Creative Commons - intellectual property conservancy

[Adam L. Beberg]

On 17 May 2002, Gary Lawrence Murphy wrote:

> How does the CC differ from just slapping a GNU FDL on your content,
> and if it's the same thing (only perhaps with an authoratative
> registry) then why is it any worse than the anarchic application of
> the FDL?  Seems to me, by filing with the CC (even for free) if the
> courts test only after the fact, the CC provides at least as good a
> proof of prior art than registered self-mailings.

The goals of CC are clearly to reach a different place then say the GPL.
Where the GPL aims to be Free as in money + Viral as in I cant use anything
locked away in that place + Confusing as all hell, the CC license aims to
get people as close to the public domain as possible and make things
absolutely clear in what way it's NOT public domain if it's not.

I can explain what public domain means to people in one sentance, and each
of the CC "license wizard" options in another sentance each. Just try
explaining any of the "Open Source" licenses in less then 30 minutes, sooooo
many clauses and "gotchas"...

CC is a good thing. The main problem I see is as the "Open Source" list of
licenses shows people are just never happy with someone elses license no
matter what you do. Hoefully CC can beat some clarity into the system.

- Adam L. "Duncan" Beberg
  http://www.mithral.com/~beberg/
  beberg@mithral.com