Creative Commons Releases "Zero" License

revealingheart writes "Plagiarism Today reports on the release of the Creative Commons Zero license, which allows you to waive copyright and related rights to your works, improving on the existing public domain dedication. This follows-on from their original announcement on CC0. The CC0 waiver system is a major step forward for the Creative Commons Organization in terms of their public domain efforts. Even though it isn't a true public domain dedication, it only waives the rights as far as they can be waived (Note: Moral rights, in many countries, can not be outright waived), it opens up what is likely as close to a public domain option as practical under the current legal climate."

Comments

Heh

[daxomatic]

I will Waive my First Post

Re:Heh

[mcgrew]

I will Wave my First Post

These aren't the licenses you're looking for...

How amusing

[wjh31]

I find it sadly amusing that copyright and similar concepts has gotten so far that there should be countries in which it is not possible to waive elements of it

Re:How amusing

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. If only there was a country where we could waive ALL our rights, what a country that would be!

Re:How amusing

[Anonymous Coward]

Exists. Unfortunately, for the residents, waiving all of your rights is obligatory...

Re:How amusing

[daxomatic]

I tried to say:
I one would not acknowledge something they would make/create/write, there is noting to waive?
AKA guerrilla style art(or fill in your poison) making..
Its there but know one knows who made it.

Perhaps i have should written it as a coward but then again, im not..

Re:How amusing

[dedazo]

In North Korea, the government waives them for you.

(sorry, couldn't resit)

Re:How amusing

[MoonBuggy]

There is actually a logical backing for that. Think of the music industry, for example: they'll take anything they possibly can from their artists, if they can get away with it. Making certain rights legally impossible to waive puts a brick wall in the way of some of the more potentially abusive contracts that they would otherwise try to write up.

Re:How amusing

[brusk]

Exactly. It's like certain rights under labor law: making them inviolable, impossible even willingly to give away, precludes certain abuses. Just as I can't give up my basic human rights in a contract (e.g., selling myself into indentured servitude), I shouldn't be able to give up certain rights over work I produce. For example, in France "moral rights" include the right of an artist to claim to have produced a certain work of art (which is distinct from ownership of the physical work or of rights to copy it). The artist retains the right to "disown" a work or to claim authorship of it. That could matter, for example, in the attribution of a literary prize, which depends on the authorship of a work but not on its copyright status. And it makes perfect sense that one not be allowed to sign away that basic right.

Re:How amusing

[cpt kangarooski]

Of course, that ignores whether or not authors should have such rights to begin with. Copyrights only ought to be granted if, and to the extent that, they provide a public benefit, ideally the greatest possible public benefit. The creation and publication of works is beneficial, as is having those works as unrestricted as possible, as rapidly as possible. In the US, we traditionally haven't granted moral rights, and we barely do now (most authors don't get them, as it happens). Yet we manage to have incentivized plenty of authors anyway. If a restriction (which is inherently bad) isn't mitigated by anything (as is the case here, with these restrictions having no material incentivizing effect upon authors), it is unjustifiable.

Plus, of course, it's absurd to compare waiving copyright with waving human rights. There is a good reason to not permit people to sell themselves into slavery. There's not a good reason to prohibit selling (or in this case waiving to the public) rights over a mere creative work. Sure, sometimes authors will happen to make a bad deal with a publisher. So what. That can happen to everyone. Should a person who sells land be allowed to take it back many years down the road, when huge oil deposits are discovered there? Authors are not children, and it is insulting and improper for the law to treat them paternalistically.

Re:How amusing

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US, we traditionally haven't granted moral rights, and we barely do now (most authors don't get them, as it happens). Yet we manage to have incentivized plenty of authors anyway.

It seems to me that moral rights - ie, being recognised as the original author of a particular work - aren't about incentivizing authors. They may have that effect, but their main purpose is more like trademark law: if I see a book written by J.K. Rowling, I want to know that it's actually been written by her, and not by someone else who has been forced to give up their credit.

I'm actually rather worried that attribution is being lumped in with distribution under the banner of copyright. I'd like to see exclusive distribution rights limited to a term of 6-12 months, but I'm perfectly happy with attribution rights existing in perpetuity.

Re:How amusing

[brusk]

As the other reply indicates, this ISN'T about copyright but about moral rights. They're not completely unrelated, but they are significantly different beasts. They're just hard to wrap one's head around in an Anglo-American legal context, because the concept basically doesn't exist. Things like attribution are treated as matters of "fact" in the British system and its derivatives, not as rights.

Re:How amusing

[cpt kangarooski]

It seems to me that moral rights - ie, being recognised as the original author of a particular work - aren't about incentivizing authors.

If it isn't causing more works to be created and published, then it isn't outweighing the harm it causes, and ought not to exist.

their main purpose is more like trademark law: if I see a book written by J.K. Rowling, I want to know that it's actually been written by her, and not by someone else who has been forced to give up their credit.

So I take it that you are morally opposed to the Carolyn Keene corpus of works? Authors should not be compelled to take their names off of their works. But if an author is willing to do so, for whatever reason (usually money), then I trust the author to be the best judge of his own affairs. I won't second-guess him, and I certainly won't muscle in and compel him to do otherwise. If the author later regrets what he's done, then he's learned a good lesson. Just like anyone else who has made a bad deal. Making mistakes is a part of life; why are authors so special that they should be protected from themselves?

As for trademarks, nothing prevents authors from using trademarks to begin with, and many do make use of them. Why have two legal regimes, when one will suffice? Note, incidentally, that trademarks can be created or abandoned, and can be bought and sold. These features do not impair them. Note also that trademarks are meant to serve the public interest by protecting consumers -- specifically by allowing consumers to expect that like-marked goods originate from a common source, and thus are of similar quality. E.g. one bottle of Coke tastes just like another; there's no danger that one bottle will taste like Coke, another like Pepsi, and yet another like Moxie. Moral rights, though, don't serve a public interest. They aren't used to protect the public from deception, but only to protect an author's ego.

I couldn't care less about that, and as authors are demonstrably perfectly willing to create and publish in the absence of an attribution right, they don't actually care about it either, despite whatever noises they might make.

Re:How amusing

[cpt kangarooski]

because the concept basically doesn't exist

There is a good reason that it basically doesn't exist. Indeed, it entirely should not exist; moral rights are a stupid idea, with no redeeming features. Don't confuse my hatred for the idea for a lack of understanding. Indeed, if I didn't understand them, I probably wouldn't recognize them for the crap that they are.

Re:How amusing

[Zarel]

Exactly. It's like certain rights under labor law: making them inviolable, impossible even willingly to give away, precludes certain abuses. Just as I can't give up my basic human rights in a contract (e.g., selling myself into indentured servitude), I shouldn't be able to give up certain rights over work I produce. For example, in France "moral rights" include the right of an artist to claim to have produced a certain work of art (which is distinct from ownership of the physical work or of rights to copy it). The artist retains the right to "disown" a work or to claim authorship of it. That could matter, for example, in the attribution of a literary prize, which depends on the authorship of a work but not on its copyright status. And it makes perfect sense that one not be allowed to sign away that basic right.

IANAL, but what does this have to do with copyright law? Of course the author of a work can claim to have created it: that's covered by freedom of speech. And the author of a work can prevent others from claiming to have created it: that's covered by slander and libel laws. Even if you give up your copyright completely, to another party or to the public domain, you still retain these rights.

Going through the other "moral rights":

- The right to claim authorship is intrinsic of free speech, and is not separately guaranteed by moral rights. Perhaps you were thinking of the right of attribution, which is something else entirely.

- The right of attribution basically says that someone can't say you created a work if you didn't, and they can't say you didn't create a work if you did. This is, of course, covered by defamation (i.e. slander/libel) law, not copyright law.

- The right to publish a work anonymously should also be guaranteed by freedom of speech. If, by "disown", you include preventing others from saying you created the work, I don't think it should, because that would infringe on their freedom of speech.

- The right to integrity of the work shouldn't be a moral right. I want to be able to give up this right - free software licenses would be useless otherwise. As a user, I want to be guaranteed access to a work as long as I abide by the terms of the GPL, and as a content creator, I want to guarantee my users that they won't be sued as long as they abide by the GPL, but this is impossible under the right to integrity: It would be impossible to waive the right to say "I want you to stop using my work."

In short, "moral rights" don't give any reason why someone shouldn't be able to waive a copyright completely: They're either already covered by other laws, or completely inane.

Re:How amusing

[DrMrLordX]

In South Korea, only old people waive their rights.

Re:How amusing

[Eivind]

There's perfect logic behind it, and nothing sad about it whatsoever.

If I wrote a text, then I'm the author of that text. I can't really "waive" that. No statement from my side can change the FACT that I'm the author.

Oh, I can allow anyone to do anything they want with the text whatsoever. I can permit them to do this without mentioning my name at all, and with zero restrictions.

But I'm still the author. So if they published the text, and for example put *THEIR* name as author, this would be a fraud. If they really did not write the text, claiming that they did, is a lie. (completely regardless of copyright-status of the text, it would be a lie even in a world where copyright does not exist)

The law is like that in Norway: I can give you any and all rights to my works, no problem whatsoever. The only thing I cannot sign-away, is the right to be considered the author of the work.

Reasonable enough to me, and I don't see what's "sad" about it at all.

Re:How amusing

[xtracto]

I find it sadly amusing that copyright and similar concepts has gotten so far that there should be countries in which it is not possible to waive elements of it

I think it depends on the country. In the USA copyright is supposed to be a temporary "monopoly" grant to the person that came up with whatever "content".

However in Mexico for example, there are two types of "rights" when it comes to copyrightable content, first is the moral rights, which dictate that whatever you come up is your property forever and that such property cannot be transfered.

The second type of rights allow the author to temporarily transfer the right of "commercialization" to a third party. This can be for any amount of time but has a limit. After the time (specified in the contract) expires, the rights return directly to the creator.

Re:How amusing

[Ghubi]

I think there is some merit in your argument, but how do you reconcile attribution rights with derivative works? What happens when an artist is inspired by a story when he doesn't remember where he heard the original? Is he obliged to search out the source of his inspiration before he can publish his work? What if he is unable to find it? What if he doesn't consciously know what it was that inspired him? What if by pure coincidence his story resembles some other story that he's never even heard of? Will he be liable for infringement? Will he have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees in order to be found not liable? When do my thoughts become my own, not merely echoes of the voices in my past?

Re:How amusing

[Anonymous Coward]

Been to Myanmar, huh? People refer to Orwell as "the prophet" there. Not very loudly, of course, 'cause you never know when they're listening.

Re:How amusing

[smoker2]

What's sad is that too many people seem to equate morals with something bad. Like they're enforced on you or something. But the lack of morals is responsible for most of the criminal and economic woe we see around us today. Take the free speech argument - too many people see free speech as complete carte blanche to defame and otherwise insult anybody and everybody they choose. If they had any morals they would realise that for a society to function, we have to hold our tongues unless we have something constructive to say or we risk destroying that society through lack of trust, and mutual respect.

In the economic sense, we are all in the shit because some guys thought it would be a great idea to lend out the same dollar over 1000 times all at once. Morally speaking, lending it out at all after the first time was fraud, but hey, they were getting away with it, and it's not their money right ?

Then you get to the recent case of the Dutch fanatic, whose only real message was "look at me I'm Davey Crockett !" He had nothing constructive to say, just a well worn diatribe of "look how bad the other guy is" designed to cause trouble and get his name in the media. If he had any real morals, he would have to accept that what goes around comes around and either present a solution with his argument, or just keep his mouth shut for the benefit of the huge majority of people who don't care about his rants.

All pretty childish really.

Re:How amusing

[Rogerborg]

I agree. In fact, I'd put it this way:

Of course, that ignores whether or not authors should have such rights to begin with. Copyrights only ought to be granted if, and to the extent that, they provide a public benefit, ideally the greatest possible public benefit. The creation and publication of works is beneficial, as is having those works as unrestricted as possible, as rapidly as possible. In the US, we traditionally haven't granted moral rights, and we barely do now (most authors don't get them, as it happens). Yet we manage to have incentivized plenty of authors anyway. If a restriction (which is inherently bad) isn't mitigated by anything (as is the case here, with these restrictions having no material incentivizing effect upon authors), it is unjustifiable.

