[okfn-discuss] Re: okfn-discuss Digest, Vol 14, Issue 10

Sun Nov 26 04:31:41 UTC 2006

On Nov 25, 2006, at 6:17 AM, Julian Todd wrote:
>
> Guys, in the real world no one gets a penny out of a big publisher  
> unless they are (a) very famous, or (b) already have a base of  
> readers who are guaranteed to buy the work.  The idea that some  
> publisher could poach your work, print it and sell it for loads of  
> money and not pay you a penny is sheer fantasy.  There is no  
> shortage of crap to publish, and they would just find something  
> else which they do have a monopoly over.
>
> In publishing, the printing is not the problem.  What's a problem  
> is creating the demand.  If such a thing did happen -- let's say  
> you wrote Harry Potter and published it under the CC license.  A  
> major publisher, recognizing its quality(?) binds it and prints it  
> and starts to make lots of money without giving you a  
> contribution.  On seeing the sales, a second publisher could  
> approach you with an offer of money, get you to write an extra  
> chapter, and sell it as the /official/ version.  It would capture  
> the market.  They'd also sign you up for all the sequels.  You  
> might even get a better deal on that first book, because the  
> contract would have been signed before the sales figures were  
> known, and when you were in a position of weakness.
>
> What I'm saying is there really is no such thing as a lottery  
> ticket; publishers either keep buying lots of your work, or none of  
> it.  So it is economically rational for people who are not  
> published to put everything out on CC, because they lose nothing in  
> practice, and are increasing the chance of being discovered, which  
> means they can charge for their future work because people know  
> they want to put time into it.

Good points and that's the first time I've heard it expressed so  
cogently.

On Nov 25, 2006, at 2:12 PM, Benj. Mako Hill wrote:

> Thanks for engaging in this discussion here! It's great that you care
> enough and open to other opinions enough to hash this out here. :)
>
No problem!  I'm always open to the free exchange of ideas.
>
> It is traditional for the authors of plays to be paid royalties for
> performances of a copyrighted play. If the play were going to be
> charging admission, this printing would qualify as commercial use
> AFAICT.

Yes... I realized this and was thinking about how to get around that.  
For this reason alone, it's worth either figuring out whether to use  
an Attribution Share-Alike license, a GNU FDL, or seek legal counsel  
to determine a very specific kind of licensing.

>
> Look around for examples of the type of abuse you are worried about in
> the world of CC licensed works and you'll find they are hard to  
> come by.
> Look for it in free software. Now consider the demonstrable negative
> effect of restrictive licensing on the use and dissemination of  
> creative
> goods.

I think this is generalizing the issue too much by labeling  
everything "Creative Goods."  What a demonstrable effect for a  
Shakespeare play is different than a piece of software, etc.
>
> NC protections might prevent a couple real corner cases of bad people
> trying to do bad things. In the vast number of situations when they  
> are
> combined with the mitigating effects of copyleft, their real effect is
> to inconvience good people, and to block legimate use, more often they
> protect against the real bad guys.

I somewhat agree. I already said that the likelihood of selling  
something which is free (and likely thereby, in essence, taking  
advantage of someone who might not be able to pay for it) is VERY  
slim. But I'm not convinced that an NC license is such an  
inconvenience to good people. In fact, in my humble opinion, that's  
such a slim number that it's about the same as the "bad guys."

George Lucas' intellectual property lawyer is a friend of mine. This  
exchange has prompted to have a discussion with him and see his take  
on this whole thing.  To be continued... :)

R

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