Dvorak on Creative Commons

pHatidic writes "In a recent article, John Dvorak trashes creative commons as being, 'one of the dumbest initiatives ever put forth by the tech community. I mean seriously dumb. Eye-rolling dumb on the same scale as believing the Emperor is wearing fabulous new clothes.' His main arguments are that CC unnecessarily complicates copyright law, and that the name sounds dumb."

Comments

Creative Commons

[matt21811]

I've always thought of Creative Commons was a simplified DIY copyright kit. When I create a work (i.e. write in my blog) it automatically is covered by full copyright law. I can't think of a simpler way to make sure I retain the controls I want but still let other people use my work in limited ways without the need to hire a lawyer.

It doesn't complicate Copyright law. It makes it simpler and more accessible.

Re:Creative Commons

[ThinkingInBinary]

The point was that Creative Commons gives you an easy way to express your wishes as to what rights to grant people. Without it, you have to figure out the legalese to write yourself, and chances are you'll leave a loophole and won't have the time or money to fight someone if they take advantage of it. With Creative Commons, you are sure that your choices are expressed properly, both in legalese and in English. Basically, if you want to selectively share your works, Creative Commons is like those "Living-Will-and-Testament-in-a-box" thingies--it gives you pre-written legalese so you don't have to hire a lawyer.

Re:Creative Commons

[Miros]

To be less obscure, copyrights are automatic and instant whenever you author anything original.

Re:Creative Commons

[Anonymous Coward]

Apart from his snark, Dvorak's argument seems to be "what's the big deal, anything I write is already protected and my grandchildren will own it?" He doesn't understand that Creative Commons is a way of *giving up* some rights. But without giving up *all* rights.

With Creative Commons, a content creator can specify clearly that they wish their work to be shared collaboratively, which is the real point of "non-commercial". It's not about peace love and sprouts, it's about getting information quickly into the hands of peers. This intermediate status is an emergent necessity, previously unknown to law.

Re:Creative Commons

[jhoger]

Well I won't give Dvorak a page hit; I don't think he's really a drooling idiot, so it must be a troll.

But I'll counter his argument with one example where CC worked beautifully:

I asked Leo Brodie author of Thinking Forth to allow republication of his book under a Creative Commons license. We discussed different options... he chose a "non-commercial" clause, but allowed derivative works and share-alike.

So what we have is a LaTeX repub and PDF downloadable from SourceForge by anyone. And he is selling hardcopies of the book through a print-on-demand publisher.

A project is in the works to update all the classic Forth examples to modern Forth usage. Also a translation to Spanish of the LaTeX repub is underway.

How could Dvorak be so obtuse? Of course Brodie could negotiate a separate license with each person who wanted to make some use of Thinking Forth, or just sell copies. But without granting additional rights, he wouldn't have gotten the free labor and TF would have stayed out of print and an orphaned works for 70 PLUS YEARS.

The Creative Commons licenses are just a legal tool, that's all. It's like going to the bookstore and buying a bunch of standard contracts. It reduces the time, if any, you have to spend with a real lawyer in order to grant rights to use your work beyond what copyright allows, safely, to a wide audience without negotating with each user individually, one-on-one.

Simple, understandable. Dvorak, you're just a troll.

-- John.

Re:Creative Commons

[alfedenzo]

The actual legalease of the Attribution CC license actually specifies the mimimum requirements for attribution.
To summarize, you have to name the author and title (if any), and if applicable, the URI and the license. If it's a derivative work, reference what it's a derivative of. Attribution should be with any other credits, and should be as prominant. The attribution should also be represented in a manner appropriate to the medium. In other words, the HTML source would not be a reasonable place to stick the attribution for an image. It would, however, probably be appropriate for some CC javascript code.

The legalease for Attribution-No Commercial-Share Alike can be found at here, with the attribution clause being 4.d. I would assume that the other Attribution licenses would be similar. I am not, of course, a lawyer.