Plus, of course, it's absurd to compare waiving copyright with waving human rights. There is a good reason to not permit people to sell themselves into slavery. There's not a good reason to prohibit selling (or in this case waiving to the public) rights over a mere creative work. Sure, sometimes authors will happen to make a bad deal with a publisher. So what. That can happen to everyone. Should a person who sells land be allowed to take it back many years down the road, when huge oil deposits are discovered there? Authors are not children, and it is insulting and improper for the law to treat them paternalistically.

Re:How amusing

[commodore64_love]

>>>Just as I can't give up my basic human rights in a contract (e.g., selling myself into indentured servitude),

In the United States you can. The U.S. Constitution says only Involuntary servitude is illegal. Voluntary servitude is still allowed.

Re:How amusing

[commodore64_love]

"Moral rights" just sounds like a different form of Christian tyranny - minus the word christian. We've had 1700 years of somebody else dictating how I should I live (don't look at porn, don't walk around naked, don't marry more than one wife/husband). First the Christian Roman Empire, then the Roman church, and now these imaginary moral rights enforced by arrogant leadership.

Why can't we just let people follow their own morals? "Nobody has a right to harm another; and that's all that the government should restrain him." - Thomas Jefferson

Re:How amusing

[commodore64_love]

>>>It seems to me that moral rights.... main purpose is more like trademark law: if I see a book written by J.K. Rowling, I want to know that it's actually been written by her, and not by someone else who has been forced to give up their credit.
>>>

Just curious: If J.K. Rowling writes another Harry Potter novel, is she under some "moral rights" obligation to release it? Technically it's her property (and her labor), and she can keep it in a safe if she desires, but I know some people believe authors should have no right of ownership. They believe the internet has killed the concept and everything should be liberated. Should she be forced by "moral rights" to release the book to the public? Do society's rights overrule an individual's property/labor rights?

Just something to ponder.

Re:How amusing

[commodore64_love]

>>>Plus, of course, it's absurd to compare waiving copyright with waving human rights. There is a good reason to not permit people to sell themselves into slavery. There's not a good reason to prohibit selling (or in this case waiving to the public) rights over a mere creative work
>>>

What you're talking about is enslavement of authors - making them labor for free - making them produce books without pay. I strongly object to your proposal, because it IS a human rights violation.

If I waste a significant portion of my life writing some damn book, and some fool wants to read it, then I expect payment. I don't work for free, either in engineering or writing.. Otherwise, without payment, I'm keeping the book to myself as my own personal property/labor.

Re:How amusing

[makapuf]

please don't comment about a concept just by its name. the notion of moral right does not have anyhting to do with morals, besides linking the art form with the AUTHORS morals.

Why can't we just let people follow their own morals?

For that, moral right is PRECISELY what you want here.

By example, if you've produced a small handbook (say a satanist porky-pig fetish handbook, whatever), in some countries you retain the right to deny publishing it in a way that you believe is against your beliefs.

Imagine you sell the rights to an editor, and he sells it to a church and which publishes it as the antithesis af what to do, inside of a larger book.

Or you draw a cartoon, sell it and it is later used to illustrate an extremist political party you don't want to be associated with.

If you retain moral rights, you will be able to forbid it is used in those way.

IANA(IP)L, however.

Re:How amusing

[commodore64_love]

>>>Take the free speech argument - too many people see free speech as complete carte blanche to defame and otherwise insult anybody and everybody they choose. If they had any morals they would realise that for a society to function, we have to hold our tongues unless we have something constructive to say...
>>>

That's one solution.

The other, better solution is for our society to learn tolerance. If a KKK member says, "I think all colored people should be exported out of the U.S.", rather than take away his right of free speech, you can choose to ignore his opinion. Part of enjoying freedom is also learning to tolerate other people's freedoms, even if you don't agree with them. As Thomas Jefferson observed, "My neighbors' opinion does not harm my body, my property, nor my rights. Therefore I will allow my neighbor the freedom to hold any opinion he chooses."

Re:How amusing

[drinkypoo]

The artist retains the right to "disown" a work or to claim authorship of it. That could matter, for example, in the attribution of a literary prize, which depends on the authorship of a work but not on its copyright status.

I'm sorry, I don't see why this is the case. The author might want to not receive the prize? Some prizes are given to authors for books, and some are given to books, and I can't honestly understand why the right to disown a work (Necessary for the freedom of speech - do they have that in France? They don't even have it in Canada last I checked) would be relevant to that particular example.

Re:How amusing

[drinkypoo]

In the US, we traditionally haven't granted moral rights, and we barely do now (most authors don't get them, as it happens). Yet we manage to have incentivized plenty of authors anyway. If a restriction (which is inherently bad) isn't mitigated by anything (as is the case here, with these restrictions having no material incentivizing effect upon authors), it is unjustifiable.

Understanding Copyright FAIL. Copyright is NOT intended to incentivize the production of new works. It is intended to preserve old works by incentivizing the submission of copyrighted works (e.g. ALL works that you create) to a national archive (the LoC.) Unfortunately, copyright has been perverted to incentivize the creation of copyrighted works by repeatedly extending copyright terms. This results not in the creation of new and worthy art, but in the creation of media created solely for commercial purposes, which in turn results only in a race to the bottom. Art created for the sake of art happened before the invention of Copyright law, and copyright law arguably has a chilling effect on the creation of such media because those artists who are motivated solely by appreciation now have to contend with an audience whose mind has been blasted with commercial shit.

Plus, of course, it's absurd to compare waiving copyright with waving human rights. There is a good reason to not permit people to sell themselves into slavery. There's not a good reason to prohibit selling (or in this case waiving to the public) rights over a mere creative work.

Apparently you also don't understand this issue. The idea of this license is to permit you to release something essentially into the public domain, but in such a way that your creation of the media is a protected fact. If you don't care about that, why not just release it into the public domain? This is about the release of a license, not about a campaign to make PD releases illegal. Your comment is full of sound and fury, and signifies nothing except your total lack of understanding of how Copyright was sold to the People in the first place.

Re:How amusing

[drinkypoo]

Why have two legal regimes, when one will suffice?

If J.K. Rowling's goal was to preserve maximum profits, then the most reasonable thing to do would have been to create a corporation and register all of the characters and major concepts from the idea as trademarks. This allows you to then go after copycats. The flip side is that you have to go after copycats, and that can bankrupt you.

The goal was clearly to make sufficient profit, which has obviously been achieved...

Re:How amusing

[m50d]

Do society's rights overrule an individual's property/labor rights?

Time and again that has been seen to occur; consider compulsory purchase. But to answer your strawman, even the most fervent anti-copyright activist wouldn't deny the right to keep private, unpublished work unreleased. It's merely that once you publish a work, it's unreasonable to nod expect it to be copied, archived and all the rest of it.

Re:How amusing

[isdr]

Should a person who sells land be allowed to take it back many years down the road, when huge oil deposits are discovered there?

I agree with you, but doesn't that basically describe the concept of mineral rights? You can buy and sell property, but the right to exploit mineral assets usually was sold long ago and is being kept by someone else.

Re:How amusing

[IndustrialComplex]

selling myself into indentured servitude

I do wonder how that differs from today's concept of debt.

Re:How amusing

[Golddess]

Certain rights sure, but I'm not sure I see how disallowing someone to release something to the public domain (which this license seems to be trying to re-allow, but IANAL) would effect that.

As unlikely a scenario as this is, lets just pretend for a second that a clause is put into a contract stating that something must go public domain. How exactly does the RIAA profit from this? It just doesn't seem like something that artists need protecting from.

Re:How amusing

[bentcd]

The law is like that in Norway: I can give you any and all rights to my works, no problem whatsoever. The only thing I cannot sign-away, is the right to be considered the author of the work.

You also cannot sign away the right to prevent your work from being altered in a way that is prejudicial to yourself, nor the right to demand that your name be removed from such an alteration, nor the right to demand that such an alteration explain that the alterations are not yours. All of this is in para 3 of Norwegian copyright law.

If you agree publishing rights to your work there are some further specially protected and one non-waivable rights in para 39e. The non-waivable part seems to be that 15 years after initial publication you are allowed to include your work in a collection of your own works but you must give the original publisher a chance to publish this new work before offering it to anyone else.

There are also some non-waivable rights to do with the handling of original copies of artwork. That is, if you produce a painting then you retain some non-waivable rights to that original painting regardless of who you sell it to etc. As far as I can tell, you are entitled to a certain percentage of the resale price when the item is traded via certain channels (para 38).

That's what I could find by a quick search for "waiv" in the English version of the law. I am not a lawyer, I just know how to use Acrobat Reader's search function.

For anyone who is interested, this is the (unofficial) English text of the law:
http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/KKD/Medier/Acts%20and%20regulations/Aandsverkloven_engelsk_versjon_nov2008.pdf

Re:How amusing

[Anonymous Coward]

The other, better solution is for our society to learn tolerance. If a KKK member says, "I think all colored people should be exported out of the U.S.", rather than take away his right of free speech, you can choose to ignore his opinion. Part of enjoying freedom is also learning to tolerate other people's freedoms, even if you don't agree with them.

However, unless you impose the same expectation on the speaker of an unpopular idea, this is a very one-sided form of tolerance. In that case, civil discourse eventually becomes impossible on many issues as public speech about them degenerates into polarized shouting matches, or worse an excuse for harrassment. To use your example, if the KKK member in your example instead decides to spend an afternoon following around random African Americans he encounters in public while shouting explanations of his opinions, he is still expressing his views but in a very non-constructive way. I'm not sure, but I think that is what the GP was alluding to.

As Thomas Jefferson observed, "My neighbors' opinion does not harm my body, my property, nor my rights. Therefore I will allow my neighbor the freedom to hold any opinion he chooses."

My neighbor having any particular opinion isn't my concern, but sometimes the result of them acting on it, or even voicing it, would be. What if my neighbor had the opinion that causing chaos and confusion were very enjoyable to watch. I would think even Thomas Jefferson would have a difficult time defending my neighbor falsely claiming there was a fire or a bomb in a crowded building.

Re:How amusing

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I won't second-guess him, and I certainly won't muscle in and compel him to do otherwise. If the author later regrets what he's done, then he's learned a good lesson. Just like anyone else who has made a bad deal. Making mistakes is a part of life; why are authors so special that they should be protected from themselves?

I don't believe anyone should be forced to choose between starving to death, and getting credit for their work, especially when it's something that will last through the ages (e.g. William Shakespeare). Just like with a minimum wage or farm subsidies, you cannot allow people unfettered competition... it leads to market failures.

Re:How amusing

[nordah]

If I wrote a text, then I'm the author of that text. I can't really "waive" that. No statement from my side can change the FACT that I'm the author.

Laws designed to protect artist rights in several countries (see VARA in the U.S.) do allow one to disclaim authorship. One rationale is that if a piece of artwork is defaced or changed, the author may not want to be associated with it. While calling texts art might be a stretch, it's easy to analogize.

Re:How amusing

[russotto]

What happens when an artist is inspired by a story when he doesn't remember where he heard the original? Is he obliged to search out the source of his inspiration before he can publish his work? What if he is unable to find it? What if he doesn't consciously know what it was that inspired him? What if by pure coincidence his story resembles some other story that he's never even heard of? Will he be liable for infringement?

Ask James Cameron, who Harlan Ellison successfully sued over the opening sequence to "Terminator", claiming it was based on a short story called "The Warriors".

Of course, this means that if you are widely read, you pretty much can't produce anything original, and you're liable to be sued by just about anyone who preceded you.

Re:How amusing

[MemoryAid]

Actually, based on demand for the story, she has no moral right to leave it unwritten. The courts should compel her to write the next sequel!

I think there was such a contract (not moral, but contractual) on The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, between his stints as Prince and as Prince. Seems his albums started sucking around that time...

Re:How amusing

[cpt kangarooski]

Just curious: If J.K. Rowling writes another Harry Potter novel, is she under some "moral rights" obligation to release it?

No, she's under no obligation to release it, nor is she obligated to even write it in the first place. Of course, we can try to encourage her to write and publish another book, and copyright does just that.

