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The Almighty Buck Your Rights Online

Andrew Orlowski Answers Mail on Creative Commons 168

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the ongoing-debates dept.
chronicon writes "Andrew Orlowski takes another swipe at Creative Commons licensing with a look through the mailbag of responses he received from a previous diatribe on the subject. It's obvious to Mr. Orlowski that creativity is 'all about the benjamins.' Yet one interesting point he throws out has me pondering, is a Creative Commons License permanently irrevocable once it's put out there?"
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Andrew Orlowski Answers Mail on Creative Commons More

Andrew Orlowski Answers Mail on Creative Commons

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  • Enforceability (Score:2, Interesting)

    by fembots ( 753724 )
    Does CC improve the enforceability? I mean, what's the incentive to claim/release/share a copyrighted article if there is no way of protecting it properly?

    If a work is released under a CC license, will it be brought to court and judged accordingly in a quick manner?

    What's the difference between CC and common laws in terms of enforceability. It seems nowadays, lawsuits are about financial depth, whoever has enough cash to burn in court for the next 10-20 years will be pretty safe from any litigation, regardl
    • Does CC improve the enforceability?

      It's a copyright licence. Your copyrights are just as enforceable under a CC licence as under any other.

      I mean, what's the incentive to claim/release/share a copyrighted article if there is no way of protecting it properly?

      That's jumping the gun a little - you've yet to establish that there is a problem with enforcement. It's a licence under copyright, the same mechanism that Mircosoft use to distribute software and that the record labels and movie studios use to

  • Making a Big Deal of Nothing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheSpoom ( 715771 ) <slashdot&uberm00,net> on Monday August 29, 2005 @07:57PM (#13431840) Homepage Journal
    Well, first things first:

    Yet one interesting point he throws out has me pondering, is a Creative Commons License permanently irrevocable once it's put out there?

    In answer, this is from the CC Attribution-NonCommercial license (bold and italics added for emphasis):
    3. License Grant. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright) license to exercise the rights in the Work...
    So clearly it *is* permanantly irrevocable, which is a good thing. If it weren't, how could the end user be assured that her or his freedoms to use the software (or whatever) under the license would still be there in the future? This way, an author can't just say "this isn't working out for me, now you have to pay me $10 to keep using [whatever]," as that would be tantamount to extortion.

    Additionally, from the linked Register article:
    The use of an irrevocable Commons license, which effectively ends any hope of the artist being compensated by the creative industries, doesn't seem fair or sensible for most readers.
    This is why there is a Non-Commercial version of the license. And this is also why having a work distributed under a CC license doesn't prevent you from ALSO licensing it under other licenses! That's the whole idea of the NC versions of the license: if someone wants to use your work commercially, they can contact you to work out another arrangement so that you would get some form of compensation for the profits that they might make off of your work.

    But seriously, if you don't like the license, make your own! Nobody's forcing people to use these licenses and I don't see why this person seems to think that they're creating a "crisis" of sorts. Creative Commons licenses are just an easy way of having your work distributed the way you want, and with a license written by a lawyer so that there are no possible loopholes for which someone could take advantage.

    • Re:Making a Big Deal of Nothing (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Catamaran ( 106796 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:04PM (#13431871)
      More info from http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/000774.shtml [lessig.org]
      There's a wonderfully careful analysis of various CC issues at burningbird. Thank you. One point to clarify, however. CC licenses are, at this moment, at least, permanent, in the sense that the term is as long as copyright runs (and we'll see whether that's permanent or not soon enough). That issue was a tough one for us (I, of course, favor "limited terms"), and we're eager for feedback on that issue.

      But just because you can't revoke a particular license doesn't mean you can't revoke the offer. If, for example, you offer content under a CC license for a month, and then change your mind, you can stop offering the content under that license. Anyone who accepted your offer while it was valid, of course, has a deal. But no one after you withdraw the offer can accept anymore.

    • So clearly it *is* permanantly irrevocable, which is a good thing. If it weren't, how could the end user be assured that her or his freedoms to use the software (or whatever) under the license would still be there in the future? This way, an author can't just say "this isn't working out for me, now you have to pay me $10 to keep using [whatever]," as that would be tantamount to extortion.

      I should have pondered longer ;-)

      Of course it would have to be irrevocable until the expiration of the copyright term

      • They just seem to be approaching the issue with tunnel vision. There's no realization that an artist does is not forced to put EVERYTHING THEY MAKE under CC after they first sip the Kool-Aid. Granted, some zealots might indeed say "CC everything!", and these could be the people D&O are counterpointing. I would call those zealots just as blind as the "CC nothing!" crowd.

        Creative Commons, just like any licensing scheme, is something you should actually THINK about before doing it. Yes, there are cons, in
        • There's no realization that an artist does is not forced to put EVERYTHING THEY MAKE under CC after they first sip the Kool-Aid.

          Interesting sentence construction. May I ask, have you studied Neuro Linguistic Programming? You use some very Eriksonian language patterns there.

