Intellectual Highway Department

Moved to community.

Quoting drew Roberts <zotz100jamz.com>:

> On Monday 29 May 2006 11:52 pm, Greg bond wrote:
>> CC-NC doesn't "break up the commons".
>
> Perhaps, perhaps not,

It does, you know. Look at all that NC content on Flickr
that could be used to
illustrate Wikipedia articles. That certainly looks like
fragmentation to me.

> what the different CC licenses do is create seperate
> "commons" areas where works in each area
are not necessarily free to move
> from area to area and that have the unfortunate, to my
mind, attribute that
> most mixing from the area results in taking out of the
more free areas and
> moving to hte less free.

You cannot move SA to NC, so if you mean moving BY to SA,
this is not a
reduction in freedom since it will protect freedom, so in
fact it is an
increase in freedom. 

> That is, not all people have commonage rights. Npt even
all citizens. I could
> have misunderstood some things I have read though so
those with more definate
> knowledge are encouraged to contribute.

Commons are managed community resources. This is why the
traditional 
"tragedy of
the commons" pleading for proprietary management is
bogus:

ht
tp://www.californiaconnected.org/wp/archives/263

>> If that person decides to use the CC-NC license,
>> they have decided to allow more free access to
>> their land without charging for it than they
>> could have, given their rights as landowner.
>> They lowered the fence for some people and let
>> them graze for free.
>>
>> doing THAT does not break the commons up, either.

It does since they are denying an area of the commons to a
particular use. The
commons is not an allotment, you can sell your sheep. NC
breaks this.

>> The commons is not fragmented.

It is terribly fragmented.

> Obvioulsy, you look at things differently. I doubt that
you are going to
> convince me though. I can use PD, BY, and BY-SA for
what I want to do. (And
> anything compatible where I can end up with a copyleft
work.) The rest may as
> well be all rights reserved as far as I am concerned.
Fragmented. And there
> is a fragment that is of no use to me. YMMV.

And if we take the idea of a commons that can be used for
any end as 
long as it
does not harm the comons, NC and ND are simply not commons
licenses.

>> CC-NC can be used by creators as a way to give
>> up some rights in exchange for getting more sales,
>> and more sales allow them to keep creating new
works,
>> and eventually those works go into the Public
Domain.
>
> Are you sure about that?

Disney would certainly beg to differ.

>> This process doesn't "fragment" the
"commons",
>> it expands it.
>
> Not if the current never expiring copyright game keeps
being played.

And if we end up with more and more incompatible works.

>> You keep using the word "commons",
>> but I don't think it means what you think it
means.
>
> To use your definition, Creative Commons is wrongly
named. Only the Public
> Domain is the commons and there is very little of that
being produced around
> here if statements I see are correct.

The public domain is not the commons, see the flash
animation above, and
Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipe
dia.org/wiki/Commons

"The fact that land is common land does not mean it
has no owner—all land in
England and Wales is owned by someone."

Commons are not wildernesses waiting to be (over-)exploited.

But I agree this may be a matter of terminology.

- Rob.

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On Tuesday 30 May 2006 08:41 am, robrobmyers.org wrote:
> Moved to community.
>
> Quoting drew Roberts <zotz100jamz.com>:
> > On Monday 29 May 2006 11:52 pm, Greg bond wrote:
> >> CC-NC doesn't "break up the
commons".
> >
> > Perhaps, perhaps not,
>
> It does, you know. Look at all that NC content on
Flickr that could be used
> to illustrate Wikipedia articles. That certainly looks
like fragmentation
> to me.
>
> > what the different CC licenses do is create
seperate
> > "commons" areas where works in each
area are not necessarily free to move
> > from area to area and that have the unfortunate,
to my mind, attribute
> > that most mixing from the area results in taking
out of the more free
> > areas and moving to hte less free.
>
> You cannot move SA to NC, so if you mean moving BY to
SA, this is not a
> reduction in freedom since it will protect freedom, so
in fact it is an
> increase in freedom. 

I don't argue with that, but I was thinking of something
more like CC's own 
CCMixter. They allow licenses that allow for all works to be
remixed, but 
that pushes works to a more closed license if you take
advantage of the 
license mixing abilities.

I have no problem with BY to BY-SA and presumably those
putting their works 
under BY don't either or they wouldn't have chosen BY in
the first place.
>
> > That is, not all people have commonage rights. Npt
even all citizens. I
> > could have misunderstood some things I have read
though so those with
> > more definate knowledge are encouraged to
contribute.
>
> Commons are managed community resources. This is why
the traditional
> "tragedy of
> the commons" pleading for proprietary management
is bogus:
>
> ht
tp://www.californiaconnected.org/wp/archives/263
>
> >> If that person decides to use the CC-NC
license,
> >> they have decided to allow more free access to
> >> their land without charging for it than they
> >> could have, given their rights as landowner.
> >> They lowered the fence for some people and let
> >> them graze for free.
> >>
> >> doing THAT does not break the commons up,
either.
>
> It does since they are denying an area of the commons
to a particular use.
> The commons is not an allotment, you can sell your
sheep. NC breaks this.
>
> >> The commons is not fragmented.
>
> It is terribly fragmented.
>
> > Obvioulsy, you look at things differently. I doubt
that you are going to
> > convince me though. I can use PD, BY, and BY-SA
for what I want to do.
> > (And anything compatible where I can end up with a
copyleft work.) The
> > rest may as well be all rights reserved as far as
I am concerned.
> > Fragmented. And there is a fragment that is of no
use to me. YMMV.
>
> And if we take the idea of a commons that can be used
for any end as
> long as it
> does not harm the comons, NC and ND are simply not
commons licenses.
>
> >> CC-NC can be used by creators as a way to give
> >> up some rights in exchange for getting more
sales,
> >> and more sales allow them to keep creating new
works,
> >> and eventually those works go into the Public
Domain.
> >
> > Are you sure about that?
>
> Disney would certainly beg to differ.

Hence the pushing of the "intellectual property"
meme.
>
> >> This process doesn't "fragment"
the "commons",
> >> it expands it.
> >
> > Not if the current never expiring copyright game
keeps being played.
>
> And if we end up with more and more incompatible works.

Bingo, and no wat to sunset them into a more compatible
framework after a 
certain condition is met.
>
> >> You keep using the word "commons",
> >> but I don't think it means what you think it
means.
> >
> > To use your definition, Creative Commons is
wrongly named. Only the
> > Public Domain is the commons and there is very
little of that being
> > produced around here if statements I see are
correct.
>
> The public domain is not the commons, see the flash
animation above, and
> Wikipedia:
>
> http://en.wikipe
dia.org/wiki/Commons
>
> "The fact that land is common land does not mean
it has no owner—all land
> in England and Wales is owned by someone."
>
> Commons are not wildernesses waiting to be
(over-)exploited.
>
> But I agree this may be a matter of terminology.

So, how does a "real" commons work in various
countries.

We have something in my country referred to as generation
land which I think 
has at least some commonage features, but I am not sure. I
don't think I have 
rights to any generation land and have never boned up on the
details.
>
> - Rob.

all the best,

drew
-- 
http://www.ourmed
ia.org/node/145261
Record a song and you might win $1,000.00
http://www.ourmedi
a.org/user/17145

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> Commons are not wildernesses waiting to be
(over-)exploited.

Well, given that in the Intellectual Highway Department,
that the commons is the roads with no tolls on it,
that it is the exact opposite of a wilderness,
I think there is a complete hijacking of terminology
going on somewhere. ANd mostly, I blame RMS for that.

It is called a "discovery" because people
explore areas
that haven't been exploredy by humans before. It is called
a "creative expression" because it creates
something that
didn't exist before.

Any metaphor that portrays all intellectual
works as an already existing commons, and that
authors and inventors simply put a fence around it,
are kidding themselves and casting all hard working
proprietary people as evil opportunists.

The thing with the pasture metaphor is that if you look
at the "commons" as all the land that exists,
whether
it has been discovered by people or not, then anyone who
does the work to tame undiscovered land then tries to
fence it in as a way to recoup their time and energy,
is a thief. And if Creative Commons sets itself up as
viewing proprietary creators as thiefs and proprietary
creators view CC people as communists, then it's lose
lose, and only one side is going to win, and right now
proprietary folks are a shoe in. Sorry, Disney alone
makes 20 billion dollars a year in revenue, you can't
beat that in a only-one-side-can-win fight.

So, some people think that charging tolls is fundamentally
evil. That anyone who does the work to create a new piece
of highway should allow anyone to travel on that road
freely.
Some of these folks claim that gift economy approaches can
build any road, that all you got to do is get everyone to
adopt copyleft and highways will spool out beneath your
feet.

Then they point to Linux and Wikipedia as proof that
*anything* can be built by floss construction techniques.
But what they fail to admit is that linux and wikipedia
worked because of the terrain it was built on, not because
of some magic powers of the gift economy. If gift economies
can do *anything* given enough time, then Linux should have
been able to succeed even if it had used the BSD license
from the very beginning.

