Is Creative Commons dumb?
p2pnet.net News View:- This is one of the dumbest initiatives ever put forth by the tech community. I mean seriously dumb. Eye-rolling dumb on the same scale as believing the Emperor is wearing fabulous new clothes.
That`s John Dvorak in PC Magazine. So what ignited his anger?
Creative Commons is, he believes, some sort of secondary copyright license that does absolutely nothing but threaten the already tenuous `fair use` provisos of existing copyright law.
Dvorak says he`s begged critics of the system, such as The Register’s Andrew Orlowski, to explain to me how Creative Commons works or what it’s supposed to do that current copyright law doesn’t do.” According to Dvorak, Orlowski says “It does nothing.”
Then, “why are bloggers and do-gooders and various supporters making a point of tagging their material as being covered by Creative Commons?” – Dvorak wants to know. “Is it just because it’s cool and trendy – a code for being hip amongst a certain elite? There is no other answer.
There are several things that bother me about this initiative. First, Creative Commons is similar to a license. You sign up with the group and post a message saying that your material is protected or covered by Creative Commons. This means that others have certain rights to reuse the material under a variety of provisos, mostly as long as the reuse is not for commercial purposes. Why not commercial purposes? What difference does it make, if everyone is free and easy about this? In other words, a noncommercial site could distribute a million copies of something and that’s okay, but a small commercial site cannot deliver two copies if it’s for commercial purposes. What is this telling me?
This is nonsense. Before Creative Commons I could always ask to reuse or mirror something. And that has not changed. And I could always use excerpts for commercial or noncommercial purposes. It’s called fair use. I can still do that, but Creative Commons seems to hint that with its license means that I cannot. At least not if I’m a commercial site and the noncommercial proviso is in effect. This is a bogus suggestion, because Creative Commons does not supersede the copyright laws. In fact, the suggestion is dangerous, because if someone were sued by the Creative Commons folks over normal fair use and Creative Commons won the suit, then we’d all pay the price, as fair use would be eroded further.
Fine by me
p2pnet started using CC a long time back primarily to let other publishers (or whatever : ) on or offline know they could use our content freely, with certain very broad qualifications.
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 is the way it`s summed up.
There are also Creative Commons music licenses which have similarly opened the door for people to do re-mixes, and so on.
But do CC licenses really do anything? Like, what happens if someone uses p2pnet copy and doesn`t attribute it or, worse, sells it or uses it commercially in some other way? Will we then sue them under a CC license?
Nope. p2pnet material is used all the time in all kinds of ways and that`s fine by me. After all, the idea is to communicate and how can you do that if you shackle what you`re trying to say?
So what the hell good is CC?
It`s a way of clearly stating on every post that while I`m allowing anyone, anywhere, to make fair use of p2pnet material, I`m not giving them carte blanche to do anything they want with it. I’m saying I want to be reasonable and share, and I expect people who use our copy to be reasonable as well.
If they choose to re-publish stories without attribution, or to sell p2pnet material, that makes them small, whether they know it or not.
But to me, a Creative Commons license is a lot more than just, well, a license. It`s also a kind of subjective acknowledgement that I’m now in a brand new world of communication where new standards rule – that I`m open to openness and innovation, and that I`m doing my best to encourage them.
It`s the thought that counts. And Creative Commons is a good thought.
Jon Newton
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
PC Magazine – Creative Commons Humbug, July 19, 2005
fine by me – Credit where credit is due, p2pnet, July 20, 2005
July 22nd, 2005 at 4:52 pm
What a fag.
July 22nd, 2005 at 5:52 pm
and you’re an asswipe.
July 22nd, 2005 at 7:13 pm
Creative Commons make an easy to understand license.
Without hours of reading legal texts.
Simple description of what’s ok and what’s not.
That’s an overwhelming advantage over most licenses.
July 22nd, 2005 at 7:40 pm
“…a noncommercial site could distribute a million copies of something and that’s okay, but a small commercial site cannot deliver two copies if it’s for commercial purposes.”
If John Dvorak does not understand how that scenario is good for the public “commons” then he’s got no business being a journalist. If you want to use something covered by a CC license to make money, you pay. How hard is that?
July 22nd, 2005 at 8:31 pm
What John doesn’t seem to understand is that if the corporate cartel has it’s way they’ll chip away at the fair use statute untill there’s little left of fair use. The entertainment industry has made no secret of that. so if he’s relying on on existing fair use to do what he wants with no protection from the powers to be who’s trying to eliminate it. talk about dumb.
July 22nd, 2005 at 9:15 pm
Yep, he gets it.
If you are in favor of the cartel way of doing things or you have a vested interest in things remaining the way they are, then Creative Commons is definitely a threat. The cartels depend on the legal battery and its cost to be the ultimate defense for average Joe.
By removing all the corporate structure around penalties and what is and is not allowed without professional help to understand it, average Joe can make sense of it all without spending big bucks and passing information on what he intends to do or is thinking of doing.
It is the involvement of money that greases the wheels of the cartel. If average Joe can just do it on his own and not have to invest any sort of large fees then he doesn’t need the cartel to supply it at the cost of his life’s earnings. So the cartel is dropped out of the picture. Again the dinosaur is seeing that its demise is on the horizon and its options are disappearing and narrowing. It strikes at anything that resembles a threat to it. You have only to look at all the media hype with every move or thought to see this. Faithfully, corporate media echoes the musings of the cartel and the cartel uses that to its best ability.
Average Joe uses his wallet and how satisfied he is with a product as his measurement of worth. How many folks you think, that got a damaged cd reader by buying a piece of crap, purposely made to do that very action if you put it in a computer, really think that they got their moneys worth?
July 22nd, 2005 at 11:01 pm
Finally, some see the light. Lawrence Lessig – father of CC- says we need to fire lots of lawyers. Then how will we be able to enforce the CC license? Read here: Creative Commons Paradox. http://p2pnet.net/story/2947
Remember: a License – in any form- = DRM.
July 22nd, 2005 at 11:33 pm
John Dvorak, unlook what most people believe is NOT a technocrat. He is NOT some genius programmer, or proficient software user. Chances he types using one finger while looking at the keyboard.
He is a “tech writer” and whether he gets a paycheck each month or not depends on whether he can garner exposure and “hits”. So we have this desperate man writing desperate attention grabbing articles filled with strawman arguments, so that he remains “relevant” within the publisher’s eyes.
Nothing to see here, move along!
July 23rd, 2005 at 6:58 pm
Okay Okay…
I have used creative commons to publish my music (I am not a professional musician) but the license has allowed a multitude of things to happen that under current copyright laws would have never happened. First it has connected me with other artists and access to their material for sampling and remixing. It has given me a voice and a community who would listen to my offerings simply because I used creative commons. It has shown me personally that art is more culture than it is consumption.
It has also given me basic protections that were never there before… Before creative commons (for media, not software) an artist had two options only, Public Domain – where I had no control and if it was good enough a big business could exploit my work for profit or Copyright – where no one could do anything with it other than listen or view it.
Here is the net result of my creative commons experience…
One album and One EP released.
Two songs remixed or sampled and released under different albums.
One track (which was also remixed) featured in an indie film.
Before that only my friends listen to my music, now I have an audience. Seems like it works just fine to me.
_scott
July 25th, 2005 at 4:41 pm
“Remember: a License – in any form- = DRM.”
Just to be picky, a license in any form may indeed be “rights management”, but, it is not necessarily always digital, unless you count that it was typed/written with someone’s digits…