          Yes, there are cons, in that you give up editorial control and a fair chunk of revenue generation,

          More accurate would be to say that you have the option to give up these things if you so choose, depending on the options you sel

          • So, you're *basically* agreeing with this guy, yet you insult him a number of times on unrelated matters such as capitalization.

            Way to Slashdot!

            I do agree that he seems to not realize you can selectively create a CC license that would certainly allow you to recieve revenue for your work, or place controls on how the content is used. But you didn't have to be a dick about it.
            • So, you're *basically* agreeing with this guy, yet you insult him a number of times on unrelated matters such as capitalization.

              Sorry. My fault; I should have supplied a bit more background detail.

              Eriksonial hypnosis is a hypnotic technique used by the late Milton Erikson. Do a google - there are some fascinating stories told about him. Erikson had some very covert approaches to hypnosis including the use of presuppositions and embedded commands to influnce entrain the conciousness of his subjects. T

      • The bigger wonder is just why (besides trolling for hits) are Dvorak & Orlowski so against CC licensing?

        They are both content producers who have a substantial vested interest in restricting entry to the market. CC licencing makes it simpler for talented amateurs or other new starters to dabble in the fields Dvorak & Orlowski make their income from. Once they are producing competing works through competition, reduce their ability to demand high fees for their works.

        There's no real difference in
    • This is why there is a Non-Commercial version of the license.

      That's also why the Non-Commercial Creative Commons licenses suck. The whole point of sharing something with a Creative Commons license is to allow other people to build upon work that you've created, resulting in more creative works for people to enjoy. When you tack on the non-commercial restriction, you're making people jump through hoops to make sure they don't make any money with the new work that has been created. Let's look at an example
      • "Adding on the non-commercial restriction is supposed to let the creator earn money on the work, but far more often it just makes potential derivers look for alternatives, along with hampering the overall goal."

        Which is exactly why CC needs further development in the C/NC area. If the licences are meant to make it easier to tell what you can and can not use a work for, they're only going half the distance right now. A system needs to be added that lets potential commercial users understand the standard
      • When you tack on the non-commercial restriction, you're making people jump through hoops to make sure they don't make any money with the new work that has been created. Let's look at an example of a blatant commercial use of a work, such as using a song in a television commercial. If a company uses a Creative Commons licensed song with the ShareAlike and Attribution requirements, that means the resulting commercial will be shared as well, allowing other people to make derivative works as well.
        So what is
        • The first example I gave was to show the realm in which most people think the non-commercial clause is reasonable, and far from onerous. I was also showing why the non-commercial clause isn't necessary. Even if an advertisement is created from one's shared work, the resulting advertisement will be a shared work as well! Anyone can create derivative works as they see fit, which is the main goal of sharing one's work. The existance of the non-commercial option puts dollar signs in the eyes of creators, and ma
    • So clearly it *is* permanantly irrevocable, which is a good thing.

      Exactly...that's the *point* of the Creative Commons that he doesn't get. So you fork your work private at some point (book-only update to an essay or something), the older stuff remains under the CC license. This is what he can't get his head around, that anybody would even want to be able to do this. He thinks the old version of the essay would devalue the book-only update, which is silly.

      He also equates compensation with perfect control ov
    • This is why there is a Non-Commercial version of the license. And this is also why having a work distributed under a CC license doesn't prevent you from ALSO licensing it under other licenses! That's the whole idea of the NC versions of the license: if someone wants to use your work commercially, they can contact you to work out another arrangement so that you would get some form of compensation for the profits that they might make off of your work.

      Having a clear Non-Commerrcial clause is the main reason

  • Don't Feed The Trolls. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bob9113 ( 14996 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:02PM (#13431858) Homepage
    Don't feed the trolls. Andrew Orlowski is not simply failing to understand with an open mind and a desire to learn, he is choosing to not understand in order to incite. Don't let yourself be baited.
    • his professed confusion is entirely intentional. he even trolls for more hits/letters in the final paragraph.

      it's one thing to open up a real discussion on a subject. it is another to twist the existing facts to push your own sensational opinion...

      sum.zero
    • Don't feed the trolls. Andrew Orlowski is not simply failing to understand with an open mind and a desire to learn, he is choosing to not understand in order to incite. Don't let yourself be baited.
      He seems to have an anti-Lessig campaign [theregister.co.uk] going.
    • This is even more transparent with Dvorak. In fact, I think it's one of his signature styles, going even back to his Macworld days. At least Orlowski attempts to justify his position with (arguably) cogent logic, but Dvorak just throws his hands up, saying "I don't get it!" Shit, John, RTFM.

  • The Benjamins? (Score:4, Funny)

    by slickwillie ( 34689 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:11PM (#13431912)
    And here I thought it was all about the Pentiums [lyricsdepot.com].