So, when these same people see that the construction
techniques aren't working in new terrain, when they
try to build a floss road into the music world, they
don't see the that they've just pushed into a mountain
range and the same construction techniques may not work
here.

So, any road built before 1928 is part of teh commons.

Any road built by a gift-economy project is either
part of the commons or part of the gift economy,
depending on which license they use.

And any newly built road that charges a toll does not
affect the existing roads that can be traveled for free.

So, there is a meme that is pretty common in the gift
economies that to charge tolls is wrong. But when the
gift highway department ventures into the mountains and
finds their construction techniques aren't working as
well as they did in flat terrain, they stick to the
idea that "tolls are evil" but realize they need
money
to continue. So they try Street Performer Protocols.
They build a road and then request donations rather
than demand tolls. And they ignore that their
Pasture metaphor no longer works. It isn't simply
a matter of setting up a new fence and charging admission.
It takes *work* to build a new road and you either figure
out a way to do it for free or you have to figure out a
way to pay for working on it full time.

Some on the intellectual highway department decided that
the way to go is to build the road, not charge tolls,
but to also build a gas station and restarurant and
make money that way. Then they'll argue that everyone
should do it that way, because, well, tolls are evil.

At some point, this descends into complete stupidity,
a refusal to look at reality.

Tolls aren't evil. Tolls that last too long are evil.
But the idea that it's evil to make a living building
roads and charging tolls but it's OK to make a living
building roads and making money selling gas, is silly.

Once gift economy project gets to the point of having
to make money indirectly, they've ventured into the
territory where simple freely given contributions no
longer work. And at that point, arguing that making
money by tolls is evil while making money at the gas
station is good is ignoring the simple fact that
both approaches are making money to pay for building
a new road.

Britannica can build a road for an encyclopedia and
charge a toll for anyoen who travels on it.
Wikipedia can build a road for an encyclopedia,
let anyone travel it for free, and then ask
for donations to pay for it.

Britannica's road does not stop wikipedia.

And someone who builds a road and licenses
it CC-NC allowing people to travel it freely
but charging tolls for vehicles with commercial
plates is NOT fragmenting anything.

the gift economy poeple can build their roads
and they can pay for the cost of construction
by either getting a lot of people to donate a
little of their time for free, or they can
try to get some money by setting up a gast station
or asking for donations. But at that point,
it becomes clear that the difference between
projects is simply a matter of how they get
their funding and that both approaches can exist
side by side.


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Quoting Greg bond <emailgregbond.com>:

> I think there is a complete hijacking of terminology
> going on somewhere. ANd mostly, I blame RMS for that.

You can blame him for "Freedom" but I don't
think he has anything to do 
with the
commons metaphor. The hijacking of the term
"commons" is more on the side of
free-market economists.

> So, some people think that charging tolls is
fundamentally
> evil. That anyone who does the work to create a new
piece
> of highway should allow anyone to travel on that road
freely.
> Some of these folks claim that gift economy approaches
can
> build any road, that all you got to do is get everyone
to
> adopt copyleft and highways will spool out beneath your
> feet.

The GPL (and BY-SA) allow you to charge. And people pay.
There is no split
between copyleft and payment. There is a split between
maximising profit and
copyleft, but there is no moral right to maximum profit.

> So, there is a meme that is pretty common in the gift
> economies that to charge tolls is wrong.

NC denies people the ability to charge tolls, even if they
have combined their
labor with the commons. This is surely wrong.

> And someone who builds a road and licenses
> it CC-NC allowing people to travel it freely
> but charging tolls for vehicles with commercial
> plates is NOT fragmenting anything.

If the toll is too high it will fragment communications as
vehicles 
simply avoid
the road. NC is too high a toll (I agree to give up *all* my
profit to pay for
using anything from the NC commons).

> the gift economy poeple can build their roads
> and they can pay for the cost of construction
> by either getting a lot of people to donate a
> little of their time for free, or they can
> try to get some money by setting up a gast station
> or asking for donations. But at that point,
> it becomes clear that the difference between
> projects is simply a matter of how they get
> their funding and that both approaches can exist
> side by side.

The comparison is a road that can be repaired by anyone and
one that 
can only be
repaired by the owner. This may seem nonsensical but it is a
more accurate
reflection of free/proprietary (rather than gift/market).
Economics is a
secondary consideration within this framework. That is,
"Freedom" is not
defined by the presence or absence of money. People buy free
software and free
culture.

This is because "Freedom" here is creative or
ethical freedom, not economic or
business model freedom. Economic freedom does impact
creative freedom majorly,
but it's hard to make money if most of your money goes on
paying 
creative rent,
or if you can only create what you are allowed to by
landlords.

- Rob.

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Greg bond wrote:
>  So, some people think that charging tolls is
fundamentally evil. That
>  anyone who does the work to create a new piece of
highway should
>  allow anyone to travel on that road freely. Some of
these folks claim
>  that gift economy approaches can build any road, that
all you got to
>  do is get everyone to adopt copyleft and highways will
spool out
>  beneath your feet.
>
>  Then they point to Linux and Wikipedia as proof that
*anything* can
>  be built by floss construction techniques. But what
they fail to
>  admit is that linux and wikipedia worked because of
the terrain it
>  was built on, not because of some magic powers of the
gift economy.
>  If gift economies can do *anything* given enough time,
then Linux
>  should have been able to succeed even if it had used
the BSD license
>  from the very beginning.

I am seriously disturbed by your continued (intentional?)
conflation
of 'free license techniques' and 'gift economy'. Right
here you rightly
point out that Linux succeeded over BSD Unix because of the
nature
of copyleft licenses: proof that copyleft communities are
not mere
'gift economies'.  If that's not proof that copyleft !=
gift economy,
I don't know what is.

Besides, wasn't it just *you* who was trying to convince me
of this?

Something along the lines of 'Stop trying to add new
licenses, because
your choices are NC and SA, and if it doesn't fit SA then
you just need
to come up with a new way to "chunk" the
project' so that it will.

>  So, when these same people see that the construction
techniques
>  aren't working in new terrain, when they try to build
a floss road
>  into the music world, they don't see the that
they've just pushed
>  into a mountain range and the same construction
techniques may not
>  work here.

Yet, your answer to this is that we should keep using the
same techniques,
but just 'try harder'?  *What* is your point, actually?

>  So, any road built before 1928 is part of teh commons.

"Works created before 1928" defines a fixed
commons, so your
metaphor breaks down.  We're back to the fenced off
pasture.

The error here is thinking that (in defiance of existing
history), the
"limited times" concept will be honored.  In the
US (and US policy
tends to have an inordinate influence on world IP policy, so
this is
not just a US issue), Congress has caved repeatedly to
entertainment
industry lobbying to the point that it has made a mockery of
the
idea of "copyrights for limited times".

The present 80 years (IIRC) is far, far too long to be
useful, and it's
unlikely that even that limit will stick (after all, the
longer it gets,
the easier it is to push it further -- it's already
effectively forever).

>  Any road built by a gift-economy project is either
part of the
>  commons or part of the gift economy, depending on
which license they
>  use.
>
>  And any newly built road that charges a toll does not
affect the
>  existing roads that can be traveled for free.

Total metaphor breakdown here.  You're redefining or
misusing
'commons', 'gift economy', and 'toll' in ways that
make it impossible
to decipher.

A 'commons' is material that can be meaningfully shared
and
"remixed", to use the CC expression. 
Regrettably, there is more
than one of these now.  Hence the complaint of
"commons fragmentation".

Charging a 'toll' is a total irrelevance. A toll can be
charged for
any of these licenses, or not charged.  I suppose you mean a
license fee as such.

But the real point is that you are kidding yourself if you
continue to
believe that a system which encourages toll roads has no
impact on
the creation of free roads.  I grant you that it is not a
true zero-sum
game -- but there is a definite question of mindshare among
artists.
More artists using one license or another means a preference
for
the commons they select.

When we speak of 'fragmentation' of the commons we are
referring
to the fact that multiple bodies of material under
different, incompatible
licenses, makes combination impossible.  This of course, is
based on
the idea that if there were one agreed-upon license, that
all the
material would be released under it. This is not totally
true, of course,
but neither is the converse idea that each license
communities is so
attached to their terms that they would only choose their
license or
no license.  I seriously doubt that for the simple reason
that people
choose commons licensing specifically to support some kind
of
sharing community. 

What mystifies me is your opposition to voluntary options to
smooth
the boundaries between commonses.  Even if it fails to have
the
effect I want, how can it possibly hurt you?

Why does an artist choose NC at all? For most purposes --
especially
to other artists -- the NC offers nothing of value.  Unless
you're a
communist, this is no help at all: 'I can use your work, so
long as I
can prove that I didn't gain any financial value from it.'

Now *that* is a 'gift economy'.

