[okfn-discuss] video metadata and open license stance

[Benj. Mako Hill]

<quote who="Rufus Pollock" date="Wed, Oct 18, 2006 at 12:58:11PM +0100">
> In this case I think we should separate:
> 
> a) having a license field
> b) having a license field which defaults to something other than full 
> 'all rights reserved' copyright

The only people who can give away authors' exclusive rights are the
authors' themselves. Designing software so that it defaults to giving
away people's exclusive rights risks being selectively non-binding at
best and actionable at worst. My sense is that software designers
can't safely default to anything other than the status quo.

> I support (a) since I think that licensing is a very important issue
> and one which is often insufficiently considered.

Absolutely. Everyone who wants to be able to disclaim certain rights
through licensing should be able to easily do this and to communicate
it to others. Any methods by which we can educate larger groups of
people on the importance of doing so should be taken up. I'm just not
convinced that *mandatory* license fields won't just be clicked
through and the effect of this will not help and might even hurt.

> >If the default ends up explicitly forbidding things that were
> >otherwise left unsaid, some might argue that you could even be
> >worse off.
> 
> That's an interesting point however I'm not so sure that this is
> really the case. Let us say the license field defaults to full
> copyright. Why is this any different from where nothing was said and
> you get full copyright by implicit default.

The argument would be that it is impossible tell the difference
between the people who have explicitly licensed their works
restrictively because they don't want others to use it and those who
have simply not made a choice at all. In the most generous
interpretation, that's not substantially different (or better) than
the status quo.

In a situation where a work has an *optional* field and "all rights
reserved" was one option, I would be more likely to follow up and ask
for permission to reuse something that was unlicensed than something
was that was explicitly licensed restrictively.

We agree that your (b) (restrictive licensing by default) is the most
sane way forward, it seems that optional licensing metadata with no
default actually gives us more information than mandatory license
metadata -- unless we can ensure that all decisions in the mandatory
situation are informed ones. And I just don't believe that's possible.

> Of course it is true that the more people who **do not** use full 
> copyright -- for example by using a CC or free software license -- the 
> more the use of full copyright is interpreted as consciously chosen and 
> therefore socially as well as legally binding.

That's only partially because of the existence of alternatives. It's
also because CC and FS communities end up engaging in a copyright
education campaign at least as ambitious and effective as anything the
copyright industry has embarked on. There are strategic reasons for
this of course and I don't disagree with the strategy. But I do think
it leads to some backwards and counterproductive effects (e.g.,
arguments for stronger copyleft through stronger copyright in, say,
public performance of software).

Regards,
Mako

-- 
Benjamin Mako Hill
mako at atdot.cc
http://mako.cc/

Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so
far as society is free to use the results. --RMS
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