  • Same Failed Arguments As Those Against Open Source (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mmurphy000 ( 556983 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:26PM (#13431980)

    Mr. Orlowski's arguments are the same ones as get trotted out time and again against open source. Regardless of whether you think open source is awesome or overrated, it's tough to argue that open source is irrelevant, which is how Mr. Orlowski paints the Creative Commons.

    For example, you could easily convert:

    The use of an irrevocable Commons license, which effectively ends any hope of the artist being compensated by the creative industries, doesn't seem fair or sensible...

    into

    The use of an irrevocable [open source] license, which effectively ends any hope of the [programmer] being compensated by the [venture capitalists], doesn't seem fair or sensible...

    Similarly:

    Issuing the material under [an open source] license may earn them a pat on the back from an expensive American law school, but it pretty much guarantees they won't be compensated.
    From two reccie missions we conducted - purely for research purposes, of course - into [CompUSA] last night revealed thousands of people willingly handing over their earnings to enjoy [software]. Their only demand being that it be "Good [Software]".

    Is the Creative Commons going to become huge? Perhaps not. But Mr. Orlowski's gotta come up with better arguments than these tired ones.

    • but i didn't see anyone buying 'good' music. what was that point about comnpusa again? oops, never mind.

      sum.zero

    • Mr. Orlowski's arguments are the same ones as get trotted out time and again against open source. Regardless of whether you think open source is awesome or overrated, it's tough to argue that open source is irrelevant, which is how Mr. Orlowski paints the Creative Commons.

      Well, from what I got from the article the writer thinks that the problem with the CC crowd is they think of creative work a lot like code, and think a solution that works for code will work for artistic works.

      If you accept that, the

  • I Can't Stand Paternalism... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Comatose51 ( 687974 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:27PM (#13431989) Homepage
    The use of an irrevocable Commons license, which effectively ends any hope of the artist being compensated by the creative industries, doesn't seem fair or sensible for most readers.

    What is the whole point of his diatribe? It's not like someone took a gun to the artist's head and told him to do it. The artist presumably read and understood what he is doing and did it. Can we just stop this paternalism? If Ray Charles wants to keep his music royalties and rights, he can. It's not as though CC is being pressed into law. It's your material and your choice. Behind his comment is this assumption that most artists are morons and will want to revoke his decision some day. That's perfectly alright and he can. He can release his work under some other license if he likes. CC is just a convient template to use if that's the road you want to take.

    And guess what? It is through the sampling of CC music from iRate radio that I discovered new music and purchased copies of artists' other songs. You can give some of your music away for free and keep the rest under copyright. You can do whatever the hell you want with your work. CC is just one option out there. Having choices is usually good.

    • But a big concern is that many artists don't actually KNOW what they're signing up for. I've talked to a lot of artists lately who thought that CC-C-SA was the best thing since three-buttoned mice, but also had this crazy notion that it somehow required Sony to pay you royalties if they pressed 10 million copies of your CD and sold it all over the world. But you don't have any protection there, so you're screwed.

      The real issue is that CC stops short of addressing compensation in all this. We're all quite

      • So if that's what you're after, use your own license. No one is forcing you to use a CC license.

        Plenty of artists sign up with publishers (music, books, whatever) without realizing that they just lost all control of their work entirely, including how it will be marketed and how it will be priced, yet all expenses will be coming out of their royalties, which they might never see, and they have no way of going somewhere else if they don't like how it's being done. In music, many artists find that not only

        • I, personally, use CC-NC-SA because I want to retain some level of control over how my work is used commercially. So I'm not really worried about another license. I'm worried about my fellow artists who have a distorted impression about what their chosen license does for them. You're right, they would get taken advantage of by a big company with a traditional agreement, but that's no excuse for being royally screwed again, while trying to be noble.

          I don't think CC necessarily has to change, but I think i

          • Of course, you can still create a modified version of your work, and you retain full control over that - and for commercial uses, that's worth quite a bit. That's something that only you can do. Frankly, if I wrote a song, released it under CC, and it was used in Star Wars Episode 7, I'd be thrilled even if I didn't get any royalties out of it. It's quite likely that if I hadn't released it as such, it wouldn't be in that movie and not only wouldn't I get any royalties, I wouldn't get any exposure either

      • I hope that in your attempts to bring enlightenment to the musical masses, you don't go overboard and turn musicians away from a powerful promotional tool. I really don't see how the people at Creative Commons could be any clearer about how their license works. I'm sorry if "many artists" jumped onto the bandwagon without understanding the details, but they shouldn't be blaming anyone but themselves.

        Nor do I see that the CC would be improved by adding your licenses into the mix. The CC is about letting
        • you don't go overboard and turn musicians away from a powerful promotional tool.
          True, that's a big danger. I really am trying to not sound so alarmist. You shoulda heard me last week! Woo!