In an ideal world, authors wouldn't need to be bribed at all -- they would willingly create and publish as much as they could, and those works would immediately be in the public domain. We don't live in that world, so instead, copyright is like a bribe to an author. If she writes and publishes the book, she can have a copyright that lets her monopolize most of the money that will be made from the book for a span of time. Of course, if the book is a flop, the monopoly isn't really all that valuable; 90% of a pittance is not going to be enough to finance another solid gold rocket car. If the book is a success, the monopoly is very valuable. However, the monopoly has to have limits, and has to eventually expire, since it would be foolish to bribe the author with even one iota more than is strictly necessary. After all, more copyright, in length or breadth, means more limits on the public, which is harmful, and we should always try to minimize harm where differing levels produce the same public benefit (i.e. the created and published work). This is simple efficiency.

I know some people believe authors should have no right of ownership.

That is a valid position. However I think the time is not yet ripe for it. As I said, we want to get the most bang (i.e. quantity of works created and published) for our buck (i.e. limits placed on the public with respect to those works, a.k.a. copyright). It's well known that there is a problem of diminishing returns in copyright. A year of copyright, for example, will be worth more, and thus have more incentivizing effect upon authors, if it is year one of a copyright term, rather than, say, year one million and one. Therefore, if you had copyright terms of 1,000,001 years, and you shortened down to, oh, 25 years, probably no, or nearly no authors would stop creating and/or publishing. This means that the benefit of having all those new works would still be realized, but the detriment of having to suffer through such a long copyright term would be wiped away. This would be a big net gain for the public, and thus, ought to be done.

Copyright abolition is a reasonable idea if adding any copyright at all would produce a harm to the public that was not outweighed by the benefit, yielding a net loss. It's easy to see that this is the case for the one millionth and first year of copyright. It's technically possible that this could be the case for all copyright, but currently, I don't think this is the case. The option of abolition should remain on the table in case future events result in copyright never being beneficial to the public, but we can mostly ignore it.

Do society's rights overrule an individual's property/labor rights?

Labor, no. No one should be forced to create or publish a creative work.

But copyrights are a matter of social utility. They were created to benefit the public, and should only exist to the extent that they actually do so. Individuals don't have copyrights save to the extent that they are granted them by the government, and the government was only empowered to do so by the people to benefit the people; they just coincidentally happen to benefit authors too. Don't confuse the means with the ends.

It might help to compare copyrights with municipal utility monopolies, such as for cable tv. A typical cable tv company will not want to build and maintain infrastructure, and pay to carry programming, where it faces competition, because it feels it won't make enough of a profit. So, when a town wants cable tv set up, the town government will grant a temporary monopoly to the cable tv company that makes the best bid. The monopoly lets the company charge above-market rates, sinc

Re:How amusing

[cpt kangarooski]

If you retain moral rights, you will be able to forbid it is used in those way.

Of course, that's the problem. If you want to maintain control, don't sell the rights. No one is forcing an author to sell his copyrights; he can only do so willingly. He doesn't have to sell all of them; copyrights are damn-near infinitely subdividable. He could trivially license the right to reprint the work in religious tracts, only if they met with his personal approval. He could easily sell the right to reprint the work in political advertising subject to his veto authority.

But if he just goes and sells the whole damn farm, so to speak, well of course that can turn around and bite him on the ass. But it was his decision. It was, perhaps, a stupid decision, but it was his to make, and he freely did it. Authors should be as free to make mistakes, and be treated as adults, as anybody else. Why should authors get to renege on their deals?

Re:How amusing

[cpt kangarooski]

What you're talking about is enslavement of authors - making them labor for free - making them produce books without pay.

Are you thick or something? No, authors should never be compelled to create or publish works. And frankly, no one here is even talking about that, other than you. It is completely unrelated to the subject at hand, which is basically: Should authors be allowed to make business deals, and then break them without penalty whenever they feel like it, for no better reason than because they are authors? Me, I don't think they should get to do that; we normally only allow children to do that, and authors are not all children. It's insulting to treat them as such, in fact. But that's what the 'pro-author' folks seem to want. I can't imagine why.

Otherwise, without payment, I'm keeping the book to myself as my own personal property/labor.

Be my guest. I can't promise I'll help you, but I won't try to stop you.

Re:How amusing

[cpt kangarooski]

Copyright is NOT intended to incentivize the production of new works. It is intended to preserve old works by incentivizing the submission of copyrighted works (e.g. ALL works that you create) to a national archive (the LoC.)

Certainly that is also important, and I am 100% in favor of requiring all works for which a US copyright is sought to have copies deposited in the Library of Congress, and to fund the LoC (out of the general fund; registration fees are there to prevent abuse, like medical insurance co-pays, not to really raise significant amounts of money) so that they are preserved indefinitely. Further, the LoC should place all its public domain works online so that people don't have to trek to DC to use them. This may take some time, I grant.

But the purpose of copyright is to cause the most works possible to be created and published, and to get those works into the hands of the public with as few restrictions as possible, and for those restrictions to lapse as soon as possible. The LoC helps to preserve and make works accessible, but this is more of a subset of the overarching goals than the ultimate goals in and of themselves.

Unfortunately, copyright has been perverted to incentivize the creation of copyrighted works by repeatedly extending copyright terms.

No, actually. Ever longer terms (and broader protection) generally don't incentivize all that much creation and publication. And while it might be nice to maximize the amount of creation and publication, the cost would be so high as to make it pointless. We're better off getting the most creation and publication we can, for the least amount of copyright, and accepting that this means that some works just might wind up not being created. It's okay, though; those works would come at too high a price.

This results not in the creation of new and worthy art, but in the creation of media created solely for commercial purposes, which in turn results only in a race to the bottom. Art created for the sake of art happened before the invention of Copyright law, and copyright law arguably has a chilling effect on the creation of such media because those artists who are motivated solely by appreciation now have to contend with an audience whose mind has been blasted with commercial shit.

Now I have to strongly disagree. Copyright is interested in quantity, not quality. The government isn't competent to judge quality anyway. And copyright is merely one motive to create and publish works. It is not the only motive. Art for art's sake, a desire for fame, etc. are all still just as vibrant as they ever were. There might be some chilling due to rent seeking behavior by copyright holders, but that's quite a different thing than what you're talking about.

The idea of this license is to permit you to release something essentially into the public domain, but in such a way that your creation of the media is a protected fact.

No, actually. Here's a quote from the FAQ that Creative Commons has about the license in question:

Does CC0 require others who use my work to give me attribution?

No, and that's a big difference between CC0 and our licenses. Unlike our licenses, there are no license or other conditions attached to CC0. Just like anything in the public domain, it will be possible for others to use or adapt it however they wish, even without attribution.

The point of this is that the copyright laws in some jurisdictions are so goddamn paternalistic that they prohibit authors from deliberately placing works in the public domain. I for example, place all my Slashdot posts in the public domain as a matter of course. I'm an adult, I'm knowledgeable on the subject, I've given it a lot of thought, and I have decided that I don't want copyrights on my posts here in just the same way that I don't want a hole in my head. And yet some entire countries are such asses that they say that I am not allowed to make that choice; they will protect me from myself. If we w

Re:How amusing

[cpt kangarooski]

That's precisely right! Copyrights can be sold in toto, but they can also be divided up as much as you like. They can be licensed, or sold outright, and even sales can be subject to reversions and such, just like with real property.

If an author writes a book, he is free to sell, for $1 each, the right to publish the book to Alice, the right to write and publish a sequel to Bob, and the right to make a movie based on the book to Carol, and the right to publicly read the book aloud (but only on Tuesdays that are odd-numbered days of even-numbered months) to Dave, and retain all the other rights to himself. There's really no limit to what can be done, though of course, when you sell a right away, you can't really sell it again. (Well, actually, the system is sufficiently screwed up that there are ways to do this can that produce weird and unfortunate results. See 17 USC 205 for the gory details.)

Re:How amusing

[Eivind]

If the work is changed by someone else, then obviously, the original author is not responsible for the changes. So I don't quite see how that's relevant.

Re:How amusing

[bandmassa]

As an artist (musician) in Australia who chooses to not reserve rights on some of my works, I'd like to see somebody try to "force" a "moral" right on me (Australia has compulsory moral rights) and make me take money for my performance. I'll simply turn around and donate it to a charity in the name of the person who was required to pay it.

Re:How amusing

[Eivind]

I'm not sure what you're arguing, but you do so poorly. You start with a claim: lack of morals is responsible for the majority of criminal and economic woe. You don't even attempt to support this claim in any manner.

Then you give another, unrelated claim. You claim that too many people use free speech foolishly, in manners which may be *allowed* but which nevertheless harm society, such as needlessly insulting people. Again, that's just a naked claim, no support for the claim is offered.

You then go on to claim that fractional reserve banking is, in general, fraud. It's unclear what this (naturally unsupported) claim has to do with any of the former two claims, but there you go.

You should tidy up your act. It's quite possible you've got an actual point, inside all the ranting. But if so, it's not entirely obvious what that point is even supposed to be.

One side effect of this license

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that all of your licensed items will be zero calorie and sold by Coca-Cola.

So, then "Zero" is still...

[davidsyes]

UNO?

"Even though it isn't a true public domain dedication, it only waives the rights as far as they can be waived (Note: Moral rights, in many countries, can not be outright waived),"

Re:So, then "Zero" is still...

[langelgjm]

I think that in the U.S. copyright law, the only moral rights that have been codified are for certain visual works. Moral rights are a much more European idea, and never gained much traction here.

Re:So, then "Zero" is still...

[Vectronic]

In some countries, it can potentially be zero, in others it would be uno...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights_(copyright_law)

So it's more like "zero, or as close to zero as possible"

Re:So, then "Zero" is still...

[bornwaysouth]

Hey, has anyone done the physics of this. Given that lawyers deal in quantum states (guilty/ not guilty; mine/ not mine) and that the participants are all identical (equal rights), then when you get sufficiently close to zero, Bose-Einstein stats apply and you get a condensate. I'm not sure what the actual entity then looks like, but there must be a physicist out there who has also studied up on what poets or programmers do when they can use everything.

Reading up on the Wikipedia < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose-Einstein_Condensate> article, the thing to be wary of is a bosenova - a spontaneous explosion in which a whole bunch of participants disappear. As a near zero copy-left condensate looks very similar to a communist state, it looks very much like an opportunity for someone to propose a Bose-Einstein-Lenin condensate, wherein all the workers are equal, until a megalomaniac arises. Or if the work is in programming, a robotic overlord.

Re:So, then "Zero" is still...

[Vectronic]

Yes?

I presume given your sig, and your comment, that your interest, and therefore your consciousness is tuned toward quantum += mechanics, so thats how you relate to things.

But I think that basically what you are saying is what Karl Marx said about the transitions of government: Capitalism to Socialism to Communism, and then repeat, or reverse.

So fundamentally anything related to laws and regulations, may go through the same sort of cycle.

Or I could have misinterpreted what you said entirely. After reading the wiki you pointed to, perhaps what you meant was more like a radical freedom, or even what could be called chaos, and then inevitable reformation, but it's basically the same.

Re:So, then "Zero" is still...

[bornwaysouth]

My sig reflects a preoccupation with the ambiguity of language, and also I'm 60 and while I accept QM, I'm still gob-smacked by it.

I'm interested in history, but my competence is sketchy at best. However...

Marxism did not deal in cycles - it proposed that each transitional government/state had inherent contradictions, which developed into an opposition to the state. After conflict, that was resolved into a newer, better state, and so on to a perfect communist state. So it was more sinusoidal on an upwards slope. Marx was a philosopher, not a manipulative politician. Nice guy, killed lots of people. Religions do that.

Lenin on the other hand, destructively took over the Russian revolution, supposedly creating a soviet of free and equal workers. The implication was that the perfectly structured society had been created, now all they had to do was work together to make it physically perfect. Helleleua brother.

Incidentally, I agree with the concept of CC0 - but it is a mechanism for gifting fragments of work, not for applying to everything. The Open Source community and the open music community do envision CC0 as quite widely applying. Suppose it is so wide that it is the majority rule.

In a CC0 society, the workers are all equal. Government has withered away. They take from society according to their needs, and give of their bounty. It is a requirement that all be equal, but society can define that. My language play was on the 'zero' concept, whereby temperature in a quantum environment was similar and possibly identical mathematically to rights status. If enough material (code, images, text) is in a zero state that individuals can function as social animals, then the society could be described as a Bose-Einstein condensate. I am really playing with words in a way, but laws are rules, and physical objects seem to have become indistinguishable from rule sets. I really do not know where the borders are.

