Creative Commons v3.0 Launched

An anonymous reader writes "Creative Commons announced the release of its licenses on Friday 23 Feb 2007. Changes include "Clarifications Negotiated With Debian and MIT", CC-BY-SA "compatibility structure", endorsement control, etc."

Comments on public domain and noncommercial

[ortholattice]

I am glad to see the have included public domain as a prominent choice. It was there before, but somewhat buried and hard to find - it you used their standard picker, it wouldn't come up at all. I wrote them about this years ago, and (whether in response to my complaint or not) it's good to see they've finally done something about it.

Public domain is a greatly underrated and overlooked choice. It can make life vastly easier for users by not having to worry about tracking credits for every little nitpicking minutiae, but instead depends on commonsense ethics to make acknowledgments where appropriate, without having to worry about violating the fine print of some legal copyright license. For minor stuff where suing would be silly even if someone plagiarized it - from a simple utility icon to this very post you're reading - I think public domain release makes a lot of sense for those willing to do it but who are now simply unaware of the possibility.

On the other hand, they still haven't clarified the fine legal points of exactly what "commercial use" means. As I've posted [slashdot.org] here before, almost anything can be interpreted as "commercial use" if someone is so inclined. IMO almost any use of works under a noncommecial-only license is a risk not worth taking. In addition, they can't be incorporated into GPL software, so for open-source development "noncommercial-only" works are completely worthless.

why should it be GNU compatible?

[yankpop]

So what? If they were completely compatible then I'd wonder what was the point of making up a new license at all. They don't do the same thing. The GPL is intended for use with software, Creative Commons adapts the idea of copyleft to apply to more traditional publishing.

I think the point is that there are different needs for different sorts of publishing. If you are working on code and its documentation, GPL is the way to go. Probably also a good choice for textbooks. More personalized work, like fiction, opinion pieces, even some technical discussions, need to be protected from unacknowledged alteration, so verbatim copying, or enforced modification of credits is entirely appropriate.

The concept of Free Software as embodied by the GPL does not generalize well beyond the confines of software, at least not without the sorts of modifications provided by Creative Commons licenses.

yp.