          I don't see how a license that took pages of legalese to say, "Ask me first" would serve anybody, including the people who wanted to be asked first.
          But that's what CC-NC-SA does right now. You can still use it for commercial purposes, but you have to ask first. It would still be extremely easy to pick a CC-C-SA
          • Okay, I'm coming around a bit. I don't have time for a full response, but I don't see a simple percentage working, because the percent you can demand is very much a function of how the source work is used. For example, somebody uses a song of mine in a movie. Is it the full song, or just a few seconds? Is it playing in the background, or is it the audience's main focus? Is it the second song on the end credits (presumably to be heard after everyone has left the theater and turned off the VCR)?

            I gue

      • But a big concern is that many artists don't actually KNOW what they're signing up for. I've talked to a lot of artists lately who thought that CC-C-SA was the best thing since three-buttoned mice, but also had this crazy notion that it somehow required Sony to pay you royalties if they pressed 10 million copies of your CD and sold it all over the world.

        These people would have trouble tying their own shoelaces. They need a manager.

        • In an attempt to serve the Greater Good, even the wisest people can make themselves into unintentional sacrifices. Too many people think the license means what they believe it to mean, rather than what it says. It's like anti-FUD, and it's just as dangerous, especially when repeated by otherwise smart people.
      • If the music is creative commons licensed, then why would people pay Sony for it? There are two possible answers:
        1. It is more convenient for them to buy a CD.
        2. They don't realise that it is CC licensed.

        Reason one seems completely fair to me. Reason two would indicate that Sony was not displaying the CC license on their copy, which I believe is an infringement of the license and so they are liable for prosecution.

        We're all quite good at giving proper credit to those involved, but CC and GPL don't addres

        • Reason two would indicate that Sony was not displaying the CC license on their copy, which I believe is an infringement of the license and so they are liable for prosecution.
          Or, Sony display the required information about the CC license, but the general masses don't have a clue what it means... besides which, they've already bought it by this point, and can't be bothered to hunt down the original author anyway. It's a question of convenience, at that stage.

          This is a somewhat outdated business model wh
    • It's not like someone took a gun to the artist's head and told him to do it.

      I got the impression that was the point of his article...that CC isn't the end-all answer to copyright, though CC-zealots tend to push it that way. I didn't read it as an article saying CC should be buried and forgotten, only that it shouldn't be pushed as the future of copyright. Just as open source is a good idea that's not going away, it also shouldn't be pushed as the ONLY solution for the software industry.

      It was a well

  • Actually.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by atrerra ( 911142 )
    According to sources on the CC mailing list, Creative Commons licenses can be changed (for future downloaders) but not revoked (for people who downloaded your CC licensed work in the past).

    You retain ownership of the copyright and as such you can choose to change the license at any time.

    You can't however revoke a license you have already granted. That means if you relase something under the Attribution-Sharealike license, and someone downloads it that same day, then they are free to use it under terms of th
    • They don't have a message board on their website, and emailed questions are never answered.

      No kidding, I've been trying to get an answer to this question for a while. Perhaps someone here can help me out.

      I have a question regarding the non-commercial clause of licenses and how it relates to advertising. I am in the process of putting together some classroom resources for teachers using the CC BY-NC-SA license. The resource includes both my own work, and the work of others under compatible licenses (i
      • CC tends not to reply to questions like that (I have been lucky enough to get a "we don't answer that kinda thing" email or two over the years), but from my discussions with lawyerly people (IANAL, naturally), the opinion is that the ads are not something you see in exchange for the content, therefore they aren't considered payment for the content, so they're merely peripheral elements to the website and do not violate the NC license.

        On the other hand, it doesn't stop someone from deciding otherwise and sui

  • Changing the default rules (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cfulmer ( 3166 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:37PM (#13432049) Journal
    US Copyright law is basically just a bunch of restrictive default rules about what people can & can't do with somebody else's work. The author can change these rules, typically by granting a license for other uses. But, if the author fails to do this, then the default rules still apply.

    Writing license agreements, though, is generally the purview of lawyers. Because lawyers are expensive and time-consuming, many creators do not go through the trouble, even if they do not want to retain all the default rights. As a result, earing serious liability for infringement, few people subsequently use these works.

    With Creative Commons, there is no need to see a lawyer if they don't want to use the default rules -- they have a set of standard agreements already pre-packaged for the layperson to use. As a result, there's virtually no cost to letting people reuse your work.

    There's another benefit -- because the agreements are standard, users only need to understand them once. There's no need to see a lawyer to explain each license agreement that comes in through the door.

  • Isn't this the same guy who... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by plasmacutter ( 901737 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:38PM (#13432054)
    is now unreasonably railing on ISP's claiming they should not be neutral carriers of data? [theregister.co.uk]

    I think this guy is hardly one to be considered an "authority" on either copyright, the internet, or creative commons for that matter.

    I trust Lessig, a law professor, in his administration of creative commons, and consider his support for the viability of it's license a lot more valuable than that of a journalist who seems to believe "audible magic" would actually work in "on the ground" p2p filtering situations.