The problem is that the artist trying out this new
"CC-By-NC-SA"
concept is (IMHO) trying to get the benefits of the commons,
but the NC
creates a poor commons.  It impedes sharing and cooperation,
because
it messes with the underpinnings of the mechanisms that
surround
copyleft and free-license communities.

IOW, the person using NC is trying to foster a community,
but is
being guided (wrongly, IMHO) towards the NC model.  That
happens
largely because of CC's framing of the licensing issues and
the
choice to provide "NC" and "SA"
licensing options.

Now why does that happen?

You answer this yourself ...

>  So, there is a meme that is pretty common in the gift
economies that
>  to charge tolls is wrong. But when the gift highway
department
>  ventures into the mountains and finds their
construction techniques
>  aren't working as well as they did in flat terrain,
they stick to the
>  idea that "tolls are evil" but realize
they need money to continue.
>  So they try Street Performer Protocols. They build a
road and then
>  request donations rather than demand tolls. And they
ignore that
>  their Pasture metaphor no longer works. It isn't
simply a matter of
>  setting up a new fence and charging admission. It
takes *work* to
>  build a new road and you either figure out a way to do
it for free or
>  you have to figure out a way to pay for working on it
full time.
>
>  Some on the intellectual highway department decided
that the way to
>  go is to build the road, not charge tolls, but to also
build a gas
>  station and restarurant and make money that way. Then
they'll argue
>  that everyone should do it that way, because, well,
tolls are evil.
>
>  At some point, this descends into complete stupidity,
a refusal to
>  look at reality.
>
>  Tolls aren't evil. Tolls that last too long are evil.
But the idea
>  that it's evil to make a living building roads and
charging tolls but
>  it's OK to make a living building roads and making
money selling gas,
>  is silly.

So we agree, that sometimes, the right thing to do is to
charge a fee
for licensing, and prevent certain kinds of use (which the
artist would
prefer to charge a toll on).  The artist wants to find a way
to protect
this income, but he also wants 'commons' leverage (if he
didn't he's
going to use 'all rights reserved', so he's outside the
CC space).

But here's the problem: ANY system that does this can't be
mixed
with a true copyleft commons.  So, you lose a *lot* of the
benefit of
having a commons.

I propose a means to solve this.  It's based on the
precedent of the
original US copyright law: "limited times". 
Provide an option to
voluntarily expire the NC limitations (and ND, actually, but
this
is a minor point -- its primary use case being to allow a
choice of
expiration to CC-By-SA or CC-By -- another matter of
artists'
choice).

In fact, many toll roads -- perhaps most -- also have
limited times. They
eventually become free roads.  It wouldn't be at all
unusual, in fact,
for a contractor to enter into an agreement (with, e.g. the
state highway
department), to stop charging tolls and turn over the
highway to the
public after either 1) a proprietary period has elapsed or
2) a certain
amount of money has been raised.

The public, may, of course, offer some boon for agreeing to
this. For
example, the right to use the public land over which the
toll road is
built.

In our case, the copyleft community may consent to a greater
degree
of support (e.g. listing and indexing of material,
recommendations,
etc).

What makes that possible? What holds the contractor to their
word?
A contract, of course.  A written statement that they are
bound to
under law that says "After condition A is met, the
road will be free".
Fortunately, in our case, you only need a post-dated
'license' to make
this arrangement explicit.

>  Britannica can build a road for an encyclopedia and
charge a toll for
>  anyoen who travels on it. Wikipedia can build a road
for an
>  encyclopedia, let anyone travel it for free, and then
ask for
>  donations to pay for it.
>
>  Britannica's road does not stop wikipedia.
>
>  And someone who builds a road and licenses it CC-NC
allowing people
>  to travel it freely but charging tolls for vehicles
with commercial
>  plates is NOT fragmenting anything.

This is basically a plea for the artist to have freedom to
choose what
licensing model he wants.  On this, we agree.

OTOH, there is the question of what licensing methods are
*promoted*.

You yourself rely heavily on the idea of 'limited times'
to justify
the NC (and proprietary, for that matter) systems. 
Specifically,
you cite this as a reason these system enrich the public
domain.

However, legal history suggests this is fairy gold.  Hence I
suggest
replacing what should be there already: implement
"limited times"
in the license.

I propose to do this with a module. It's not like any
artist would be
obligated to choose it.  I *do* want to promote the idea,
though, because
I think it would give the artist more of what they want
sooner.  I
*know* it would give *other* artists more of what they want
sooner.

Because of that, it would be fundamentally *enabling* to
projects
that wanted to use this kind of business model.

You've pointed out that projects could implement that
without
CC help. Well, sure we could -- but what kind of argument is
that?
The same can be said about all license issues.  CC support
just makes it
a lot easier to do -- because CC has worked out the details.
And of
course, it promotes the ideas.  That would be very useful in
reducing
the number of people who might choose NC, hoping for
copyleft benefits,
and then being disappointed by the results (which might
drive those
people to reject the commons idea entirely).

One thing such a project would have to fight is an uphill
battle against
FUD and the educational gap in explaining the license.  But
that's
precisely what CC's role has been in the past: CC develops
and promotes
licenses (and hence, the strategies they enable).

Now you make the point that there are artists who wouldn't
want the
NC terms to expire, who fully understand the consequences of
them, and
who would otherwise just use "all rights
reserved".  Fine.  Let them choose
that, after seeing a better range of alternatives.  I have
no problem with
that.

But you insist that they shouldn't even have the choice --
"it's our way or
the highway", you suggest: either follow the SA route
or the NC route. No
compromises.  Now, of course, if we were talking about
changing the
meaning of "NC", there'd be a good reason for
that -- each variation would
create a new commons, and thus more works that can't be
used together.

So I don't propose that. I propose expiration, so that
works move 
automatically
from NC to SA at a time of the artist's choosing (I do
propose 
relatively coarse
granularity to make things simpler: 1, 3, 7, 14 yrs for
example, but 
this is a
minor point -- different expiration periods should have no
effect on 
compatibility).

Summarizing our positions so far:
You say 'too bad, he can't have his cake and eat it too'.
I say, 'let 
him have
his cake for awhile, and then eat it'.

Cheers,
Terry

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancockAnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpac
eworks.com

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robrobmyers.org wrote:
>  Quoting Greg bond <emailgregbond.com>:
> > I think there is a complete hijacking of
terminology going on
> > somewhere. ANd mostly, I blame RMS for that.
>
>  You can blame him for "Freedom" but I
don't think he has anything to
>  do with the commons metaphor. The hijacking of the
term "commons" is
>  more on the side of free-market economists.

The 'commons' metaphor is attributable to Eric Raymond,
actually. He
uses it extensively in the "Cathedral and the
Bazaar" series.  Of course
the original 'tragedy of the commons' reference was in a
scientific
paper (I forget if it was "Science" or
"Nature").  ESR suggested the
idea of a commons where 'grazing makes the grass grow' to
explain
the benefits of copyleft free-licensing communities. (Though
I wouldn't
be surprised if Raymond actually picked this reference up
from a
usenet discussion or some place -- else why does he say the
'Tragedy of the Commons' "famously compares"?)

He also (more regrettably) introduced the idea that free
license
communities are based on a 'gift economy' (in
"Homesteading the
Noosphere"), but then he rejected that idea (in
"The Magic Cauldron"),
substituting the 'copyleft exchange economy' idea.

I don't regard Raymond's papers as flawless, but they are
a pretty
good starting point if you want to answer questions about
the
sustainability and economic viability of commons-based
production.

> > So, some people think that charging tolls is
fundamentally evil.

Let's keep ideology out of this.  It doesn't matter
whether I think
it's 'right' or 'wrong' to charge a license fee.  The
reason for rejecting
that basis of argument is not that it has no interest, nor
that these
issues have no moral dimension, but rather that it is nearly
impossible
if not impossible to convince anyone on ideological grounds
-- you
can't really do that unless you have common values and
ideology
to begin with.

But practical matters like efficiency and "what
works" is objective,
so it is possible.  That's the motivation behind the
"open source not
free software" movement -- and I really think it's
been blown way
out of proportion.

I for one *do* place value on things being 'free', because
I think it's
better if it can work.  But I don't think it's sensible to
support something
which may be unsustainable. Hence, I have a lot of interest
in models
that are both sustainable and result in growth of a free
commons.

In particular, I do not attack the right of an artist to
choose 'all rights
reserved' or to choose the current 'perpetual NC' -- not
if he knows
what he's doing (but I think a lot of people don't -- or,
at least they
don't consider the full universe of possibilities, but only
the multiple
choices that CC offers them).

I have mostly been arguing this idea on the basis that I am
talking to
people who are already sold on the copyleft commons idea,
and
object to improving NC at all (because they want it to die).
I can see
that I should be taking a different perspective in Greg's
case.