Some uses for novelists, some criticisms

[mbrother]

There are legitimate uses for Creative Commons that this humbug is missing. For instance, I've released my first novel Star Dragon online under CC. It's a real, published novel, still available in hardback and paperback, by Tor, a major U.S. publisher of science fiction and fantasy. No one can distribute my book under "fair use" copyright law, because it wouldn't be, and certainly commercial distribution is right out. The publisher has agreed to try it in a promotional effort, the idea being I will make more sales than I lose. Early tech adopters like Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross have been doing it, too (and while I've gotten great reviews both sell a lot better than me, but are more advanced in their writing careers).

One additional thing. The humbug would claim that in many instances Creative Commons does nothing that isn't already done by existing copyright, except be trendy. Well, don't overlook trendy, I say. Many younger people on the internet these days have a clue what Creative Commons means, and know little to nothing about copyright. They may respect something labelled Creative Commons, and that's worth something. Also, it's nice to see that certain material is expected to be taken, and the author's permission is explicit and clear. It's possible to end up in court with legitimate fair use when the author and the user disagree about what that means.

And finally, even Dvorak is clueless when it comes to copyright. He says you have to add "Copyright 2005" to something to copyright it. You don't. It's automatically covered (you can still do the paperwork and register it, but in principle you don't). So here's a guy writing an article related to copyright who doesn't know the law, criticizing Creative Commons under the assumption everyone already knows the copyright laws.

Creative Commons... not too bad

[trackzero]

As an author, I like the options that Creative Commons offers me. I can share while retaining different kinds of rights.

http://slashdvorak.org/

[The Bubble]

Why does slashdot time and time again reward Dvorak's senseless grumblings with links and an enormous readership? Until he has something worthwhile to say, we should stop supporting his constant dissidence. From where I sit, this guy is nothing more than a flamer.

Re:Agreed

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Dvorak? The composer?

No no, the keyboard: try to read the article, and it quickly becomes obvious it was written by someone normally writing on a qwerty keyboard, with a dvorak keyboard, while looking away at the cute secretary down the hall...

At least he's being honest

[Mrs. Grundy]

He says he doesn't get it--and he's right he doesn't. From TFA:

In other words, a noncommercial site could distribute a million copies of something and that's okay, but a small commercial site cannot deliver two copies if it's for commercial purposes. What is this telling me?

This is telling you that if you want to make money by selling my creative work, then I need a peice of that pie as the creaotr. I don't understand what is so difficult abou this concept

This is nonsense. Before Creative Commons I could always ask to reuse or mirror something.

If my policy is that anyone can reuse, alter and build upon my work for non-commercial purposes isn't easier just so say so--to encourage people--rather than replying to emails? I say everyone here on slashdot should send Dvorak an email asking if they can resuse his work and see how long it takes for him to see the point.

"Creative Commons License: Public domain." This means that the item is not covered by copyright but is in the public domain. So what's Creative Commons got to do with it? Public domain is public domain. It's not something granted by Creative Commons. Yet you see this over and over as if it were!

It is not something granted by creative commons, but it can be something granted by the holder of the copyright and an easy way to communicate this is via public domain statement--kind of like--you guessed is--the one creative commons standardizes.

Re:I made Front Page

[Momoru]

Other ways to get a front page article on slashdot:

1) Mention Google....is it rumored that Google may buy a company that searches pictures of toenails online? Front page baby.

2) Link to any article proposing a bug or flaw with anything Microsoft. Some 15 year old writes a blog saying he thinks the next version of Windows has "a bajillion security holes"? That's not only front page material, you're maybe even looking at duped front page material

3) Paul Graham wrote an article about his flower garden, and how he's a "hacker" for using fertilizer? You know that baby is front page material.

I'm sure i'm missing some others here....

"open source" is just a description.

[Some Random Username]

The GPL IS an open source license, despite RMS's ludicrous blathering to the contrary. The source code is open, so it is open source. Its simply a descriptive term, it does not imply or require any sort of membership in any kind of club. The OSI guys do not own the words "open source", nor can they redefine the meaning of these words.

Saying open source is not the same as saying OSI, so you and RMS can both quit getting your panties in a bunch over nothing and trying to redefine the english language to suit your agendas.