Suppose, from a programmers perspective, you have a right to take others code, grab snippets, build anew, and then return that to the code collective. The Open Source Soviet. It can work, provided you have no food, clothing or shelter worries, and status is a function of contribution. I am a bit too cynical to believe it is stable, except in a monastery sense. That is, isolated communist societies can exist, and be very stable, provided they isolate themselves from the main - monasteries.

Marxism was supposed to be a science. I quoted Bose-Einstein to imply that you could apply 20th century science to it, where the workers of all lands had united. Maybe even make a sort of sense. That would be the fun bit. Like applying maths to financial systems.

The nasty bit is that societies really do seem to be groups wanting leaders, and that there are manipulative individuals who want to dominate. In short, the equality would break down. That is my cynic's evaluation.

So does a pool of rubidium atoms act as a nice model for a full copy-left society? Unlikely, but I am an aging chemist, not a physicist. Suppose they are a useful model, an analog social computer. The explosion observed in an actual B-E condensate, the bosenova, implies that they are not a perfect final state, a Soviet. So apart from cynicism, it is possible that a CC0 community has its inherent failures built in. Well, some of them have. It might be just a matter of spotting the causes, and snipping those bits out of the gene pool. You need a distant cold Gulag for the counter-revolutionary programmers. Call it Seattle.

Re:So, then "Zero" is still...

[nog_lorp]

Are bosenovae in any way related to Bossanova?

Re:So, then "Zero" is still...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think those are Boolean states, not quantum states

Re:So, then "Zero" is still...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Physicists have a sense of humor. A bosenova implodes and then explodes like a supernova. At least, thats the Wikipedia explanation for the pun in the article on Bose-Einstein stats.

I don't know how long they have been making puns to warn themselves they flirt with fantasy. The Rutherford group 80 years or so back called the impossible fragments of a split atom 'fission chips'. Back then, you probably got real cod in your fish and chips, and were happy to have it wrapped in real newspaper.

BSD

[dmomo]

Is this similar to the BSD license for software?

Come to think of it, can the CC licenses be applied to software?

Bare licence or contractual licence?

[whrde]

I wonder if these licences can be revoked after they have been dedicated to the public domain. If they are just bare licences then they can, they would have to be contractual licences to avoid that, but is there enough consideration in this agreement?

I doubt this would mean anything in reality, courts would find a way around this, but in theory these licences could be revoked at will by the copyright owner (with sufficient notice).

Re:Bare licence or contractual licence?

[Crispy Critters]

You forget one thing -- such licenses can no longer be revoked if another party takes significant actions relying on the license.

IOW, if you release a piece of code under CC0 and I use it as a basis to write a program which I then am marketing, you cannot revoke your CC0 designation and stop me from selling my program.

Re:Bare licence or contractual licence?

[whrde]

It'd be nicer if we didn't have to rely on estoppel, is anyone campaigning to have dedications to the public formally recognised by the law?

Re:Bare licence or contractual licence?

[ion.simon.c]

IOW, if you release a piece of code under CC0 and I use it as a basis to write a program which I then am marketing, you cannot revoke your CC0 designation and stop me from selling my program.

*nods* Licenses are *very* different from promises and covenants. :D

Re:Bare licence or contractual licence?

[anothy]

more to the point: can someone point me at anything in any US jurisdiction that actually says public domain dedications "don't work"? i've heard this lots over the past few months, but never before then, and it seems to be just plain fabricated.

Re:Bare licence or contractual licence?

[whrde]

This issue hasn't really been tested, and it's unlikely to be because the parties who would likely end up in court would have the option of estoppel. This is just theoretical, I don't think it would work in a real case, licences like these are so commonplace. But it would be nice if there were some certainty.

Re:Bare licence or contractual licence?

[gronofer]

The licence itself promises that it won't be revoked: "Affirmer hereby overtly, fully, permanently, irrevocably and unconditionally ..."

goes further

[Trepidity]

The BSD license is basically, "you may use this for any purpose, as long as you retain this copyright notice". There's also an implicit, "and as long as no other law prevents you from doing so". That's roughly equivalent to most uses of the Creative Commons Attribution license ("cc-by") (cc-by users can require that you "attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor", which could lead to more onerous requirements, but most don't).

This license removes even the attribution requirement, and attempts to waive all of those other implicit rights, such as moral rights in some countries. It's basically an attempt to come as close as possible to: you really can use this for anything you want, absolutely no strings attached, I really mean it.

For software licensing the difference is somewhat smaller, because non-copyright restrictions like moral rights are applied fairly infrequently to software--- they're more often applied to things like artistic works. I'm guessing that's why BSD-licensed software has never worried about it much.

You can indeed apply CC licenses to software, though I would probably only do so with the non-restrictive ones, like this one or cc-by. If you want to apply a copyleft license to software, using something like the GPL or LGPL is probably better than the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike ("cc-by-sa"), because it makes more effort to define exactly what the viral nature does and doesn't do, while cc-by-sa leaves a bunch of stuff vague when it comes to thinks like linking.

Re:goes further

[mlinksva]

You shouldn't use CC licenses for software. There are plenty of good licenses for that purpose -- too many. Use Apache2 or *GPL3. http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#Can_I_use_a_Creative_Commons_license_for_software.3F

Re:goes further

[aristotle-dude]

Those come with strings attached. There is nothing wrong with the BSD license.

Re:goes further

[mlinksva]

Nothing wrong with BSD (or MIT), though if you want a permissive license it makes some sense to use a modern one that includes some protection from patents, like Apache2. Bruce Perens explained on a recent /.'d post.

Re:goes further

[Plutonite]

There is nothing wrong with the BSD license.

Do do hear that sound? Loud, thumping sound.. kind of like the marching of angry soldiers if they were wearing sneakers instead of boots? That has to be the army of geeks preparing for the flamewar about to ensue, triggered by that harmless little statement.

Re:goes further

[Ihmhi]

Is there a CC0 for "You can use this for whatever you want, really, unless you plan to make money with it?

Re:goes further

[Ihmhi]

i.e. a license where you don't necessarily have to include the CC info and copyright but you can use it as freely as you want so long as it is non-commercial.

(Bah, I accidentally Submit button.)

Re:goes further

[mlinksva]

No. At least not one used significantly. Around 2000 there were many public content licenses created, including the Design Science License, Ethymonics Free Music Public License, Open Music Green/Yellow/Red/Rainbow Licenses, Open Source Music License, No Type License, Public Library of Science Open Access License, and Electrohippie Collective's Ethical Open Documentation License. Maybe one of those or one even less known happens to be a waive everything only for noncommercial use license. (I didn't mention the ones that were more significant, none of which are what you want.)

Re:goes further

[Velska1]

I think that I should like to retain the right, as a creator of certain texts, to deny anyone else the right to claim them as their own.

Use without attribution? Fine. Call it your own and try to license it commercially? No, siree!

Re:goes further

[kohaku]

I'd quite like to read that, do you have a link?

Re:goes further

[Futil3]

Bruce Perens: How Many Open Source Licenses Do You Need?

Re:goes further

[Anonymous Coward]

There is everything wrong with the BSD licence if you want free software.

It is as though a tyrant, unable to step directly into dictatorship because of the strength of opposition, decides to hide his true intent and get there by other means: by including a clause in the constitution which says that the people can vote in a dictator should they want to.

He will tell them, "It's a more 'free' system, because you, the people, get an extra option when you vote" - get it?

Sooner or later, in a fit of euphoria at some national event, the people will use that clause without thinking it through, and their democracy will be at an end.

Likewise the BSD licence. By allowing the close sourcing of the code, you guarantee that if the code is of any use at all, some organisation, at some point, will close source their additions and profit off the backs of those who wrote the rest of the code for free.

The GPL is intended to prevent that abuse happening. Fewer options, but more open code, and more co-operation between programmers.

Re:goes further

[mlinksva]

Uh, see *if you want a permissive license*.

Re:goes further

[anothy]

i know that's the official position, but i disagree, for several reasons, and have software licensed under CC licenses.

first of all, the whole point of the CC licenses is that they make it easy for users to understand what they're getting. CC isn't doing anything "new", legally: licenses with the same effects have existed forever. the same need for clarity exists in software licenses as it does in other domains; CC's win here doesn't stop holding true just because we're talking about software.
second, maybe i don't want a "Free" license for whatever reason (like, say, i'm being paid to provide different terms). CC has the advantage of providing easy to understand terms regardless of the degree or type of "Freeness" desired.
third, for the non-"Free" licenses in the CC suite, i think it's generally false that there are pre-existing software licenses that are widely known/used and cover the same ground. for example, i'd like to offer some code under either (at the recipient's discretion) CC's BY-NC or BY-SA. BY-SA is normally seen as covered for software by the GPL (but see my next point), but what about BY-NC? i've licensed work (not code in this case, but it certainly could have been) under BY-ND, too. if the CC licenses didn't exist or weren't known to me, i'd almost certainly have written my own (and less well) with the same effects.
finally, i take issue with the idea that there are "plenty" of good software licenses out there. most that're larger than the BSD/MIT licenses suck: they're overly long, poorly organized, and often poorly written.

i'm disappointed the CC has an official position recommending against using their work for software; they've done great stuff and i'd love to see it used much more widely. unless or until i see something with a similar breadth of coverage more targeted at software, i'll continue to use their licenses where the terms match what i need (which is almost always).

Re:goes further

[mlinksva]

There's no need to create new licenses to have CC-like easy-to-understand software licenses. CC has experimented with "human readable" deeds for a few software licenses and could work more with groups like FSF and OSI to do more and improve on those.

Noncommercial public licensing failed in software for good reasons, and it would be really dumb to introduce it at this point. Many people complain about NC culture licenses, but for software, they are much worse for a variety of reasons that I'll write about eventually, but see some of the bullets at http://www.slideshare.net/mlinksva/how-far-behind-free-software-is-free-culture-presentation

There are lots of poor software licenses out there, but the current generation of ones that are widely used and had a ton of attention during drafting are excellent, ie Apache2 and A/L/GPL3. To the extent they are long it is because they need to be (excepting preambles perhaps). CC licenses are also pretty long.

Re:goes further

[anothy]

first off, i think the CC licenses (not the deeds) read much better than the *GPL* licenses, and i think this is mostly because the reason GPL is the way it is has to do with reasons other than strictly needing to be long. when GPL3 was being drafted, Stallman and Moglen laid out the four purposes it was supposed to serve; only the first one was properly the role of a license, per se.

http://mailman.uwc.ac.za/pipermail/nextgen-users/2005-June/000005.html

i haven't personally read any of the Apache licenses, so i can't comment.

i also don't think it's fair to say that noncommercial software licensing has failed; plenty of applications are distributed under those terms. i think it's a niche role, rightly not taking the place of anything used for more wide-scale distribution, but it's out there and is useful.

Local law can still be a problem

[Enleth]

Unfortunately, the concept of "public domain" is nonexistent in some legal systems. Polish law, for example, is extremely idiotic in this aspect - not only it's not possible in Poland to publish a work anonymously to give it a public domain status (because the law states that for anonymous works, the role of a "temporary" author is to be claimed by default by the "collective copyright management institutions", read "RIAA-alikes", at least until the author decides to announce himself - and their primary objective is of course making money in every way imaginable), it's not even possible for the author to waive his rights to monetary compensation for his works and control over their current and future use - that is, given the wording of the Polish law, it could be argued that, for example, a programmer could revoke a GPL license on an already published piece of code, retroactively. This, sadly, means, that in Poland the "Zero" license means almost nothing - and it could easily be used by a dishonest author to sue someone using his work as if the author really waived his rights to it, and in good faith because of how the license could be perceived.

Re:Local law can still be a problem

[mlinksva]

In theory, you may be right. In practice, we can test your theory. Are there no programmers in Poland releasing code under the GPL? There are. Public copyright licenses (and waivers) turn out to be useful tools for releasing work and building community even if in theory they can't work.

Re:Local law can still be a problem

[Enleth]

Sure, in practice this particular problem is not that likely to happen and can be ignored with a decent safety margins in almost every situation. However, the general problem with laws (and many related things, especially formal contracts and agreements) is that you should never assume that a loophole of any kind will not be exploited just because of some inherent honesty of the people you're dealing with. Especially when they're not willing to fix it when pointed out, trying to reassure you in a suspiciously nervous way that there's no need to make a fix because it's not like they're going to use it against you, out of goodwill alone.