> > That anyone who does the work to create a new
piece of highway
> > should allow anyone to travel on that road freely.
Some of these
> > folks claim that gift economy approaches can build
any road, that
> > all you got to do is get everyone to adopt
copyleft and highways
> > will spool out beneath your feet.
>
>  The GPL (and BY-SA) allow you to charge. And people
pay. There is no
>  split between copyleft and payment. There is a split
between
>  maximising profit and copyleft, but there is no moral
right to
>  maximum profit.

Even if there is, the existing NC may not be it.  Consider
for a moment:
which do you want "maximum profit per copy" or
"maximum total profit"?

If being more commons-friendly sells more copies, isn't
that a good thing
for the would-be profiteer?

> > So, there is a meme that is pretty common in the
gift economies
> > that to charge tolls is wrong.
>
>  NC denies people the ability to charge tolls, even if
they have
>  combined their labor with the commons. This is surely
wrong.
[...]
>  If the toll is too high it will fragment
communications as vehicles
>  simply avoid the road. NC is too high a toll (I agree
to give up
>  *all* my profit to pay for using anything from the NC
commons).

Wrong or not, it means fewer venues.  Since the distribution
networks
are not free-of-cost to providers, the providers need ways
to recoup
their investments.  The most common method is advertising
(although
there are other options).

Even when money is not the objective, the community network
is
there to enable free-licensed works which will have more
direct
benefit to those operating the network.  Hence the market
favors
works that are more commons-friendly.

IMHO, NC doesn't make the cut. It's too unfriendly to the
commons.
It starves the distribution system -- hence it receives
little benefit
from the freedoms it does allow.

 From a political standpoint, this is bad, because it
reinforces FUD
about free-licensing models (when people conflate NC
licenses with
free ones -- which is what upsets Richard Stallman, IMHO).

CC is taking actions to reduce this friction, so I consider
a done deal
that people recognize the negative consequences.  But what
to do
about it?

There are several possibilities:

1) Increase the distinction between "free" and
"non-free" CC licenses
   (new logo buttons, etc. I proposed color-coding, and the
response
    suggested I was anticipated in that idea).

2) Improve the education about the consequence of choosing
the NC
    license. The use-case table that was recently published
is a good
    move in this direction, but it's not adequately
visible, IMHO.  Perhaps
    it will be made so. It definitely should be referenced
by the licensing
    wizard.

3) Improve the legal compatibility of license and/or provide
more legally
    compatible licenses that do what artists are looking for
from the NC,
    but with fewer negative concepts. Since I can't imagine
that any
    expansion of use and copying restrictions can solve this
(except a
    complete conversion to By-SA, which wouldn't preserve
the advantage
    the artists are looking for -- i.e. the ability to
protect license 
income),
    I suggest the idea of working on time-limits, instead.
This was 
attempted
    with the failed "Founder's Copyright"
program -- but I think it failed
    because of implementation, more than concept.

Cheers,
Terry

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancockAnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpac
eworks.com

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> I am seriously disturbed by your continued
(intentional?) conflation
> of 'free license techniques' and 'gift economy'.
Right here you rightly
> point out that Linux succeeded over BSD Unix because of
the nature
> of copyleft licenses: proof that copyleft communities
are not mere
> 'gift economies'.  If that's not proof that copyleft
!= gift economy,
> I don't know what is.

linux and wikipedia worked because of the terrain it
was built on, not because of some magic powers of
the gift economy, not because of some magic in its
licensing scheme. The terrain was chunkable.
So many people could contribute their free time
to the project without getting monetary compensation
for it.

Change the terrain to where it doesn't chunk easily,
and the process doesn't work anymore. At least not
until you figure out how to make the terrain chunkable
again. Try creating a floss web radio station and
you'll see the terrain doesn't breakup so easily.
Part of that could probably be fixed by some software
tools like the music identification and searching stuff,
and the like. But a license won't change the terrain.

> >  So, when these same people see that the
construction techniques
> >  aren't working in new terrain, when they try to
build a floss road
> >  into the music world, they don't see the that
they've just pushed
> >  into a mountain range and the same construction
techniques may not
> >  work here.
>
> Yet, your answer to this is that we should keep using
the same
> techniques, but just 'try harder'?  *What* is your
point, actually?

My point is that when you look at something that
currently can't be won by floss techniques,
you have to figure out how to change the way
the game is played so floss works.

If you find you're playing the Kobayashi Maru,
you either lose the game or figure out a way to
chagne the rules.

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-commun
ity/2006-May/001099.html

> A 'commons' is material that can be meaningfully
shared and
> "remixed", to use the CC expression. 
Regrettably, there is more
> than one of these now.  Hence the complaint of
"commons
> fragmentation".

CC-NC is not a commons. Nor is CC-ND.
They are market economy licenses where
the creator can give up some rights in exchange
for something that might benefit him more.
Free samples in exchange for possibly more sales.

No one should be doing anything "commons" like
with anything licensed CC-NC or CC-ND or
any other market economy license.

> Charging a 'toll' is a total irrelevance. A toll can
be charged for
> any of these licenses, or not charged.  I suppose you
mean a
> license fee as such.

I mean charging a direct toll to pay for the road versus
building the road, allowing people to travel on it for free,
and then building a gas station and trying to make back
your road construction costs by selling gas.

If you have a small group of contributers to a copyleft
project and they're working full time on the project,
they need to get paid for their time or go hungry.

Using a copyleft license doesn't change the fact that
they need to get paid for their time. but they have to
figure out indirect ways to make money while still
using copyleft.

> But the real point is that you are kidding yourself if
you continue to
> believe that a system which encourages toll roads has
no impact on
> the creation of free roads.  I grant you that it is not
a true zero-sum
> game -- but there is a definite question of mindshare
among artists.
> More artists using one license or another means a
preference for
> the commons they select.

This is complete fallacy.
You're saying that All Rights Reserved creations somehow
prevent the creation of new works. By that argument, I
should
be able to look at the new works being distributed on the
net
and on the TV and radio and see a noticable decline as time
goes on, since the terms keep getting extended.

All rights reserved prevents the creation of *derivative*
works.
But you are free to create anything new that you wish.
This is yet another problem with the commons
"pasture"
metaphor. The commons area is "fenced in". and
the fence
of All Rights Reserved works that surround it prevent
anyone from expandign the commons, EXCEPT TO
tear down the oppressive and restrictive fences of the
all rights reserved folks.

Try the bounty hunter metaphor. Disney catching
a bunch of bad guys doesn't prevent you or anyone
else from catching a completely new and unrelated
bad guy. Even that metaphor fails to some extent,
but that's the problem with metaphors.

> When we speak of 'fragmentation' of the commons we
are referring
> to the fact that multiple bodies of material under
different, incompatible
> licenses, makes combination impossible.  This of
course, is based on
> the idea that if there were one agreed-upon license,
that all the
> material would be released under it. This is not
totally true, of course,
> but neither is the converse idea that each license
communities is so
> attached to their terms that they would only choose
their license or
> no license.  I seriously doubt that for the simple
reason that people
> choose commons licensing specifically to support some
kind of
> sharing community.

Again, CC-NC is not a "commons" license. Using
CC-NC doesn't
fragment anything because CC-NC is not a license to use if
you
intend your work to be part of something bigger. CC-NC is
used
by people who want to keep the work under their specific
control.
CC-NC is an individual license for individual works. It
isn't going
to create any sort of pool of works that you would want to
do any
group work with. Since there is no "commons" in
CC-NC, putting
a work under CC-NC doesn't fragment anything.

CC-NC is a Cathedral license, to keep the work under the
original author's control. Using CC-NC does not fragment
the Bazaar because it's not a Bazaar and never was.

> Why does an artist choose NC at all? For most purposes
-- especially
> to other artists -- the NC offers nothing of value. 
Unless you're a
> communist, this is no help at all: 'I can use your
work, so long as I
> can prove that I didn't gain any financial value from
it.'

Artists use CC-NC as a market economy license.
They trade some of the rights to their work,
using it as free samples and free advertising,
in exchange for teh potential for more sales.
It's a loss leader.

> Now *that* is a 'gift economy'.
>
> The problem is that the artist trying out this new
"CC-By-NC-SA"
> concept is (IMHO) trying to get the benefits of the
commons, but the NC
> creates a poor commons.

CC-NC isn't a gift economy. It isn't a commons.
It doesn't create anything that is a community benefit.
It surrenders some of the righst to the work in exchange
for possibly helping the original creator. It isn't a poor
commons,
it's not a commons at all.

> It impedes sharing and cooperation, because
> it messes with the underpinnings of the mechanisms that
surround
> copyleft and free-license communities.
>
> IOW, the person using NC is trying to foster a
community, but is
> being guided (wrongly, IMHO) towards the NC model. 
That happens
> largely because of CC's framing of the licensing
issues and the
> choice to provide "NC" and "SA"
licensing options.

CC-NC isn't for sharing and cooperation. It isn't a
commons.

But CC-NC doesn't "mess with" copyleft or the
community,
because it isn't even in that category. It is a cathedral
license.
A market economy license. It's operating on completely
different terrain with a completely different economic
model.