  • too much ad hominem (Score:3, Interesting)

    by danharan ( 714822 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @08:41PM (#13432067) Journal
    According to the Andrew Orlowski, those that are lobbying hardest for CC licenses are neurotic Aspies, pleading for their pet project but uninterested in helping creators.

    Ad hominem, impuning motives and infantilization of those you don't agree with. That's no way to argue.

    Except maybe on /.

    Oh... never mind then. Way to go editors, we need more troll posts! :)

  • CC will facilitate projects that were unthinkable (Score:3, Informative)

    by SilentReallySilentUs ( 908879 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @09:07PM (#13432224) Homepage
    We recently created a website for collaboration in creative writing - Collaze [collaze.com] that uses cc licence. We wanted the contributors to write freely for the public domain without losing the rights to commercially utilize their work later. CC seemed to be custom made for this purpose. So, tomorrow if some entity wants to commercialize the collaborative work, it can do so provided it has the permission of the contributors. Writers can agree and give thier permission to the publisher with or without taking royalty - this depends totally on the writer. I think this is just the beginning. CC will be great for a variety of collaborative work in the future.

  • Is there really any point to it? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @09:13PM (#13432243) Homepage
    It seems to me that the people who support the idea of the Creative Commons license are the people who believe very strongly in this idea of "the commons." As far as I can tell, this seems to be an idealistic doctrine which says that the sum total of human creative endeavor is the birthright of every human being, and that everybody should ideally have access to every creative work (either now, or at some point in the future). This ideology naturally makes anyone who wants to profit off his/her own creative works tend to bristle. I don't think Creative Commons is really a bad thing in any particular way, though; like Orlowski, I'm just not sure if there's really any need for it.

    In practice, the Creative Commons license seems to mainly appeal to people who want to spread their own creative works in some kind of "viral" way. The license is a public statement: Go ahead and take this, use it, don't worry about it, I won't sue you. (And there may be a couple of additional clauses, such as "I won't sue you unless you try to profit from it.")

    But how do you define "profit"? If nobody would benefit in any way from the use of your work, then why would they want to use it in the first place? To my mind, benefit and profit are synonymous here. Maybe they don't sell your song. But maybe they post it on a Web site that accepts advertising. Are they profiting from your song then? It seems to me that if you want to set up all these profit/don't profit clauses, you need to write a little bit more fine print than your average Creative Commons license gives you.

    Second, copyright law already gives the author of a work absolute and complete control of how it is used. I'll give you an example of how this works. I am the author and copyright holder of a comic strip called The Adventures of Action Item. [fatalexception.org] Since I first drew it in 1999, this comic strip has had a fairly storied existence. It's been e-mailed around the known universe, printed up in magazines, used as a print sample, and it's constantly available on the Web page above. Every now and again someone writes me to ask if they can use it in one way or another, and my response varies.
    • When they wanted to print it in a couple of different magazines, I said OK, since it was going to be used as editorial content. But not for free; I negotiated a fee each time. You're selling magazines, I want a cut.
    • When people e-mail blast it to all their friends, I do nothing. Not just because it would be a little difficult to do anything about that, but because I honestly don't care. Go right ahead. (Hey look at that, I just got viral distribution and I never used a Creative Commons license.)
    • When people want to host it on their own Web sites, on the other hand, I usually decline. Just link to mine, please. Occasionally someone will post it without asking, and occasionally I will find out who they are and ask them to remove it.
    • When Xerox wrote to ask me if they could use it as a print sample for one of their printers, I decided that was an acceptable advertising-related purpose, because they weren't trying to co-opt the content or "message" of the strip. The (admittedly garish) colors in the artwork were what was being shown off. Plus they printed it up on cool-looking newsprint stock. I said OK -- and negotiated a fee.
    • When companies write to ask me if they can use it in some kind of company publication, however, I usually decline. I don't want the strip associated with their company. It's probably meant to make fun of their company.
    • Then again, sometimes people write me and ask if they can print up fifty copies and hand them out as an icebreaker or other materials for a class they're teaching, and I'll probably say that's fine.

    The point of all this? Every case is different. But that's just the thing -- existing copyright law gives me that right. I can really do whatever I want with my own works, and I can grant that other people can use them for whatever

    • The thing is, you can have it my way or you can have it the Creative Commons way. The Commons license isn't granting you any new power, controls, or freedoms -- copyright law is what's giving you everything, no matter which way you choose to license your stuff. People who are pro-Creative Commons, anti-copyright are fooling themselves. It's the same thing. All Creative Commons is, as far as I can see, is a lawyer who was nice enough to draft up some stock boilerplate for you, free of charge. That was nice o

      • There is a reason that some despise the CC... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Generalisimo Zang ( 805701 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @10:12PM (#13432513)

        So *what* is the big deal with these guys that they so despise CC and act like it is something that it is not? I want to think it is more then trolling for hits, but there doesn't seem to be any other motive that I can tell...

