal if they have to contact me first?)

It means that only people who contact you directly can use your icon set.

Yes, well let's see: there's Red Hat, Mandrake, Suse... who else? I can see how difficult it is for *all these people* to contact me - man, how could I ever manage the time to talk to them all? There are clearly tens of people who are selling Linux commercially.

That's hardly freedom.

Bullshit. They're perfectly free to make their own icons.

Re:Non-commercial elements of the Creative Commons

[iminplaya]

I believe I have the right to say how it's used.

That's like telling me where I can take my car, or what kind of tires I have to use. It's like needing the arquitect's(sp) permission the paint my house. The closest thing you have to natural rights on a work is to have your name attached. Everything else is fair game. The "artistic integrity" is in your eyes only. Your rights to property are determined by the society you live in. They are NOT absolute or inherent.

Over a barrel

[Stumbles]

has forbidden its members to work in Creative Commons productions.

I think the above phrase is being overlooked by most people. I mean that's a pretty strong statement, to paraphrase, "I/We forbid you to do any work that does not make us money."

The question I have, is that part of "the members" contract or is this "a new policy"?

Either way I have to wonder just how far they can go at curtailing a members outside activities.

Re:One sentence license:

[SydShamino]

One downside of public domain is that it doesn't nothing to avoid the implication of plagiarism.

What if I write something truly insightful in one of these posts? Then, later, I use the same words in a speech when I'm running for some government office?

If I release the text into the public domain, others can take those words and reuse them without any credit required. I could take Tom Sawyer and republish the novel without listing the author at all; neither he nor his descendents have any rights to the book.

But, if I reuse the words later in another context, I could be accused of plagiarism. It might be difficult to prove that I was the original author of text that had been passed around through the public domain for X years. By retaining copyright on my posts, I can force those that wish to quote them to attribute them to me.

(This did happen. Someone from a public domain advocacy website wanted to use quotes from one of my slashdot posts on his site. But he had released all text on his site into the public domain. I had to decline unless he could change his license, not because I care where my words were used, but because I care that they be attributed to me. /shrug)

Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

"What if I write something truly insightful in one of these posts? "

Dude, stick with the realm of possible here for just a few minutes. I can't get past this line.