Re:Local law can still be a problem

[Celc]

Then what happends in Poland when the copyright passes it's duration 50-70 after the author death (or whatever it is in Poland)? Does it go into the "collective copyright management instututions"?

Re:Local law can still be a problem

[Chosen Reject]

it's not even possible for the author to waive his rights to monetary compensation for his works and control over their current and future use

Sure there is, just assign the copyright over to "RIAA-alikes" and you won't be compensated or have any control of your works ever again.

Re:Local law can still be a problem

[Enleth]

Well, that's as close to the public domain as you can get and it's the only way. Short of commiting suicide, there's nothing you can do to make it happen any sooner.

Re:Local law can still be a problem

[LihTox]

In this particular case, maybe someone could set up a "Public Domain Fund", a non-profit whose sole job is to hold the copyrights of works meant for the public domain (including anonymous works). Would this work? Can the charter of said organization be written so that there is no chance of them violating the public-domain nature of the works?

Re:Local law can still be a problem

[stiggle]

You mean something like the FSF, EFF or CC who you can assign your copyright to and they look after it and deal with the abuse by other parties.

Re:Local law can still be a problem

[commodore64_love]

What do you expect from a former Communist country? They've just emerged from a culture where everything was owned by somebody, either a private person, or the collectively by the government. The idea that books can be released without ownership is probably a concept they cannot grasp. In their minds *somebody* has to own the book. Trying to explain public domain to such a person is like trying to explain the concept of snow to tribes living in the tropics.

Eventually as those who grew-up under communism die-off, they will be replaced with younger leaders who can rewrite the law and allow books to exist without anybody owning them.

Re:Local law can still be a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

4/10, raged a bit.

This Post

[sexconker]

This post is not covered under any license.
You are free to copy it, edit it, distribute it, delete it, mod it up, mod it down, etc.

Re:This Post

[Pfhorrest]

This post is not covered under any license.

The problem is, under copyright law (US at least), your post is automatically copyrighted by you, and I'm not allowed to redistribute it without your permission. Giving that permission (usually with qualifications) is what a license does. So without a license, what you say below is false:

You are free to copy it, edit it, distribute it, delete it, mod it up, mod it down, etc.

Is this is true, then you have licensed me (and the rest of Slashdot) to do all these things, and what you said above (that it is not covered under any license) is false.

Re:This Post

[sexconker]

Copyright != license.

Re:This Post

[Ironchew]

This post is very proprietary.
You can't do anything with it. In fact, you have to pay 25 cents because you read it...
Otherwise, it would be a shame if anything happened to your...everything. (/extortion)
Yes, I can do that with your zero license.

Re:This Post

[cpt kangarooski]

So without a license, what you say below is false

Not if he placed those specific rights (if not the entire post) into the public domain. That is, after all, the only real way to reconcile the two statements, what with the second statement going a bit too far to make it just a restatement of what's permitted by copyright law. Putting things into the public domain doesn't require magic words, though absolutely clear and direct statements are certainly preferable to making people puzzle it out.

Re:This Post

[OrangeTide]

"This post is not covered under any license." .. meaningless in the US. especially given the text that follows.

"You are free to copy it, edit it, distribute it, delete it, mod it up, mod it down, etc." .. this is the license.

I always have the right to edit it, it's a copyright not a prevent-people-editing-it-right. But can I redistribute a modified version with your license, I doubt it? It was nice that I am allowed to distribute/copy, which implies the unmodified version. (I think that's how it works)

If I extend it with my own copyright material, with a license that is more restrictive (like sell a book of slashdot posts) then it appears I can do that with the license you have given me. so thanks!

(this post released under CC0 license)

Re:This Post

[Pfhorrest]

Not if he placed those specific rights (if not the entire post) into the public domain.

You are, per your sig, a lawyer, so you probably know better than I do... but I thought the whole reason for things like the CC0 license was that saying "this is now in the public domain" doesn't have any legal standing. (At least in some jurisdictions). As far as the law is concerned, you still own the copyrights until your copyrights expire, and the best you can do is just grant the broadest imaginable license permitting people to do whatever they want with it.

When I want to do such a thing, the language I usually use is to grant "an unlimited, perpetual license to copy, modify, and distribute as you see fit." Which seems to be more or less what the CC0 license does.

Re:This Post

[Splintax]

By saying "you are free to copy it, edit it, distribute it, delete it, mod it up, mod it down, etc." you are granting anybody a license to do those things to your post. Like the GP said, this means that your claim that "this post is not covered under any license" is false. A license is just permission to do something which would otherwise be illegal (in this case, violating your post's automatic copyright).

Stating that something is not under a license doesn't make it so if your words make it clear that creating a license was your intention. A license is a legal concept, not a document.

Re:This Post

[Splintax]

That is, after all, the only real way to reconcile the two statements

At least in the jurisdiction I live in, the law ignores the first statement rather than attempting to reconcile the two. If I state that I'm giving you permission to do something that would otherwise be a violation of my rights, that's making a license, even if I say "this is not a license".

Re:This Post

[cpt kangarooski]

It may very well depend on the jurisdiction. I'm only familiar with US copyright law, but here, copyright holders are perfectly free to waive their copyrights. If you're burdened with a paternalistic government that prevents you from deliberately doing such a thing, forcing you to jump through hoops even to just approximate what you wish to accomplish, I feel sorry for you.

From my quick skim of the CC0 faq, it appears to be first a public domain dedication, and then for anyone who would ignore that, a nearly-as-broad license to simulate the effect in those other, worse, jurisdictions. Basically, a belt and suspenders approach.

In truth, though, I don't pay much attention to CC. I'd rather see those efforts used toward fixing underlying copyright law, which would have massively broad effects, rather than giving tools to a meager handful of people who see a need, and are willing, to take affirmative steps to ameliorate many of the awful copyright laws that apply normally. To put it another way, if the defaults on a program are set poorly, it's better to fix them, then to waste time changing them on a case-by-case basis.

Re:This Post

[Renegade Iconoclast]

Is this is true, then you have licensed me (and the rest of Slashdot) to do all these things, and what you said above (that it is not covered under any license) is false.

Oh, crap, I always mess this one up. I think you're supposed to ask the gargoyle on the left a question like, "what would you say if I asked you if the gargoyle on the right is a liar?" Then, the gargoyles fly off together and mate in a surprisingly disturbing and unfortunately very public display. Then you're free to sneak into the castle. Something like that?

Re:This Post

[emlyncorrin]

Copyright != license.

But that's what Phorrest was saying. Your post is automatically copyrighted, nobody can distribute it unless you give them a license to do so. So either the second line is giving them a license (making the first line false), or the first line is true (making the second line false).

Re:This Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright is the law that says what you cannot do.

The license is what says what you CAN do.

(And an EULA is something that claims to be a license, yet attempts to set even more things that you cannot do).

Re:This Post

[Anonymous Coward]

No, in order to be protected by copyright law, a work has to meet a threshold of originality (in at least Swedish ("verkshÃjd") and American copyright law). As such, it can be considered to be in the public domain.

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality

Re:This Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that not EVERYTHING is automatically copyrighted. Not even going into things like facts vs. creative expression, fair use etc., there's also (fuzzy) lower bound on the length of a text it needs to reach in order to be copyrighted.

Put another way - I couldn't claim the letter "e" is copyrighted to me and could not be used without permission. Or, for a slightly less contrived example, even if I came up with an entirely new word - "chakaboogle", say -, I couldn't then claim that it's copyrighted to me and nobody else may use it without my permission (read: a license), even though it is new and noone used it before.

I'd argue that the GP's post does not meet the required level of creativity to be covered by copyright.

Re:This Post

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't say they did.

Re:This Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading comprehension is not your strong suit, is it?

Re:This Post

[bentcd]

But that's what Phorrest was saying. Your post is automatically copyrighted, nobody can distribute it unless you give them a license to do so. So either the second line is giving them a license (making the first line false), or the first line is true (making the second line false).

itsatrap!

Re:This Post

[wvmarle]

This post is not covered under any license.

The problem is, under copyright law (US at least), your post is automatically copyrighted by you, and I'm not allowed to redistribute it without your permission.

You may implicitly grant the right for redistribution. Posting on a public forum like /. is such a situation, because of the clear purpose of the forum. Sending a letter to the editor of a newspaper also implicitly allows them to reprint it (and they often add other clauses, like the right to shorten/edit letters - by sending in your letter you implicitly agree to that).

So this post of mine comes with the implicit license towards /. to store it and publish it to their visitors. However I do not think posting here implies the right of other people to copy this comment and post it on another website, for example.

Oh and of course by being the author I am the copyright holder unless specifically stated otherwise through contract or whatever means.

Re:This Post

[againjj]

Bzzzt! Wrong! The terms of service read (bold mine):

With respect to text or data entered into and stored by publicly-accessible site features such as forums, comments and bug trackers ("SourceForge Public Content"), the submitting user retains ownership of such SourceForge Public Content; with respect to publicly-available statistical content which is generated by the site to monitor and display content activity, such content is owned by SourceForge. In each such case, the submitting user grants SourceForge the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable license.

Thank you for playing. Better luck next time.

Re:This Post

[cpt kangarooski]

While I agree that merely putting a label on something doesn't necessarily make it so, we should at least start by seeing if it might be correct.

So here, he's not granting permission to do something which would otherwise infringe his rights, i.e. granting a license. He's waiving his rights, at least with regard to the specific acts listed, so for someone else to do them has nothing to infringe upon to begin with. So long as it is possible for him to waive those rights (and given the rights in question, it would be stupid for him not to be able to, assuming he's at all competent) the two clauses can thus be reconciled. Ignoring half of what he said would be a worse construction when we can accept it all and still get a viable result.

Re:This Post

[Splintax]

Seems to me that in this case, "waiving his [property] rights" (ie. giving up all rights to the post and therefore releasing it into the public domain) is a wider interpretation than the words of the original statement would allow.

This post is not covered under any license. You are free to copy it, edit it, distribute it, delete it, mod it up, mod it down, etc.

I don't think "this post is not covered under any license" is clear enough language to waive all rights to the post, and the second part of the post seems to grant specific permissions (ie. grant a license) rather than waive all rights to the post.

So the favourable interpretation seems to be "a license was granted" (even though the post specifically said there was no license, the writer may not have understood what constitutes a license in law), rather than "all rights to the post were relinquished" (even though this wasn't clearly stated).

I feel a little silly arguing over this, considering the original post, but hey :-) IANAL, but I am a second-year law student.

Re:This Post

[cpt kangarooski]

ie. giving up all rights to the post and therefore releasing it into the public domain

No, just the enumerated rights. I would imagine that he would retain whatever rights he had which he didn't mention. The entire post would likely not be in the public domain. At least, depending on how much weight the et cetera is afforded.

And yes, it was a silly post.

Obligatory cartoon (sort of)

[Yvan256]

See thepiratebay.org for sort of an on-topic cartoon, if only at the opposite of the CC0.

Re:Obligatory cartoon (sort of)

[Anonymous Coward]

See thepiratebay.org for sort of an on-topic cartoon, if only at the opposite of the CC0.

Any reason you couldn't use a live link to the cartoon in question?

Re:Obligatory cartoon (sort of)

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from Denmark you insensitive clod!

Re:Obligatory cartoon (sort of)

[larpon]

Tom Dane.. Is that you?

Re:Obligatory cartoon (sort of)

[Yvan256]

Yep. Lazyness.

This sounds familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

This license sounds like the KOPIMI "license" http://www.kopimi.se/kopimi/

Re:This sounds familiar

[mlinksva]

Not at all. Kopimi is just a symbol. Is it a legal instrument? Who knows. And it only suggests that you "want to be copied" -- nothing about adaptations. See if works under "kopimi" are accepted at Wikimedia Commons.