        The point is that those whose livelihoods depend upon acting as go-betweens between the creators of "IP", and the consumers of "IP", feel threatened by the possibilities of the internet in general, and the FOSS movement in particular.

        For two thousand years, creative people wrote books. THey wrote these books because they wanted to write them, and because they wanted people to read them.

        How much money do you think Livy made for writing "Discourses"? How much money did Julius Ceasar make from writing "The Gallic War", and "The Cival War"? How much did Machiavelli make from having written "The Prince"?

        In all three cases, the answer is not very much. They didn't write those books to make money from renting out puplication rights... they each had other motives that did not involve money.

        So now we fast-forward to 2005, where there is an ingrained cultural meme that ALL human interaction MUST be motivated by the exchange of folding money... except there are many creative people who have the same motives that the authors and creators of past centuries had. Thier motives for writing a book, or a play, or a computer program may not involve money.

        This, of course, is very worrisome to those whose entire existence is predicated upon their ability to stick themselves inbetween creators and viewers, and to leech a living from that position.

        The leeches see that their two-century-long free lunch on the blood of creative people may soon be coming to an end.

        So they wiggle and whine about any liscense that cuts them out of the transaction. Oh, boo hoo hoo, the GPL will end the world, or boo hoo hoo, the CC liscense will end all existence. Heh, and for the leech-like middlemen, they're correct :)

    • All Creative Commons is, as far as I can see, is a lawyer who was nice enough to draft up some stock boilerplate for you, free of charge. That was nice of him.

      Just like the nice lawyer who drafted up the GPL and the LGPL. Shame that faded away without an impact on the software world.

      Suggesting that Creative Commons is just some boilerplate licenses is an oversimplification. The Creative Commons is the implementation of a belief that things should be more free than they are, just like the GPL.

    • copyright law already gives the author of a work absolute and complete control of how it is used

      This one statement is the basis of your entire argument. The problem with it is that it is dead wrong.

      Copyright law gives you nothing. Enforcement of copyright is what gives you what, if any, control you have. The thing is, the times have changed. Enforcement was never easy, but now violating copyright has gone from being unrealistically dificult to the common and mundane. That makes enforcement practically

    • Re:Is there really any point to it? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bogtha ( 906264 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @10:42PM (#13432661)

      It seems to me that the people who support the idea of the Creative Commons license are the people who believe very strongly in this idea of "the commons." As far as I can tell, this seems to be an idealistic doctrine which says that the sum total of human creative endeavor is the birthright of every human being, and that everybody should ideally have access to every creative work (either now, or at some point in the future).

      No, that isn't the case. It's more to do with the assumptions people start with.

      Most people start with the assumption that copyright is some form of natural property right, so so it follows that it is wrong to take that property away from people. This is wrong.

      The only rational basis for any law is to measure its cost and its benefit against the state of nature - the "default", if you will.

      Property rights are easily justified (to most people). It's difficult to have a stable society if people can't own property like land, food etc. Tangible things. It's the job of government to pass laws to allow a stable society to exist. So the cost of property rights - the curtailing of our right to simply pick up and use what we want to, when we want to - is vastly outweighed by the benefit of a stable society.

      Copyright is another matter. The state of nature gives us the freedom to copy things, derive new works of art from things, advance science based on others' works. These are vital things for a free society of the type most people want. So the cost of simply treating copyright as property is too high.

      So a compromise was made. Copyrights would be limited to a short period of time like 14 years, and then it would revert to the public domain; basically be treated the same as in the state of nature. That gives all the benefit of providing in-demand authors with a stable way of generating an income and creating original works as a full-time profession, but the cost to society - the curtailing of our right to copy, etc, is minimised.

      After that, of course, the cost to society became greater and greater as corporate entities gained political power, until present day, when many people confuse copyright with property rights.

      All many (most?) Creative Commons people are doing is recognising the value to society of limited copyright. That's not the hardcore idealism you make it out to be, it's actually closer to the original form of copyright than the monstrosity it has become today.

      But how do you define "profit"?

      The license should define this. If it does not, then it remains undefined until a court has to decide one way or another, at which point, it's likely to be defined as it would commonly be understood by a reasonable person.

      Second, copyright law already gives the author of a work absolute and complete control of how it is used.

      No. It gives the author control over how it is copied. I can buy a copy of your work, and rip it up. You might not like that, but you cannot stop me, because it's my property. You hold the copyright, but I own the property.

      I'll give you an example of how this works.

      Every single instance of the example you give involves copying. That is what gives you the right to control their actions.

      There's really one main thing that I insist on when people want to use any of my copyrighted works for something, though, and that's that you ask me.

      Creative Commons licenses are for people who have already decided that the answer to the question is specific circumstances is "yes", and they don't want to be bothered with lots of requests. If you want to decide on a case-by-case basis, then don't use a Creative Commons license. That's your prerogative.