> So we agree, that sometimes, the right thing to do is
to charge a fee
> for licensing, and prevent certain kinds of use (which
the artist would
> prefer to charge a toll on).  The artist wants to find
a way to protect
> this income, but he also wants 'commons' leverage (if
he didn't he's
> going to use 'all rights reserved', so he's outside
the CC space).

It isn't "commons" leverage. It is a loss
leader.
It is giving up some rights in exchange for an individual
benefit. Free samples in exchage for potential for new
sales.

> What mystifies me is your opposition to voluntary
options to
> smooth the boundaries between commonses.  Even if it
fails
> to have the effect I want, how can it possibly hurt
you?

It won't hurt me. I'm just telling you that you're
license solves
a different problem than what you're saying it solves.
CC-NC
doesn't cause any problem as far as fragmenting the
ocmmons,
because no commons exists in that space and no commons was
ever intended to exist in that space. CC-NC is NOT a commons
license. It is a market economy license, a Cathedral
license,
that allows the creator fo a work to exchange some rights
for some possible free advertising and sales. That isn't a
problem.

What's the problem is that you're relating to CC-NC as if
it should be a commons or it should put works into a
commons area. It doesn't. But then, it was never meant
to do that.

So the problem you are proposing that CC-Sunset would fix,
doesn't exist. as long as the license is being propsed to
fix
a nonexistent problem, I have an issue with it being
approved.

The last thing I want is for a license to be rolled out with
all
sorts of promises to create new possibilities and solve all
sorts of issues, only to have it, well, not do any of that,
because it was designed to fix a non-existent problem under
the premise that there was some connection between the
"problem" and the new license.

I also think that were CC to create a sunset license that
started out as CC-NC and switched to CC-SA, then the
people who would adopt it would be fence-hangers to
CC-SA, not CC-NC. That's a fundamental problem.

If people are on the fence and decide to go with CC-SA,
Great. The commons gets something contributed to it.
If the person sees CC-Sunset, they may be more apt
to go with CC-Sunset with a couple year delay,
*just in case* they might be able to make some money
off of it.

If you take someone who uses CC-NC, I don't see
CC-Sunset offering them anything new. CC-NC is a
market economy license that benefits the author.
They give up some right to the community and
the community gives them some free advertising.
CC-Sunset doesn't offer them anything additional.

If CC-NC were a restrictive "commons" then
peole using CC-NC might change to CC-Sunset.
But I don't think people who use CC-NC think
they're contributing to a commons, I think they
know on some level that they're keeping some
rights so they are at an advantage over the community.
It's an exchange of free-advertising. If anyone
was interested in contrubting to a commons they
would use a commons license like CC-SA.

So while I can see people who used to contribute stuff
under CC-SA changing to using a CC-Sunset license,
I don't see people going from CC-NC to sunset.
which means that any CC-SA commons will get
worse, not better.
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On Tuesday 30 May 2006 03:28 pm, Greg bond wrote:

This is long and instead of commenting point by point, I
will just say a few 
things here at the top. Addressed to Greg, but some is meant
to apply to all 
readers.

1. Some people still do not buy your whole gift economy =
chunkable = copyleft 
theory. Restating it again and again does not help convince
those of us who 
do not buy it imho.

According to your beliefs, NC is not a commons license, if
we accept that (and 
I persoannally may) then Creative Commons has no business
offering a license 
that has nothing to do with the commons under its banner.
Start another 
organization to promote such non-commons licenses? As it is,
it is a metter 
of confusion.

People are motivated by many things, not just money or
profit in the economic 
sense. It is unclear in the "games" you bring up
that you take this into 
account. Some might write a song for a political reason for
instance. They 
may need to support themself, but they may rather have wider
distribution 
over more profit once the goal of sustaining themselves is
met.

I have not seen anything seriously discussed areound here
which takes into the 
account the value of network effects and how this relates to
the value of one 
work over another and how this offsets some of the ideas
surrounding the 
free-rider problem.

I would like to see us discuss the use value versus sale
value a bit more.

I think we might also want to consider and discuss the
competition for the 
public's attention and money between Free works, old
non-Free works and new 
non-Free works.

I guess I will comment some inline after all...

> > I am seriously disturbed by your continued
(intentional?) conflation
> > of 'free license techniques' and 'gift
economy'. Right here you rightly
> > point out that Linux succeeded over BSD Unix
because of the nature
> > of copyleft licenses: proof that copyleft
communities are not mere
> > 'gift economies'.  If that's not proof that
copyleft != gift economy,
> > I don't know what is.
>
> linux and wikipedia worked because of the terrain it
> was built on, not because of some magic powers of
> the gift economy, not because of some magic in its
> licensing scheme. The terrain was chunkable.
> So many people could contribute their free time
> to the project without getting monetary compensation
> for it.

Yet one thing about linux, and if you think of it as
gnu/linux this is more 
apparent, is that it had a hugh head start of all the gnu
code developed by 
the FSF (is that right?) under the GPL and some LGPL and
developed mugh more 
along the lines of a cathedral model.
>
> Change the terrain to where it doesn't chunk easily,
> and the process doesn't work anymore. At least not
> until you figure out how to make the terrain chunkable
> again. Try creating a floss web radio station and
> you'll see the terrain doesn't breakup so easily.
> Part of that could probably be fixed by some software
> tools like the music identification and searching
stuff,
> and the like. But a license won't change the terrain.
>
> > >  So, when these same people see that the
construction techniques
> > >  aren't working in new terrain, when they
try to build a floss road
> > >  into the music world, they don't see the
that they've just pushed
> > >  into a mountain range and the same
construction techniques may not
> > >  work here.
> >
> > Yet, your answer to this is that we should keep
using the same
> > techniques, but just 'try harder'?  *What* is
your point, actually?
>
> My point is that when you look at something that
> currently can't be won by floss techniques,
> you have to figure out how to change the way
> the game is played so floss works.

This is not a bad idea/angle, it is just that I am as yet
unwilling to think 
it is the only viable approach.
>
> If you find you're playing the Kobayashi Maru,
> you either lose the game or figure out a way to
> chagne the rules.
>
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-commun
ity/2006-May/001099.html
>
> > A 'commons' is material that can be meaningfully
shared and
> > "remixed", to use the CC expression. 
Regrettably, there is more
> > than one of these now.  Hence the complaint of
"commons
> > fragmentation".
>
> CC-NC is not a commons. Nor is CC-ND.
> They are market economy licenses where
> the creator can give up some rights in exchange
> for something that might benefit him more.
> Free samples in exchange for possibly more sales.
>
> No one should be doing anything "commons"
like
> with anything licensed CC-NC or CC-ND or
> any other market economy license.
>
> > Charging a 'toll' is a total irrelevance. A toll
can be charged for
> > any of these licenses, or not charged.  I suppose
you mean a
> > license fee as such.
>
> I mean charging a direct toll to pay for the road
versus
> building the road, allowing people to travel on it for
free,
> and then building a gas station and trying to make back
> your road construction costs by selling gas.

The option that is being left out is charging people to
build the road in the 
first place. We should also keep in mind that these are not
mutually 
exclusive options.
>
> If you have a small group of contributers to a copyleft
> project and they're working full time on the project,
> they need to get paid for their time or go hungry.

Is this a straw man or an irrelevant statement?
>
> Using a copyleft license doesn't change the fact that
> they need to get paid for their time. but they have to
> figure out indirect ways to make money while still
> using copyleft.

You can use a copyleft license and yet still get paid for
every hour you work 
if you so choose. People do this now.
>
> > But the real point is that you are kidding
yourself if you continue to
> > believe that a system which encourages toll roads
has no impact on
> > the creation of free roads.  I grant you that it
is not a true zero-sum
> > game -- but there is a definite question of
mindshare among artists.
> > More artists using one license or another means a
preference for
> > the commons they select.
>
> This is complete fallacy.
> You're saying that All Rights Reserved creations
somehow
> prevent the creation of new works. By that argument, I
should
> be able to look at the new works being distributed on
the net
> and on the TV and radio and see a noticable decline as
time
> goes on, since the terms keep getting extended.

I humbly submit that it is not a complete fallacy. With the
trend to 
copyrights that do not expire we are going to see this more
and more and I 
especially think it is going to become apparent with
melodies.

It may not be as visible as quicky as I would expect as so
much music 
copyright ownership seems to be concentrated and them may
pull something like 
the patent cross licensing deals we see in that area. (BTW,
why do patents 
last so much shorther than copyrights. Is it rally so much
harder or of such 
a greater value to mankind to make a song versus some useful
invention? 
Anyone? Anyone?)

I think it is important in all of this back and forth to
remember the common 
ground we do have which is that the implementation of the
copyright system as 
it stands is broken wrt the deal the public gets.
>
> All rights reserved prevents the creation of
*derivative* works.
> But you are free to create anything new that you wish.