Re:This sounds familiar

[kjetil_r]

Works under "Koipmi" are actually being considered for deletion as we speak -- see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/Template:Kopimi

i respectfully submit

[circletimessquare]

that change, in any society, on any issue, occurs in one of two ways:

1. gradual, progressive, incremental change
2. stagnation, followed by massive revolution

#1 occurs when the system is such that it can absord gradual challenges to the status quo

#2 occurs when some sort of challenge, say, a technological one, such as the internet, represents such a dramatic fundamental modification to the order of a system, say, intellectual property law, that there is no way for the system to digest and incorporate

so this cc0 license, while laudable, seems to me like putting a bandaid on the stump of a severed hand: fruitless

no, he only thing that is going to happen here is revolution: individuals, not because they are amorla pirates, but just because they want to consume their culture (and it is their culture) within suitable parameters of inconvenience, will just reject the entire intellectual property legal system

currently, this is a very hot topic on slashdot, has been for years, but we are the canaries in the coal mine. none of this has really trickled down as a conceptual challenge to the average joe on the street. and when it does, and it is going to, the average joe on the street will, en masse, completely ignore current intellectual property law. he is doing so now, in dribs and drabs, subconsciously and not explicitly. but the tension will increase, and then boom: a veritable new legal landscape. change bubbling up form the bottom, rather than imposed from above

Re:i respectfully submit

[mlinksva]

If too many people had taken that attitude over the past 25 years we'd be figuring out the best way to download Windows binaries without paying instead of having a vibrant FLOSS economy that outcompetes proprietary software in many ways. We have the same choice to make with culture now. Imagining that suddenly things will change and copyright will then disappear or be reformed (in a positive direction) is a dangerous daydream.

Re:i respectfully submit

[Anonymous Coward]

shut the fuck up chink

Re:i respectfully submit

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright and patents should be outright repealed, someone tell me by what right do people own my culture?

Re:i respectfully submit

[noidentity]

Just the fact that copy restriction schemes require lots of resources to police will be their downfall, as some countries show that they can make more without them, and not waste any resources on trying to prevent people from copying culture.

Re:i respectfully submit

[quanticle]

Not necessarily. I posit that Linux would have even more traction on the desktop, since the patents on mathematical functions like MP3 compression or GIF image compression wouldn't exist. This would mean that Linux would be able to compete more equally with Windows, unlike the current situation, where Linux is crippled for desktop use due to its inability to include common multimedia software.

Also, in the absence of copyright, you'd see much more restrictive DRM on the part of Microsoft and other software vendors (since they wouldn't be able to rely on the legal system to seek recourse). This would also have the effect of driving more people to open-source software.

Finally, a looser intellectual property regime would make it easier for open source developers to reverse engineer closed binary formats, leading to improved cross compatibility between equivalent software.

Re:i respectfully submit

[mlinksva]

I agree with everything you say above. But you miss my point. Ignoring copyright is not going to lead to no patents, the absence of copyright, or a generally looser intellectual protectionism regime. The idea that ignoring copyright will lead to positive reform or revolution is the dangerous daydream.

Re:i respectfully submit

[Atario]

That all depends on how long you're willing to wait around, "daydreaming". Even if you firmly believe the revolution will come, it doesn't mean you're willing to forego a free OS (or whatever) till then.

Aren't basic rights good, though?

[CannonballHead]

It seems like not allowing the uttermost basic right of ownership/credit is a good thing though. Being able to claim something as mine even though I didn't actually do it is generally considered ... bad. Say I write a research paper and want to have be completely "public domain" with "no license attached." Ok, so now Joe can pick it up, put his name on it, and claim it has his completely legally? What happens when a school refuses to accept him for a Master's program, claiming that he didn't write it? Hmmm. Seems like NOT being allowed ot simply claim it as your own work when it's not (plagiarism) and licensing, at an extremely basic level, have to be cooperative.

Re:Aren't basic rights good, though?

[mlinksva]

Just because giving credit is generally worthy doesn't mean it should be legally mandated in all situations. Nor do legal mandates magically prevent the scenario painted above. Nor does not legally mandating credit disallow you from claiming credit for your work. And copying without credit is not always bad in a straightforward manner. Check out some of the articles linked at http://techdirt.com/search.php?q=plagiarism for some explorations of pluses and minuses. And of course you don't have to use the instrument if you don't want to.

Re:Aren't basic rights good, though?

[CannonballHead]

Hmm. So, can I produce something and be completely legally separated from it?

It seems that at a very, very basic level, a "license" and "ownership" and the "responsibility for creating it" are intertwined. Hm. Thinking out loud on slashdot. Not good. ;)

Re:Aren't basic rights good, though?

[Crispy Critters]

I'm not sure what you mean by "claim it as his".

Can he tell the school he wrote it? No.

Can he legally get copyright on it? No.

Can he use your paper as a start, add another 25% to it, and then copyright that? Yes. Is it plagiarism to submit it to a school without properly referencing your work? Yes.

Re:Aren't basic rights good, though?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Ok, so now Joe can pick it up, put his name on it, and claim it has his completely legally?

Only as far as copyright law is concerned. Fraud is still illegal in many cases.

Re:Aren't basic rights good, though?

[imhennessy]

I don't know for sure, but doesn't claiming credit or ownership of public domain material cross a line?

If I were grading papers and found some non-quoted, non-attributed public domain material in one, I wouldn't hesitate to flunk them.

IANAL, and also not a teacher or professor.

ivan

Re:Aren't basic rights good, though?

[brusk]

Yes, under certain regimes. In France one can abandon one's "moral right" over a piece of art, for example, and artists have done this over pieces of work that they did, in fact, produce. Though I doubt this could be used a defense in, for example, a slander case.

Re:Aren't basic rights good, though?

[Brandybuck]

Authorship doesn't go away just because you give up your copyrights. This CC0, as I understand it, gives up your *attribution* rights, but you still wrote the work and are still the author. If someone claims your work as their own, it is still plagarism, and in many cases, fraud.

Hamlet is in the public domain, but that does not mean you can legally claim that you wrote it. (Except in comedy skits, etc).

Re:Aren't basic rights good, though?

[_Sprocket_]

OK. I see where you're coming from. After all, your idea allows me to reveal that I wrote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

I am also Spartacus.

Re:Aren't basic rights good, though?

[quanticle]

In that case, the school wouldn't be rejecting him because he violated your license, they'd be rejecting him because of his intellectual dishonesty. Just because you've made it legal for Joe to use your work as his own doesn't mean its right for him to do so in an attempt to gain entrance to a program for which he'd be otherwise unqualified.

Re:Aren't basic rights good, though?

[quanticle]

Yes, you can create something, and, as long as you don't violate others' rights to life, liberty, or property in the process of doing so, you can give up ownership of that work.

Think about it - ownership includes the right to give up ownership. After all, if you can't give something away, do you really own it in the first place?

Re:Aren't basic rights good, though?

[anothy]

i think you did well until that last one: the answer is really "maybe".

in any legal, moral, or conversational context, the definition of plagiarism is fuzzy. if 99% of the new work is original, i doubt anyone would consider it plagiarism; if 1% is original, nearly everyone (including relevant legal contexts) would say it is. where that bound is varies with context, but there's a large grey border rather than a thin hard line.
also, note that public domain dedications affect the legal status of things, but not anything else. schools, for their part, are usually less concerned about the legal status than the moral or intellectual status of the work (at least when evaluating things like plagiarism in an admissions context). a public domain dedication might make it entirely reasonable for me to grab your essay, stamp my name on it, and pass it off as my own, but nobody outside a court room is likely to respect that. especially not if you're willing to stand up and say "um, no."
which brings us to the most important point, at least as far as the original question: schools have their own standards for what is or isn't plagiarism. some try to be very strict with citations, and your example use would certainly run afoul of those rules. the answer depends on the definition of the term in that particular context.

Those who can, do...

[mypalmike]

Those who can't, write licenses.

Re:Those who can, do...

[John Hasler]

No. Those who can't write laws, thereby obligating those who can to spend time they could have spent doing writing licenses instead.

Is this different from existing "zero" licenses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this any better or worse than, say, the Do What The Fuck You Want To license? (aside from having a more family friendly name)

0+

[Anonymous Coward]

The CC0 waiver system is a major step forward for the Creative Commons Organization in terms of their public domain efforts.

While for some the CC0 license might sound interesting, I think that a bigger step forward is the CC+ license.

CC+ is a protocol to enable a simple way for users to get rights beyond the rights granted by a CC license. For example, a Creative Commons license might offer noncommercial rights. With CC+, the license can also provide a link to enter into transactions beyond access to noncommercial rights â" most obviously commercial rights, but also services of use such as warranty and ability to use without attribution, or even access to physical media.

Re:0+

[mlinksva]

"CC+" is NOT a license.

timed-release license?

[drfireman]

I've always wondered why the creative commons doesn't offer a timed-release license, so to speak -- a license that kicks in at a certain future date. For example, instead of "you are hereby granted the right to do x," we might imagine, "you are hereby granted the right to do x on january 1, 2020 and any date thereafter." At one point they had something called the Founders copyright (do they still?), but it required transferring copyright to the creative commons, or some kind of nonsense like that. It seems like it would be quite easy to write this kind of license. Is there some technical legal reason why it can't be done?

Re:timed-release license?

[Toonol]

Can't you simply take one of their licenses and add that clause to it? Or are you not allowed to modify their license (which would be ironic)?.

Re:timed-release license?

[mlinksva]

You can http://creativecommons.org/policies just don't call it a "Creative Commons license"

Re:timed-release license?

[Breakfast Pants]

this: http://creativecommons.org/projects/founderscopyright

Re:timed-release license?

[drfireman]

Sure, but that would lose two of the main attractions of the CC licenses: (1) that they've been vetted by actual lawyers who supposedly know what they're doing; and (2) that they're readily available on the CC web site for anyone who wants to use them. If I wrote my own license, it would not encourage other people to use the timed-release license, and I'd leave out some magic legal word that would probably invalidate the whole thing.

Re:timed-release license?

[mlinksva]

There might be legally technical problems (but IANAL) but more significantly, 1) it isn't clear such would need to be built into the licenses 2) added complexity is inherently bad 3) take as a lesson the near total lack of such practice in free software -- the only significant instance I know of, Aladdin Ghostscript, ended the practice approaching 3 years ago, now going straight to GPL and 4) licensing work n years in the future just isn't that valuable (consider discounted present value) -- same analysis showing that even non-retroactive copyright extension doesn't increase incentive shows that timed-release doesn't increase value of the commons much.

Re:timed-release license?

[Anonymous Coward]

I really doubt you need to be a lawyer to say (in America).

All Rights Reserved, until June 1st 2020.

At that date you may at your option use this work under the terms laid out below
Quote CC0

Re:timed-release license?

[drfireman]

Right, that's the one I meant, thanks for the link. You can see it's a tremendous hassle compared to slapping a notice on your work.

Re:timed-release license?

[drfireman]

These are interesting points, thanks for your input. I have some quick responses. Re: 1, how would you put a piece of work into the public domain n years into the future if not via a license? Re: 2, I think added complexity is only inherently bad if it's for no reason. For example, rocket fuel is more complex than water, but rockets don't go if you put water in them. In this case, the simpler license is certainly better in terms of simplicity, but it's much worse in that it fails to grant rights that I would like to grant, namely the rights to use my work for anything whatsoever beginning in, say, 20 years. Re: 3, software is very different from other kinds of creative works, like books and music. Certainly I agree that this kind of license would make little if any sense for software. Re: 4, does this analysis consider only software, or are books and music considered as well?

Certainly the value of the commons would be greatly increased if works written today would fall into the public domain while still relevant. That horizon is much longer for books and music than for software, but not infinite.

Re:timed-release license?

[mlinksva]

1) presumably with a statement saying the license itself becomes effective on some date, ie why bake it into the license? But as I said, IANAL

2) Sure, there's always a tradeoff, and it's just a question of how much complexity is warranted.

3) Yes, software is different. But in what manner is it different that time release would be significant and positive for non-software when it hasn't been for software?

4) Analysis applies to anything, simple economics.

Value of commons not necessary increased by a new option due to substitution. Time release would only increase value (and again, big question of whether it would do so significantly) if time release option primarily pulled in works that would not have otherwise been freely licensed. If it primarily was used on works that otherwise would've been licensed immediately, it is a big negative.

Re:timed-release license?

[drfireman]

1: That's exactly the question I was raising initially. If it were that easy, presumably there would be no reason for the Founders' Copyright. But the team of lawyers at the creative commons felt the Founders' Copyright was necessary, for some reason.

3: Consider music. Music you write now might, in 20 years, still make a nice soundtrack for a school project movie you want to make available publicly, or a viral video. It might make, after a bit of processing, good background music for a free computer game. It might make a nice ring tone, or maybe someone would want to sample or otherwise adapt it for a new composition of some kind. There are a million potential uses for music, most of which are restricted by copyright, and many of them would be quite relevant in 20 years. The music would have much more value to the commons than to the copyright holder. By contrast, code ages much more rapidly, especially the kind of code liable to be released under this kind of license. The kind of code liable to be released into the public domain would generally be valueless to anyone unless released much sooner.