    • Your last paragraph is exactly the point. It is a way of standardizing a particular set of permissions, for people who don't WANT to be asked each and every time. You want to be asked, good for you (and thank you for Action Item!), and you're right, copyright allows you to be discriminatory. However, you're slightly off a bit when you say that copyright gives you absolute and complete control. It doesn't. Once you've made the choice to publish something, that is to "make public", you have given up a si

    • In practice, the Creative Commons license seems to mainly appeal to people who want to spread their own creative works in some kind of "viral" way. [...] All Creative Commons is, as far as I can see, is a lawyer who was nice enough to draft up some stock boilerplate for you, free of charge. That was nice of him.

      There's one other thing. In most people's minds, the word "copyright" seems to be defined as "you have to pay for it" while stuff you don't need to play for is "public domain". The CC licenses

    • Your statements makean assumption that some of us aren't willing to make: That you (or I) as the author is going to be available to decide in each case.

      I don't want that cost. I'm frequently unavailable, and I would like to make it possible for people to use some of my work then, too. I change e-mail addresses. I want people to be able to use some of my work when they can't get a current e-mail address for me.

      At some point, I will be unavailable permanently. I'd like people to be able to use some of

    • It seems to me that the people who support the idea of the Creative Commons license are the people who believe very strongly in this idea of "the commons."

      Some of them, certainly.

      As far as I can tell, this seems to be an idealistic doctrine which says that the sum total of human creative endeavour is the birthright of every human being...

      I believe you are describing the basis for US copyright law. The "commons" is more usually taken to refer to that set of resources, both material and intellectua

  • Speech is active; (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Geof ( 153857 )

    Two comments jumped out at me in Orlowski's article. The first seems unable to distinguish the exercise of speech from the act of listening:

    One picks up on the Lessig quote, "There's a class of speech that's not possible at all without P2P technologies". Rubbish, says Andy Bright.

    I disagree. With a $20 bill and a trip to Best Buy, or a credit card and a trip to Amazon this class of speech is entirely possible.

    Another article, responding to Orlowski's absurd claim that geeks believe the technology,

  • The new worlds paint brush (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SiliconTrip ( 465961 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @09:45PM (#13432398) Homepage
    I feel from the article that it appears many people do not see the computer as an artistic tool. The same way a painter sees a brush. A writer a manuscript. A musician an instrument.

    They see it more as a TV, a stereo, a delivery system. They see the computer as the end point of creative media, not the beginning. "So DRM must be enforced in the end point."

    But to many of us techno-utopians who have grown up around computers and could see the machine without limitations, DRM presents a threat to our creativity. It limits what we consider a limitless machine.

    Would a painter feel threatened if some colour paints would not work with his/her paint brush?
    Would a musician feel threatened if certain rhythms and melodies could not be played?

    I see my computer not as a burden for working life, but a portfolio and canvas of all my creativity.

    The article seems to think they know 'us techno-utopians' but I feel that I have been misrepresented.

    --
    "self confessed techno-utopian computer artist"

    • Seems to me he was on the money, as the impression I got was that he sees 'techno-utopians' as seeing their computer as artistic tools, but was arguing most people don't.

      I'm not sure I agree, I think most people are getting used to CGI, and know computers can make images an music.

      I think people regard it as an artistic tool when it is used to create new things, but don't regard mixes and mashups as creative. Most people don't see taking part of someones song or picture on a part with particular notes or

  • Good lord. This article and its predecessor are nothing but "these people hold such-and-such-overly-simplified-obviously-stupid opinion. Aren't they stupid simpletons who just want to pirate the golden dripping of Awesome Artists?"

    Whatever. This guy has a stick up his ass. Ignore him. CC is it's own thing for it's own class of people. They should sink or swim on their own without the hindrance of stupid "pundits" like this.

  • Orlowski seems to inhabit a world of his own.

    One of Orlowski's earlier articles claimed that Gary Trudeau was specifically lampooning the Creative Commons in Doonesbury [theregister.co.uk]. I wrote the editors to point out that the comics in question were two years old, and that I found it highly unlikely that Gary Trudeau had even heard about a movement that was at the time only six months old. Unsurprisingly my mail was forwarded on to Orlowski. More surprising was the bizarre response I got from Orlowski.

    In his respo

  • FUDding CC? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by OohAhh ( 745216 )
    Well I agree it does look like that on the face of it. Certainly the arguments resemble the ones used against the GPL. Comoditise the product and it's value is undermined universally. That might have some small validity with software, but not creative or information content, eg. journalism.

    There are great writers, there are even great journalists. Their writing and insights will be sort out because of the quality of the writing or the deeper understanding gained by reading it. Because of this their wor
    • Tell you what? The crappier the author, the more they cry "Copying forbidden! All rights reserved! All characters, ideas, design, everything (c) ME, now and forever!"
      People most likely to release at least some of their works freely are usually quality artists.
  • I think that what he forgets is there are entire economies of creative works that don't depend on collecting the five cents in royalties on every copy. I get a grant from the government to do some research. I get a grant from a school system to design a course. I a contract to create some materials.