I wrote a program, it was very simple, that would churn out
every possible N 
note melody (might have been N bars and not notes) using
whole, half, and 
quater notes and the corresponding rests. (I may have gone
down to 16ths, I 
do not remember. (Based on major keys perhaps.)

So, we could write a little distributed app. Churn out all
the possible 
melodies up to a certain length and submit them all to the
copyright office 
as a collection of melodies. Then leave it up to anyone who
has one of the 
collection copyrighted already to make that claim and then
we could have all 
of the other possible melodies under a copyleft license.

3. ???
4. Profit.

(Couldn't resist the reference...)

> This is yet another problem with the commons
"pasture"
> metaphor. The commons area is "fenced in".
and the fence
> of All Rights Reserved works that surround it prevent
> anyone from expandign the commons, EXCEPT TO
> tear down the oppressive and restrictive fences of the
> all rights reserved folks.
>
> Try the bounty hunter metaphor. Disney catching
> a bunch of bad guys doesn't prevent you or anyone
> else from catching a completely new and unrelated
> bad guy. Even that metaphor fails to some extent,
> but that's the problem with metaphors.

With an unlimited number of bad guys and an unlimited amount
of reward money, 
OK. Is that the real world though?
>
> > When we speak of 'fragmentation' of the commons
we are referring
> > to the fact that multiple bodies of material under
different,
> > incompatible licenses, makes combination
impossible.  This of course, is
> > based on the idea that if there were one
agreed-upon license, that all
> > the material would be released under it. This is
not totally true, of
> > course, but neither is the converse idea that each
license communities is
> > so attached to their terms that they would only
choose their license or
> > no license.  I seriously doubt that for the simple
reason that people
> > choose commons licensing specifically to support
some kind of
> > sharing community.
>
> Again, CC-NC is not a "commons" license.
Using CC-NC doesn't
> fragment anything because CC-NC is not a license to use
if you
> intend your work to be part of something bigger. CC-NC
is used
> by people who want to keep the work under their
specific control.
> CC-NC is an individual license for individual works. It
isn't going
> to create any sort of pool of works that you would want
to do any
> group work with. Since there is no
"commons" in CC-NC, putting
> a work under CC-NC doesn't fragment anything.

And yet as I mentioned above... CC BY-NC is a Creative
Commons license. hence 
the trouble. And hence some of the issues.
>
> CC-NC is a Cathedral license, to keep the work under
the
> original author's control. Using CC-NC does not
fragment
> the Bazaar because it's not a Bazaar and never was.
>
> > Why does an artist choose NC at all? For most
purposes -- especially
> > to other artists -- the NC offers nothing of
value.  Unless you're a
> > communist, this is no help at all: 'I can use
your work, so long as I
> > can prove that I didn't gain any financial value
from it.'
>
> Artists use CC-NC as a market economy license.
> They trade some of the rights to their work,
> using it as free samples and free advertising,
> in exchange for teh potential for more sales.
> It's a loss leader.
>
> > Now *that* is a 'gift economy'.
> >
> > The problem is that the artist trying out this new
"CC-By-NC-SA"
> > concept is (IMHO) trying to get the benefits of
the commons, but the NC
> > creates a poor commons.
>
> CC-NC isn't a gift economy. It isn't a commons.
> It doesn't create anything that is a community
benefit.
> It surrenders some of the righst to the work in
exchange
> for possibly helping the original creator. It isn't a
poor commons,
> it's not a commons at all.

Let me set this up so that we may all be able to see a
possible win-win and 
commons enhancing possibility for the sunsetting module on
the NC and ND 
modules.

I am a big BY-SA copyleft fan. That said, I can understand
how people not 
having experience with Free Software and its benefits may be
reluctant to use 
a copyleft license. I can also see how it may be harder to
figure out ways to 
make money from copyleft music versus copyleft code. (We
should note thought 
that very similar arguments get made against the
possibilities of making 
money with copyleft code.) We will grant that it is harder
for the sake of 
this discussion. This means that they may want to use a
copyleft license, but 
need to support themselves and this is as stipulated, more
difficult with 
music than code.

So, I would be willing to use another possible modure T3 -
(take 3) which 
would let someone turn my BY-SA work into a BY-SA-NC-3Y (3
year sunset back 
to BY-SA)

BY-SA-T3 -> BY-SA-NC-3Y -> BY-SA-T3 Some deal like
that.

So, the benefit offered is that you can build on the work of
others and close 
it off for a short time, then it goes back into the pool to
be reused.
>
> > It impedes sharing and cooperation, because
> > it messes with the underpinnings of the mechanisms
that surround
> > copyleft and free-license communities.
> >
> > IOW, the person using NC is trying to foster a
community, but is
> > being guided (wrongly, IMHO) towards the NC model.
 That happens
> > largely because of CC's framing of the licensing
issues and the
> > choice to provide "NC" and
"SA" licensing options.
>
> CC-NC isn't for sharing and cooperation. It isn't a
commons.
>
> But CC-NC doesn't "mess with" copyleft or
the community,
> because it isn't even in that category. It is a
cathedral license.
> A market economy license. It's operating on completely
> different terrain with a completely different economic
model.
>
> > So we agree, that sometimes, the right thing to do
is to charge a fee
> > for licensing, and prevent certain kinds of use
(which the artist would
> > prefer to charge a toll on).  The artist wants to
find a way to protect
> > this income, but he also wants 'commons'
leverage (if he didn't he's
> > going to use 'all rights reserved', so he's
outside the CC space).
>
> It isn't "commons" leverage. It is a loss
leader.
> It is giving up some rights in exchange for an
individual
> benefit. Free samples in exchage for potential for new
sales.
>
> > What mystifies me is your opposition to voluntary
options to
> > smooth the boundaries between commonses.  Even if
it fails
> > to have the effect I want, how can it possibly
hurt you?
>
> It won't hurt me. I'm just telling you that you're
license solves
> a different problem than what you're saying it solves.
CC-NC
> doesn't cause any problem as far as fragmenting the
ocmmons,
> because no commons exists in that space and no commons
was
> ever intended to exist in that space. CC-NC is NOT a
commons
> license. It is a market economy license, a Cathedral
license,
> that allows the creator fo a work to exchange some
rights
> for some possible free advertising and sales. That
isn't a
> problem.
>
> What's the problem is that you're relating to CC-NC
as if
> it should be a commons or it should put works into a
> commons area. It doesn't. But then, it was never meant
> to do that.

Again, it is the Creative Commons people themselves who
equate NC stuff with a 
commons, not use "end users" of the CC licenses.
Is it your words that it was 
never meant to do that, is theirs?
>
> So the problem you are proposing that CC-Sunset would
fix,
> doesn't exist. as long as the license is being propsed
to fix
> a nonexistent problem, I have an issue with it being
approved.
>
> The last thing I want is for a license to be rolled out
with all
> sorts of promises to create new possibilities and solve
all
> sorts of issues, only to have it, well, not do any of
that,
> because it was designed to fix a non-existent problem
under
> the premise that there was some connection between the
> "problem" and the new license.


If license proliferation and the resultant incompatibilities
were not such big 
problems, this would be a non-issue and we should be running
experiments with 
various options to see which work best in practice.

>
> I also think that were CC to create a sunset license
that
> started out as CC-NC and switched to CC-SA, then the
> people who would adopt it would be fence-hangers to
> CC-SA, not CC-NC. That's a fundamental problem.

What is the issue with making a license for people who want
to make BY-SA 
works but can see no other way to support themselves in
doing so but by 
adding an NC option and yet think that they would garner
more goodwill if 
they could build in a sunset to straight BY-SA?
>
> If people are on the fence and decide to go with CC-SA,
> Great. The commons gets something contributed to it.
> If the person sees CC-Sunset, they may be more apt
> to go with CC-Sunset with a couple year delay,
> *just in case* they might be able to make some money
> off of it.
>
> If you take someone who uses CC-NC, I don't see
> CC-Sunset offering them anything new. CC-NC is a
> market economy license that benefits the author.
> They give up some right to the community and
> the community gives them some free advertising.
> CC-Sunset doesn't offer them anything additional.

See the thought on T3. That would give them something
additional at least for 
non-original works.
>
> If CC-NC were a restrictive "commons" then
> peole using CC-NC might change to CC-Sunset.
> But I don't think people who use CC-NC think
> they're contributing to a commons, I think they
> know on some level that they're keeping some
> rights so they are at an advantage over the community.

If that is really the case, it is time for CC to drop the NC
option as it has 
nothing whatsoever with the Creative Commons. End of story.

> It's an exchange of free-advertising. If anyone
> was interested in contrubting to a commons they
> would use a commons license like CC-SA.
>
> So while I can see people who used to contribute stuff
> under CC-SA changing to using a CC-Sunset license,
> I don't see people going from CC-NC to sunset.
> which means that any CC-SA commons will get
> worse, not better.