4: I thought the analysis was obvious enough, but I'll be explicit. Consider books. If it's not possible to create a timed-release license, virtually no books will be released into the public domain immediately. Most books will have no special license, which is to say that they will enjoy the almost perpetual copyright protection they do currently. In 20 years, all such books written today will still be under copyright protection, and will not be available for various uses. While many of the authors of such books will still be alive in 20 years, some will be dead, some won't want to bother trying to get the word out about their 20 year old books, etc. If such a license is available and legal, then 20 years down the road it will magically come into effect, and it will already be attached to every existing print or electronic copy.

It seems surpassingly unlikely that the timed release option would be used by someone who would otherwise release their work into the public domain sooner, and that this would somehow discourage them from releasing their work anyway. Four years from now, if you want to release your self-published opera score into the public domain, you're not going to be somehow deterred just because you originally published it with a timed release license on page one instead of a plain copyright notice. But with a timed release license, you'll definitely release it in 20 (or whatever) years. Without it, you most likely won't. It's really hard to imagine a scenario in which a timed release license will decrease the value of the commons, but it's quite easy to see how it might increase value.

Re:timed-release license?

[mlinksva]

I can probably agree that most software has a higher discount rate than most non-software, but that changes the optimal length of time until release, not whether to use timed release or not. Ghostscript GPL versions were in fact released after what for culture would be considered a very brief window -- about a year. I couldn't find a timeline of Id releases, but considering the company started in the early 90s and IIRC GPL'd some stuff (I'm no gamer -- Doom?) in the late 90s, probably no more than 5 years.

I find it highly likely the easy availability of timed release would cause some authors who would have released immediately under a public license or into the public domain to use the timed release instead. Consider the simplest case, where one could choose a time delay from the CC license chooser. I bet many people would select it just because they could, just as well over half of people select the NonCommercial option, even though in many cases doing so is counter to what one would hope sharing to accomplish. One could attempt to segregate people one suspects would only free their works if they could do so in a time-delayed manner, but I don't know how one would do that well. Seems like something that should be studied in an experimental econ lab.

Re:timed-release license?

[drfireman]

I find it highly likely the easy availability of timed release would cause some authors who would have released immediately under a public license or into the public domain to use the timed release instead. Consider the simplest case, where one could choose a time delay from the CC license chooser. I bet many people would select it just because they could, just as well over half of people select the NonCommercial option, even though in many cases doing so is counter to what one would hope sharing to accomplish.

Certainly there are both costs and benefits, and we don't really know the balance. I understand your concern about the time release costing the commons a few years of access to something useful, and I'm sure you understand my concern that works may end up with many more years of copyright restrictions than their creators really wanted. I have to say, I suspect the real reason many people choose the noncommercial option is that it really expresses their feelings about what rights they would like to grant (even if those feelings aren't well thought out). Noncommercial clauses have been written into various software licenses for a long time, certainly since long before it was possible to generate one from a web interface. Many people don't like the idea of freeloaders. Removing that option would obviously reduce the amount of stuff licensed under those terms. But I'm not very comfortable with the idea of bolstering the commons by trying to herd people into choosing the licenses I like best.

I'll also add that my original reason for asking about this wasn't because I just thought it would be a great idea to help increase the common good, it was just because in the past I've wanted to use a license like that, but the Founders' Copyright was too much trouble.

Re:timed-release license?

[mlinksva]

A license creator/steward has to think about the common good, or you end up with a mess of incompatible licenses and other forms of failed sharing.

Brad Kuhn of SFLC (formerly of FSF) put it very well:

We in the non-profit licensing sector of the FLOSS world have a duty to the community of FLOSS users and programmers to defend their software freedom. I try to make every decision, on licensing policy (or, indeed, any issue) with that goal in mind.

Of course CC doesn't do software licenses and some of its licenses are only semi-free by the standards of free as in (software) freedom as applied to culture, but the overall lesson of the responsibility of license stewards applies.

Fix the Underlying

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't someone just bring sanity to the copyright code instead of letting Disney lobby to amend it every time Mickey is about to fall into the public domain.

Re:Fix the Underlying

[mlinksva]

Go for it. In the meantime, consider that if over the past 25 years instead of releasing free software, hackers had just waited for "someone to bring sanity to copyright" ... we'd be figuring out the best way to download Windows binaries without paying instead of having a vibrant FLOSS economy that outcompetes proprietary software in many ways. We have the same choice to make with culture now. Pegging hopes on copyright reform (when all such has been in the wrong direction for many decades) is a dangerous daydream.

Re:Fix the Underlying

[Anonymous Coward]

I see what you did there.

Re:Fix the Underlying

[anothy]

to be fair, it certainly isn't an either/or situation, and i don't think the GP post was intending to imply it was. given the huge stores of cultural value locked away behind insane copyright laws, fixing that system is certainly a much bigger deal.

Re:Fix the Underlying

[mlinksva]

And I didn't mean to imply it is either/or, either. :-)

I suspect that building voluntary commons (in software and culture) is probably the most effective means of advancing long term reform -- they demonstrate that restrictive copyright is not necessary for innovation, creativity, etc.

half-baked reasoning

[circletimessquare]

in your scenario, there's more freedom of choice. so linux would be downloaded more, and would be on more desktops. you posit that the FLOSS wouldn't exist. bullshit

linus built linux initially not as some grand experiment in intellectual property, he built it because it was neato. so sorry, but you are wrong, we'd still have FLOSS, and we'd have more linux on the desktop. your reasoning is flawed, because you completely do not understand what really motivates people to write open source

Re:half-baked reasoning

[mlinksva]

If the people who did care about the damage being done by copyright (eg Stallman) waited for a revolution instead of acting, indeed, FLOSS as we know it wouldn't exist. Linus would've written code, as would've many others, but there would have been no structure for them to successfully collaborate in. It would have been an instance of failed sharing, even if they weren't conscious of it.

Official CC0 launch coming early March

[mlinksva]

Hi, I work for Creative Commons (and occasionally get sucked into responding to /. comment threads...) --

We soft launched CC0 recently, and will be doing a hard launch in a couple weeks. If you want to know more, I urge you to check out http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0

Here's a copy of the page for easy reading. Please mod this up. :-)

About CC0 -- "No RightsReserved"

This tool is at 1.0 and is ready for adoption. If you would like to participate in a formal announcement, please contact legal@creativecommons.org.

CC0 enables scientists, educators, artists and other creators and owners of copyright-protected content to waive copyright interests in their works and thereby place them as completely as possible in the public domain, so that others may freely build upon, enhance and reuse the works for any purposes without restriction under copyright.

In contrast to CC's licenses that allow copyright holders to choose from a range of permissions while retaining their copyright, CC0 empowers yet another choice altogether - the choice to opt out of copyright and the exclusive rights it automatically grants to creators - the "no rights reserved" alternative to our licenses.

The Problem

Dedicating works to the public domain is difficult if not impossible for those wanting to contribute their works for public use before applicable copyright term expires. Few if any jurisdictions have a process for doing so easily. Laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction as to what rights are automatically granted and how and when they expire or may be voluntarily relinquished. More challenging yet, many legal systems effectively prohibit any attempt by copyright owners to surrender rights automatically conferred by law, particularly moral rights, even when the author wishing to do so is well informed and resolute about contributing a work to the public domain.

A Solution

CC0 helps solve this problem by giving creators a way to waive all their copyright and related rights in their works to the fullest extent allowed by law. CC0 is a universal instrument that is not ported to any particular legal jurisdiction, similar to many open source software licenses. And while this means that CC0 may not be completely effective at relinquishing all copyright interests in every jurisdiction, we believe it provides the best and most complete alternative for contributing a work to the public domain given the many complex and diverse copyright systems around the world.

Using CC0

Unlike the Public Domain Dedication and Certification, CC0 should not be used to mark works already in the public domain. However, it can be used to waive copyright or database rights to the extent you may have these rights in your work. In addition, you should only apply CC0 to a work if you own all relevant copyright or database rights in it, or have the necessary rights to apply CC0 to another person's work.

• Learn more about CC0
• Choose CC0

Re:Official CC0 launch coming early March

[wvmarle]

Is this license going to be translated to other languages?

This as we live in an international world, and I have no idea on how a foreign-language license is accepted in various jurisdictions. In many European countries, at least in my home The Netherlands, the official language (i.e. Dutch) must be used for agreements between individuals or between individuals and companies. Foreign languages (e.g. English) are legally accepted only for contracts between companies. And I wouldn't be surprised if the judge in such case may demand an approved translation to the official language, would the contract come to court or arbitration.

Of course IANAL, however using an English language copyright license for e.g. a Dutch language literary work simply sounds strange to me. Contracts and licenses are not the same of course, still language sounds like an issue to me here.

Re:Official CC0 launch coming early March

[mlinksva]

Yes, it will be translated linguistically (as opposed to "legal porting" done with the main six CC licenses).

Re:Official CC0 launch coming early March

[theheadlessrabbit]

Hi, as an occasional user of the CC, I really appreciate having someone who has a deep understanding of the CC, and knows how this stuff works come on and answer questions on /.

but this comment:

(and occasionally get sucked into responding to /. comment threads...)

makes it seem like you really don't like answering these sorts of questions. This is a little off-putting for people like me, who use the CC with a little hesitation, because we aren't lawyers who understand this sort of stuff.
(or have I misread/misinterpreted the tone of your response, and a *Woosh* is in order)

Re:Official CC0 launch coming early March

[mlinksva]

IANAL either. Sorry if that was off-putting. It was intended to be more self-deprecating as I was kind of embarrassed to be posting so many comments on this story when I'm a very occasional commenter on slashdot ... haven't earned the right or something.

Re:Official CC0 launch coming early March

[theheadlessrabbit]

ok, thanks you for clearing that up.

wait...you've got a 4 digit /. user ID, and you don't think you've 'earned the right' to make a lot of comments in an area where you are very much an expert?

so, in response to my previous comment: woosh!

Public Domain

[russotto]

I've just been labeling my works "Copyright 1821 by The Joseph Wind Publishing Company, All Rights Reserved". Retroactive copyright extension has a while before it gets back that far.

Re:Public Domain

[wvmarle]

Are you sure this method is future proof?

there are a few others

[Trepidity]

id's games are probably the biggest remaining example of the "recent stuff is proprietary; once it's been out a while it goes free software" model.

I disrespectfully do not submit

[SteveFoerster]

You assume there's only one culture involved. In much of the non-Western world copyright is a culturally alien concept foisted on people as a means of economic colonialism. In many places it's worthwhile to encourage resistance to copyright instead of assuming that copyright is just there to stay and that observance of it can only grow.

Re:I disrespectfully do not submit

[mlinksva]

No, I don't assume there's only one culture. If "resistance to copyright" means blithely ignoring copyright and copying Hollywood movies gratis (great, give them free advertising and cultural lock-in) in hope that somehow enforcement won't follow, that is as I said, a dangerous daydream. On the other hand, if resistance means encouraging alternatives to the copyright industries, why not actively renounce copyright so that those who live where it is enforced can cooperate with you and so you aren't screwed when enforcement does start?

I see that you do indeed explicitly put at least some of your work in the public domain, which is great. So this is not a criticism of what you actually do, but the argument you're making.

Re:I disrespectfully do not submit

[SteveFoerster]

I expect there is a lot of movie copying where the bandwidth is sufficient. But I also meant things like software, where if people are going to learn to create multimedia they're going to have to use unlicensed applications, and other kids of content, especially educational content.

As you noticed, I'm involved with open educational resources. And that's great, and the more of them there are the better. But the reality is that there's not enough open content available that's in a useful form, especially for K-12 purposes. And that means that right now poor kids in Lagos or Karachi or wherever are better off with an errant photocopy of a closed content textbook than with whatever can be cobbled together from available OERs. Even more so for kids who aren't learning in English.

I'm not saying that you all at CC are villains for promoting open licensing. But that doesn't mean that a healthy disregard for copyright might not sometimes be a better solution. And one doesn't even necessarily need to hoist the black flag to do that; even something like educators banding together to expand fair use/fair dealing for educational purposes could be part of that.