    Nobody sees my work until I've been paid for my time. I don't care about collecting royalties because by the time anything makes it out into the world, I've moved on to the next project.

  • God bless Andy Toone! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by An Onerous Coward ( 222037 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @11:44PM (#13432904) Homepage
    Where would we be without this guy to deride Wikipeds and Creative Commons fans as self-important, talentless nobodies who just don't comprehend that the truly talented people will not contribute to their culture unless tricked into it by the siren song of the Almighty Buck?

    Apparently, Toone is one of the handful of people willing to provide Orlowski with deliciously inflammatory quotes at a moment's notice. From this article [theregister.co.uk]:
    "Personally I'm happy to accept their information on Klingons as being authoritative," writes Andy Toone. "However, the people who get overexcited about the social effects of Wiki/ Blogs/ Open Source seem to be far less reliable when it comes to the economics and practicalities of providing time, effort and information to such projects."
    Sure, Wikipedia has been an unmitigated economic disaster, chewing up hundreds of millions in startup capital while providing no benefit to anybody... no, wait. That was pets.com.

    When Toone says, "[geeks think] that the geek experience somehow supplants all previous culture and creative expression," it's clear that he is either making stuff up to get under peoples' skins, or is basing his impressions on the extreme fringe. Either way, he and Orlowski both seem to feel personally threatened by the idea of open culture. My theory is that they've both got too much invested in the idea that "quality is paid for". For Orlowski, the fact that he gets paid to write his drivel is the very thing that raises it above the drivel unpaid masses to the level of "Good Culture". So if a significant number of people prefer the work of "amateurs", then what is it that gives him a right to a paycheck?

    Okay, nothing good comes from armchair psychoanalysis. But if you saw the hatchet job he did on Lessig, well, the bastard deserves far worse.
  • Did Lawrence Lessig personally insult Orlowski? Did the Creative Commons run over Orlowski's dog? Because I can't think of any rational reason for Orlowski's bitterness toward the Creative Commons. I like the Register, I like it's aggressive, cynical point of view. And some people are promising that the Creative Commons is The Ultimate Answer that will Heal the Sick. They deserve some mocking. But to generalize a few overly enthusiatic supportors into a general statement about Creative Commons is stup
  • Orlowski seems to be thinking of the worth of reusing existing works solely from the perspective of music, and he seems to be asserting that it is old news and only computer nerds don't know about it. Frankly, I couldn't care less about "remixed songs", which I agree is not much more than a dated gimmick; I think it is far more important to allow free access to significant literary works. For example, it might be interesting to write a book set in Middle Earth but presenting it from the Orcs' perspective,

  • FTA... (Score:3)

    by Vo0k ( 760020 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2005 @04:54AM (#13433998) Journal
    Better communications have all but removed some hideous inequities. It's no longer the case, for example, that Northern Soul artists were dying in poverty ignorant of the fact that thousands of people were celebrating their music on the other side of the Atlantic at all night parties.

    Well, nowadays orthern Soul artists were dying in poverty absolutely aware of the fact that thousands of people are celebrating their music on the other side of the Atlantic at all night parties. Communication transfers information. Not legal rights associated with it. And money follow the legaleese transfer channels, not data transfer channels.

  • ...he does like complex solutions and is suspicious of simple, elegant solutions. He also likes getting more readers for El Reg. He is a business guy, ultimately, and his biz is bringing eyeballs to El Reg.

    Andrew and I both live in SF. I met him for lunch one day at a pasta restaurant on Kearny between Bush and Pine. We talked about a film I'm producing, the Digital Tipping Point, which is a film about the free open source software's part in the cultural benefits of bringing more minds on line. My
  • And who is paying him? I really like his idea of living in a world where I cannot give people rights to use my work freely. (and optionally stop people selling it for profit).

    CC has some very good well described licenses, that are brilliant, and I hope sxc.hu uses the most open one as its default, and deviantart.com also incorporates it.
  • "Want to use a sample? Go ahead and use it. With a nudge and a wink, you'll probably get away with it. If you reach number one with that sample, expect to hear from the original artist."

    No. Expect to hear from the labels' lawyer. And prepare to pay thrice what you got from that piece, even if that was just one sample in a big original work. If there's a chance for money to be had from someone who did something vaguely like what someone else did, be sure someone will come to claim them. By copyrigt fees, by
  • Copyright is great, I have it you have it, we all have it!

    Hello Copyright, my name is license, in case you haven't noticed we are not the same thing, now fuck off 'bloggers' who get 'jobs' writing 'articles' with names like Dvorak - THINK before you write.

    Once again, for those at the back:

    Copyright != License!

    Write it down.

    (In case that wasn't enough I am implying that Creative commons gives licenses for people to class for their copyrights works. Creative commons has nothing to do with copyright, merely li

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