Not if it allows for the funding of more works that will end
up BY-SA it 
won't. Isn't that the basic premise of copyright in the
first place? Now, if 
you think that copyleft art has similar ethical
consideratoins as copyleft 
code. That may be the case and, if so, the BY-SA commons
would be hurt to 
that extent.

all the best,

drew
-- 
http://www.ourmed
ia.org/node/145261
Record a song and you might win $1,000.00
http://www.ourmedi
a.org/user/17145

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On 5/30/06, drew Roberts <zotz100jamz.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday 30 May 2006 03:28 pm, Greg bond wrote:

> According to your beliefs, NC is not a commons license,
> if we accept that (and I persoannally may) then
Creative
> Commons has no business offering a license that has
> nothing to do with the commons under its banner. Start
> another organization to promote such non-commons
> licenses? As it is, it is a metter of confusion.

heh. you should have been around when CC first started.
I was probably just a tad more combative back then
and let them have it with both barrels on a couple
of occaisions as to all the references to
"commons" that
was on their site and nothing to clarify that a bunch of
their licenses weren't. They cleaned up quite a bit,
but the name of the site had already been picked and
advertised and everything, so that one never went.

I don't mind the name. CC-BY and CC-SA are commons
licenses. and their philosophy page is pretty clear that
they're more about a "spectrum of rights" than
a
commons manifesto. But no, I don't think CC-NC is
a commons license. And yes, I wouldn't mind some
clarification somewhere on teh CC website as to that
distinction.

I think the color coding rainbow would do it.
the Blues could be Public Domain
Green could be ShareAlike
and the warning colors such as yellow, orange and red
could be reserved for non-commons licenses.

there's a black and white I did of something like this here
http://www.gregbond.com/dtgd/html/draft
ingthegiftdomain_html_m79d0709.gif

Oh, and here's my rendition of the cathedral and bazaar
http://www.gregbond.com/dtgd/html/draf
tingthegiftdomain_html_m68001423.gif




> People are motivated by many things, not just money or
profit
> in the economic sense. It is unclear in the
"games" you bring
> up that you take this into account.

Yes, I do. The only reason that someone would contribute
to wikipedia is because it serves some motive other than
money. Maybe they are simply motivated by the idea
of making information free to the world. Maybe they are
motivated by their interest in a particular subject.
Whatver.
The main thing is that when you have a wide base of
contributers giving small contributions for free, their
reason for doing so will be motivated by the fact that
the project is in alignment with some higher motive
than money or personal reward.

Which is yet another reason that I say the license doesn't
spark the project. The idea behind the project, the end
goal,
is what sparks the contributions to come in. And FLOSS
is not good enough of a goal by itself. THe goal needs to
be whatever the project creates as work, not the fact that
the work is CC-SA. And the goal needs to be big enough
to be motivating but have short enough milestones so
as to not be overwhelming.

If the terrain is too steep, find a flat spot in the
mountains.
Go around, rather than going up.



> gnu/linux this is more apparent, is that it had a hugh
head start of
> all the gnu code developed by the FSF (is that right?)
under the GPL
> and some LGPL and developed mugh more along the lines
of a
> cathedral model.

Yes. Those first applications were important seeds.
They served as proof that the concept could work,
they acted as "milestones" to show people
progress,
and they also happened to include two of the most
important tools in developing software: an editor and
a compiler.


> > I mean charging a direct toll to pay for the road
versus
> > building the road, allowing people to travel on it
for free,
> > and then building a gas station and trying to make
back
> > your road construction costs by selling gas.
>
> The option that is being left out is charging people to
build
> the road in the first place. We should also keep in
mind that
> these are not mutually exclusive options.

Yes, the service model, too.

some projects are more compatible with finding
vendors who you can quote a price to do a job
than others.

> BTW, why do patents last so much shorther than
copyrights.
> Is it rally so much harder or of such a greater value
to mankind
> to make a song versus some useful invention?

The power of patent rights is far more powerful than the
power of
copyrights. Patents grant exclusive rights on functionality
and don't
care if the functionality is created with a different
expression or
independently. So, to compensate, the term is much shorter.

http://www.gregbond.com/dtgd/html/draft
ingthegiftdomain_html_71ca25a2.gif

> > Try the bounty hunter metaphor. Disney catching
> > a bunch of bad guys doesn't prevent you or anyone
> > else from catching a completely new and unrelated
> > bad guy. Even that metaphor fails to some extent,
> > but that's the problem with metaphors.
>
> With an unlimited number of bad guys and an
> unlimited amount of reward money,
> OK. Is that the real world though?

I think for the forseable future, the number of
possible new, unique intellectual works can be
approximated as limitless. Maybe in a century or
two, someone might want to re-evalutate that.


> Again, it is the Creative Commons people themselves who
> equate NC stuff with a commons, not use "end
users" of
> the CC licenses. Is it your words that it was
> never meant to do that, is theirs?

I say NC is not a commons license.
I don't think CC says anything either way
as far as the concept of a commons goes
and how it might or might not relate to their
licenses. I haven't looked at their mission
statement lately.

> > I also think that were CC to create a sunset
license that
> > started out as CC-NC and switched to CC-SA, then
the
> > people who would adopt it would be fence-hangers
to
> > CC-SA, not CC-NC. That's a fundamental problem.
>
> What is the issue with making a license for people who
want
> to make BY-SA works but can see no other way to support
themselves

Because if the project is such that you have too small
a number of people contributing CC-SA works to
make the project exothermic, and the alternative is to
increase the number of contributers by creating a
monetary incentive but extending terms to N years,
then you go from one approach that doesn't ignite
to another approach that doesn't ignite. A turn around
time for derivatives of 3 years means, potentially,
you get 10 revisions after 30 years.

The thing that makes gift economy projects killer apps
is their capacity for instantaneous derivations.
If you've ever watched an article on wikipedia go from
zero to several pages in a couple of days, you'll see
that its a whole bunch of people working off of each
other's
work, instantaneously. You'll get multiple people editing
the same piece and the software will say you've got a
submission conflict because two people tried to change
somethign at the same time. And in a short time, those
derivitives can result in a great work.

I suppose if you have a project that has few contributers
to begin with, that doesn't chunk well, is generally made
by individuals doing a lot of Cathedral work and then
submitting it, then the Sunset license model fits the
project terrain. But I wouldnt be convinced that the
thing would go exothermic and become self-sustaining.

Figuring out a way to change the terrain would.
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On Tuesday 30 May 2006 08:33 pm, Greg bond wrote:
> On 5/30/06, drew Roberts <zotz100jamz.com> wrote:
> > On Tuesday 30 May 2006 03:28 pm, Greg bond wrote:
> >
> > According to your beliefs, NC is not a commons
license,
> > if we accept that (and I persoannally may) then
Creative
> > Commons has no business offering a license that
has
> > nothing to do with the commons under its banner.
Start
> > another organization to promote such non-commons
> > licenses? As it is, it is a metter of confusion.
>
> heh. you should have been around when CC first started.
> I was probably just a tad more combative back then
> and let them have it with both barrels on a couple
> of occaisions as to all the references to
"commons" that
> was on their site and nothing to clarify that a bunch
of
> their licenses weren't. They cleaned up quite a bit,
> but the name of the site had already been picked and
> advertised and everything, so that one never went.

Gotcha on your take on a commons. If you checked out my
reference to the New 
Forest though and if I understood what I read correctly, you
might equate the 
forest as being "owned" by the king, who had
more rights and certain 
exclusive rights (wink just right now and equate him with
the copyright owner 
who licenses his work CC BY-NC-SA) and then there were
people living in adn 
around the forest who had certain commonage rights but not
equal rights to 
the king.

In any case, probably irrelevant to the underlying issue but
again, I think 
there may be mental image issues if people hold widely
varying ideas as to 
what a commons actually is and how one operates.
>
> I don't mind the name. CC-BY and CC-SA are commons
> licenses. and their philosophy page is pretty clear
that
> they're more about a "spectrum of rights"
than a
> commons manifesto. But no, I don't think CC-NC is
> a commons license. And yes, I wouldn't mind some
> clarification somewhere on teh CC website as to that
> distinction.
>
> I think the color coding rainbow would do it.
> the Blues could be Public Domain
> Green could be ShareAlike
> and the warning colors such as yellow, orange and red
> could be reserved for non-commons licenses.

Something like this, as I too have expressed before, would
be a great idea. I 
personally want an "in your face" indication as
to which CC license a work is 
under without having to go clicking around. (How lazy can we
get?)
>
> there's a black and white I did of something like this
here
> http://www.gregbond.com/dtgd/html/draft
ingthegiftdomain_html_m79d0709.gif
>
> Oh, and here's my rendition of the cathedral and
bazaar
> http://www.gregbond.com/dtgd/html/draft
ingthegiftdomain_html_m68001423.gi
>f
>
> > People are motivated by many things, not just
money or profit
> > in the economic sense. It is unclear in the
"games" you bring
> > up that you take this into account.
>
> Yes, I do. The only reason that someone would
contribute
> to wikipedia is because it serves some motive other
than
> money. Maybe they are simply motivated by the idea
> of making information free to the world. Maybe they are
> motivated by their interest in a particular subject.
Whatver.
> The main thing is that when you have a wide base of
> contributers giving small contributions for free, their
> reason for doing so will be motivated by the fact that
> the project is in alignment with some higher motive
> than money or personal reward.