Re:I disrespectfully do not submit

[mlinksva]

I have no beef with teachers and learners who do what they have to do.

Anyone who can be meta enough to post on slashdot, I submit, should be thinking further ahead -- ensuring that in a decade there are enough OER that anyone in the world has freedom, regardless of what the copyright regime is (or is not). You and others at WikiEducator and similar sites are doing just that, so many cheers for your activity!

Fighting for fair use and other exceptions is absolutely part of a long term strategy. Critically important to the long term success of free content, analogous to the fight against software patents is critical to the long term success of free software. I can expand that argument if anyone wants to argue. :-)

no. flat out wrong

[circletimessquare]

you are saying the desire to be free is only dependent upon dogmatic control as a contrasting agent

i assert to you that the desire to be free is an organic desire in its own right, with no preconditions

freedom is not a product of slavery. freedom is an original impulse

i really don't know how else to articulate how completely and utterly wrong you are. your idea of cause and effect is completely bogus

Re:no. flat out wrong

[mlinksva]

I wish you would try harder to articulate, because I really would like to understand.

Right now, I don't. I didn't say anything about the desire to be free. Please try to explain. Thanks.

Similar license

[Anonymous Coward]

What happened to the DWTFUWWI license?

i am presented an environment

[circletimessquare]

in which my creative output, which includes code, is consumed according to a strict legal regimen

i reject this strict regimen, i wish my creative output to be consumed however anyone likes

so far, we are both on the same page

this is where we differ:

you assert that this rejection of a strict legal regimen only occurs because the strict legal regimen exists in the first place, that it creates the desire to be free of it

i assert that the desire to be free of the strict legal regimen exists organically, regardless of the existence of the strict legal regimen or not

Re:i am presented an environment

[mlinksva]

Why do you think I make that assertion? I do not. I agree with your assertion. There is always a latent desire to be free of a bad, whether the bad exists or not. I desire to be free of zombie attacks, right now, regardless of the existence of zombie attacks.

Let's go back a bit. I suspect where we might disagree is how one effectively rejects the strict regimen. I say the most effective way to do so is to unambiguously free your creative output, such that even one who does not reject the regimen understands that they are free to to use your creativity. Do you disagree with this? If so, what do you think the most effective way to reject the regimen is?

exactly

[circletimessquare]

its a game of diminishing returns this ridiculous impossible enforcement of all these tiny little gates

in the new world order, anything that can be digitally consumed: books, movies, music, code, will be nothing more than free advertising. the precedent for this not so earth shattering status quo is called television, radio: free content (supported by advertising, but on the internet the content IS the advertising)

advertising for what?

the creators!

creators will make their living off of ancillary benefits of wide adoption of their creative output:

1. the musician will derive a livelihood from live concerts
2. the book writer will get a nice check for the movie adaptation
3. and the movie itself will still be consumed in movie theatres. television was supposed to kill movie theatres, the vcr was supposed to kill movie theatres, and now the internet is supposed to kill movie theatres. no: people like to go, even with the babies and cell phones. its true. the movie theatre is not dying, its very healthy. with imax, 3d: it has a bright future
4. and the coder will simply have one awesome resume in which to get a really good high paying job

thats the future: digital content IS the advertising, for the creators

please note: no distributor needed. the internet replaces bertelsmann, harlequin, virgin, barnes&noble, the dvd aftermarket, etc.: all history, all dead. all gone

well, they probably will morph into shadows of their former selves, 1/10th to 1/100th of their previous economic footprint. someone will still make money promoting teenie bopper bands and pulp fiction, and receiving a share of income for the hype

Am I the only one not liking Creative Commons?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't particularly care for the idea of the Creative Commons, where content creators get to pick and choose among several different variations of the terms under which they want to license their stuff.

I would really prefer a bifurcated Internet, the strong walls of which would serve to just as happily keep closed content out of my sight as it would to keep those who have walled themselves in with copyright, DRM etc. to keep people like me out.

Since we each respectively view the other party as riff-raff, then let's each keep the other riff-raff out.

When THEY log onto the Internet, they don't want people like me taking their content. Fine, then let's make the part of the Internet in which they play somewhere else.

For *my* side of the Internet, I don't want to have to go sifting through different variations on licenses. I want a free-for-all, where I never even have to think about licenses.

My ideal Internet would have two parts, theirs, and mine. I don't care what their side looks like. For all I care it can have rock solid impossible-to-break DRM. It doesn't really matter to me. What matters to me is that their DRM infected Internet not be allowed to pollute my side of the Internet in any manner.

So, what's the value of multiple Creative Commons licenses? I want to only see, ever, just one license, the free-for-all license. The ideal Internet is everybody playing by the rules ... the rules being that anyone can copy, mash-up, mix and match whatever at any time ... and nobody is ever allowed in that would ever try to impose a more restrictive rule.

Maybe technically the way to do this is through a portal, a CC site or a search engine which only returns free-for-all content. But the non-free content needs to be kept out of the results so it doesn't get in the way.

Re:Am I the only one not liking Creative Commons?

[mlinksva]

Maybe technically the way to do this is through a portal, a CC site or a search engine which only returns free-for-all content. But the non-free content needs to be kept out of the results so it doesn't get in the way.

This is precisely why CC has put such effort into making licenses and licensed works machine readable, ie, with metadata that enables such search that only gives you results with the freedoms you request.

Implementations are far from perfect, but you can go to the advanced search pages at Google, Yahoo, Flickr, and elsewhere -- some available via http://search.creativecommons.org/ -- and say that you want results that can be used commercially and for derivatives. That's a start toward what you want, and one has to start somewhere.

Re:Am I the only one not liking Creative Commons?

[JoshuaZ]

There are a few problems with your idea. First, some people really do want different restrictions. Some people for example don't mind mind if others use their work as long as their is attribution. There's no room in your universe for such people. They can't fit in either of your two internets. Similarly, people who are willing to let their work be used in almost anyway but want small amounts of permission for commercial work won't have a place. xkcd will be expelled from the internet in your system. If one wants more flexibility about mash-ups and similar content across the board you have three options: 1) encourage more people to release material in some copyleft form whether it is GFDL, or CC, or the artistic license or the Do What the Fuck you Want to license. 2) help expand notions of fair use through both the courts and the political process. 3) Help corporations and artists understand that less control over content can actually be beneficial (Lessig's recent book Remix is an excellent discussion of this last issue which is often underappreciated). This is all before we even get to the complete impracticality of your idea. Aside from the problem of dividing networks, there would be no effective way to prevent content transfer from one network to the other. CC licenses exist in the real world. The point of things like the CC0 license is to deal with the realities of the world we operate in so that people can distribute free content in the here and now and not wait for the Messiah to come.

Re:Am I the only one not liking Creative Commons?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, Stallman's beard must be cutting off the oxygen to his brain. Let me guess; all the machines on your side of the Internet will run Hurd?

Only "creative works" are copyright automatically

[the_raptor]

Copyright law has various parameters that must be met before something is considered a "creative work" under the legislation. A short essay would probably meet the criteria, a two sentence post is likely to fall short of being considered a "creative work". And that is before you even need to worry about any notion of "fair use".

Already done

[50_1337]

Isn't that the same as the WTFPL licence ?

Re:Only "creative works" are copyright automatical

[Pfhorrest]

Copyright law has various parameters that must be met before something is considered a "creative work" under the legislation. A short essay would probably meet the criteria, a two sentence post is likely to fall short of being considered a "creative work". And that is before you even need to worry about any notion of "fair use".

Can you cite those parameters from somewhere? Because in my multimedia arts program we had a class especially on licensing and distribution issues, and the way it was put to us was that an 'X' scratched on a piece of paper is instantly copyrighted. Heck, not playing an instrument can be copyrighted.

Bad idea if you're against copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the abominable institution of copyright exists, we have to use it against appropriation and privatization of our work by others. Waiving all copyright to one's own work gives the assholes free rein. So please don't use this, use GPL.

Re:Bad idea if you're against copyright

[mlinksva]

CC0 is not intended for software. If you want copyleft for non-software, CC BY-SA is probably what you want. If you're against copyright there's something to be said for actually renouncing your own (which CC0 tries to do to the maximum extent possible), but I understand the appeal of using copyright against itself, and copyleft certainly has a big role to play.

WTFPL

[hollywoodb]

There's never any love for the WTFPL. It's like cc0 for software: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/

you might still be able to do that

[Trepidity]

If they're literally claiming to have written it, and that's factually false, and they're competing with you commercially, there are still laws against false advertising.

Re:Only "creative works" are copyright automatical

[wvmarle]

I believe copyright law talks about "works", not "creative works". This would at least prevent the discussion of what is "creative".

Strange...

[TenBrothers]

I can't be the only one who finds it strange that a licensing agreement has a release just as any other product. This is a product? It's legal terminology. I wouldn't consider the Declaration of Human Rights (to make a spurious connection) a product. Am I wrong in this?

CC/Zero?

[Requiem18th]

Is this DieForOurShip?

In Soviet Russia, horse leads YOU to water!

[Millennium]

And it CAN make you drink!

I'd rather like to see active progression ...

[freaker_TuC]

I've been adopting the CC+ licensing system in Belgium for some time now and have been unable to join Sabam, the Belgian variant of the HFA, Stemra, ...

These organizations demand you to sign away your rights, including those you've been creating under Creative Commons! Making it impossible to release Creative Commons music without royalties being forced up for it. This is one of the basic reasons I've not been joining Sabam yet, to not sign away my current ideal of the ability to release non-commercial with commercial releases as one artist!

More information about this can be found here. I'd like to see some more active progress in the rights system towards existing organizations luring away the common artist from their creative ideal.

I guess discussions "could" be started, by the CC crowd, towards these organizations defending the CC right; since they are basically pissing upon other contracts/licensing deals or forms. In Holland they've started a pilot program to allow CC, but not CC+; since that would have to go through Stemra.

Why shouldn't an artist be free to do what they want with their OWN productions? Even if this is for (non)commercial usage (only) ?

Certain aspects of authorship are inalienable

[tlambert]

Certain aspects of authorship are inalienable

It's effectively impossible to willfully place something in the public domain, which is what this license attempts to do... the author is simply unable to legally disengage themselves entirely from a work of authorship under current law.

Specifically, placing something "in the public domain" does not waive express or implied warranties, fitness for a particular use, or merchantabiity. Neither does it disclaim direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages. So if this were applied to a piece of code, and that code was incorporated into, for example, a blood gas analyzer, and as a result of that incorporation, the analyzer displayed an incorrect result, leading to the death of a patient, you simply have no recourse as the author.

I'm also skeptical as to whether or not this license would be a legal tort at all -- there is no consideration remitted to the author, as there in effect is, with other licenses. The closest I think you can get to this idea is the BSD license, which associates a hold harmless clause with the licensing to prevent, as much as possible, the legal liability, as consideration by the licensee for rights to use the code of the licensor. That would (under the Berne Convention) give you a basis for a copyright infringement countersuit for illicit use of the material (with no tort in place, all rights revert to the author), but I'm pretty sure that the court awards for copyright infringment are going to be truly dwarfed by the liability awards for negligence resulting in a death.

It's an interesting license in a legal sense, since it points out the discontinuities present in current copyright law, but this is a very very bad license for anyone to actually use.

-- Terry

Question re "Non-revocable" clause in CC licenses

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't on topic, mlinksva, but I wonder if you could help me anyway.

I've often wondered to whom to address the matter of what is currently happening in France with SACEM versus the CC licenses.

SACEM is running a campaign to sign artists who have previously published works under CC (and gained good reputations from those works) to its member labels. Once that is done, it then encourages the artists to not only cease offering their previously published CC works (which is fine of course) but also to retroactively revoke the "perpetual" and "non-revocable" clauses of CC so that those who previously obtained the works under CC "no longer have the right" to continue distribution, according to their advice.

While this runs completely counter to the expressed intent of the CC licenses to which the musicians committed at the time of release, SACEM's money and SACEM's lawyers are a powerful combination, and lots of previously CC-published French musicians are now taking exactly that line with their old CC-released works. (Tons of them on Jamendo.com)

Does the CC organization already know that this is happening in France? If not, who should one write to? And in general, what recourse do we have?

It's a pretty nasty situation out there currently in France --- SACEM has crawled in under the radar and is undoing a lot of the good work that CC has achieved over the years. I hope that we're not totally powerless to counter it in some way.