That being the case, I think you may be underestimating the
amount of work 
people are willing to put in on projects they want to work
on, or on how much 
copyleft work needs to be produced to make an appreciable
difference in the 
lives of many.

As an example, one of my cousins is big time into running
the Richard Burgi 
Fan Club site:

http://www.richardburgi.
com/

He puts in a hugh amount of time from what I can see and has
been doing so for 
years.

I still agree with a central idea of yours which is that the
more chunkable a 
project is the easier it is to run as a bazaar project and
the easier it is 
to get produced with a copyleft license. I am just unwilling
to concede at 
this point that these are absolute controlling factors.
>
> Which is yet another reason that I say the license
doesn't
> spark the project. The idea behind the project, the end
goal,
> is what sparks the contributions to come in. And FLOSS
> is not good enough of a goal by itself. THe goal needs
to
> be whatever the project creates as work, not the fact
that
> the work is CC-SA. And the goal needs to be big enough
> to be motivating but have short enough milestones so
> as to not be overwhelming.

Again, that may or may not be true, but if the history of
the GNU stuff I have 
read is correct, the timeline went something like this:

Problem with non-free printer driver leads to idea that free
software is an 
ethical (moral?) issue. GPL designed to ensure the software
freedoms. GNU 
project begun to create  Free replacement for unix. GCC and
emacs (I don't 
recall the order) and all of the other GNU userspace
programs written. GNU 
kernel (hurd?) last piece of puzzle still missing. Linux
kernel written and 
at some poing joined wit the GNU stuff to make a complete
OS. (linux was not 
originally GPL but at some point was released as such and
things have been 
cooking ever since.)

So, up until the linux kernel, I would say that in this
seminal case, the 
license did spark the project. Or more properly, the
"abuse" resulting from 
the lack of the license protections lead to the formulation
of hte freedoms 
and the writing of the license which protected the project.

(There are possibly serious errors in that little off the
cuff history. I am 
not a Free Software historian by any means and I went
completely from my 
admittedly faulty memory.)
>
> If the terrain is too steep, find a flat spot in the
mountains.
> Go around, rather than going up.

If we can find a flat spot, great. if we can find the way
around, great. In 
the mean time, if some want to go over or build on the
slopes, more power to 
them.
>
> > gnu/linux this is more apparent, is that it had a
hugh head start of
> > all the gnu code developed by the FSF (is that
right?) under the GPL
> > and some LGPL and developed mugh more along the
lines of a
> > cathedral model.
>
> Yes. Those first applications were important seeds.
> They served as proof that the concept could work,
> they acted as "milestones" to show people
progress,
> and they also happened to include two of the most
> important tools in developing software: an editor and
> a compiler.
>
> > > I mean charging a direct toll to pay for the
road versus
> > > building the road, allowing people to travel
on it for free,
> > > and then building a gas station and trying to
make back
> > > your road construction costs by selling gas.
> >
> > The option that is being left out is charging
people to build
> > the road in the first place. We should also keep
in mind that
> > these are not mutually exclusive options.
>
> Yes, the service model, too.

So, is all employment nothing more than a service model? Are
all real product 
business actually nothing more than a service model?

If I make wooden bowls for sale based on a freely usable
plan that others also 
use to make wooden bowls for sale, we are not therefore
using a service 
model. We are insisting on getting paid for our labour or
the direct fruits 
thereof. If I want more income, I can work more and make
more bowls for sale.

If I choose to charge for every improvement I make to my GPL
program, that is 
not far removed from the wooden bowl example. If I want more
money, I make 
more improvements. Or, put another way, if you want me to
make some 
improvements for you, I can say no-way unless you pay. Do it
yourself or get 
someone else to do it for you for no charge, when it comes
to my work, I 
charge for it.
>
> some projects are more compatible with finding
> vendors who you can quote a price to do a job
> than others.
>
> > BTW, why do patents last so much shorther than
copyrights.
> > Is it rally so much harder or of such a greater
value to mankind
> > to make a song versus some useful invention?
>
> The power of patent rights is far more powerful than
the power of
> copyrights. Patents grant exclusive rights on
functionality and don't
> care if the functionality is created with a different
expression or
> independently. So, to compensate, the term is much
shorter.
>
> http://www.gregbond.com/dtgd/html/draft
ingthegiftdomain_html_71ca25a2.gif

I understand and don't argue with such reasoning, I just
wonder how the 
"intellectual property" proponents explain the
anomaly.
>
> > > Try the bounty hunter metaphor. Disney
catching
> > > a bunch of bad guys doesn't prevent you or
anyone
> > > else from catching a completely new and
unrelated
> > > bad guy. Even that metaphor fails to some
extent,
> > > but that's the problem with metaphors.
> >
> > With an unlimited number of bad guys and an
> > unlimited amount of reward money,
> > OK. Is that the real world though?
>
> I think for the forseable future, the number of
> possible new, unique intellectual works can be
> approximated as limitless. Maybe in a century or
> two, someone might want to re-evalutate that.

Novels, ok, I agree, although I remember reading where
someone is trying to 
patent the plot of a novel and seems to be making some
progress to that end.

But what about melodies? Do you have any comment on my
little program and what 
stops someone from doing that today?
>
> > Again, it is the Creative Commons people
themselves who
> > equate NC stuff with a commons, not use "end
users" of
> > the CC licenses. Is it your words that it was
> > never meant to do that, is theirs?
>
> I say NC is not a commons license.
> I don't think CC says anything either way
> as far as the concept of a commons goes
> and how it might or might not relate to their
> licenses. I haven't looked at their mission
> statement lately.
>
> > > I also think that were CC to create a sunset
license that
> > > started out as CC-NC and switched to CC-SA,
then the
> > > people who would adopt it would be
fence-hangers to
> > > CC-SA, not CC-NC. That's a fundamental
problem.
> >
> > What is the issue with making a license for people
who want
> > to make BY-SA works but can see no other way to
support themselves
>
> Because if the project is such that you have too small
> a number of people contributing CC-SA works to
> make the project exothermic, and the alternative is to
> increase the number of contributers by creating a
> monetary incentive but extending terms to N years,
> then you go from one approach that doesn't ignite
> to another approach that doesn't ignite. A turn around
> time for derivatives of 3 years means, potentially,
> you get 10 revisions after 30 years.

I would certainly prefer to figure out some way of funding
BY-SA works without 
having to deal with NC or other complications in any way.

I just think experiments may still be in order.

It may be that we just have not figured out who uses art as
a tool in making 
money as opposed to something to sell to make money. If we
can identify them, 
perhaps they can cut down on their tool aquisition costs by
funding the 
development of said tools in a copyleft and bazaar model
manner.
>
> The thing that makes gift economy projects killer apps
> is their capacity for instantaneous derivations.

If you drop the gift economy label and substitute copyleft
or libre projects, 
I agree strongly.

> If you've ever watched an article on wikipedia go from
> zero to several pages in a couple of days, you'll see
> that its a whole bunch of people working off of each
other's
> work, instantaneously. You'll get multiple people
editing
> the same piece and the software will say you've got a
> submission conflict because two people tried to change
> somethign at the same time. And in a short time, those
> derivitives can result in a great work.
>
> I suppose if you have a project that has few
contributers
> to begin with, that doesn't chunk well, is generally
made
> by individuals doing a lot of Cathedral work and then
> submitting it, then the Sunset license model fits the
> project terrain. But I wouldnt be convinced that the
> thing would go exothermic and become self-sustaining.

Well, I think it will take off in a big way once there is a
sufficient variety 
of copyleft stuff out there to make building on it extremely
tempting. We 
shall see. If this is the case, the sunset idea, if it is
needed at all, may 
only be needed for a certain time to jump start the action.
>
> Figuring out a way to change the terrain would.

Cartainly.

I do think tweaking the licenses may also help at least for
certain types of 
works.

I was starting to run experiments with freeing a low
resolution ("quality") 
version of a work while selling the higher resolution
version with a stated 
dollar sales volume at which the higher resolution version
would be "Freed" 
but then someone pointed out that it was the work which I
was licensing BY-SA 
and not the version to which I applied the license. This
effectively shot 
down that "business model" experiment. Granted,
I could have dropped all 
reference to CC and tweaked the license as the zotz Commons
license and 
continued, but I don't like the idea of fragmentation
either. I think CC can 
do great things. I spend enough time creating my CC works
and on these 
lists... ~

all the best,

drew
-- 
http://www.ourmed
ia.org/node/145261
Record a song and you might win $1,000.00
http://www.ourmedi
a.org/user/17145

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