Barning Creative Commons

John C. Dvorak is one of the most interesting, informative and entertaining journalists in the history of the computer business. He is also something of a troll. Most often his targets are objects of cultish adoration: mice and GUIs in the 80s, Macs of all vintages, and — most recently — Creative Commons. In Creative Commons Humbug, John begins,

Will someone explain to me the benefits of a trendy system developed by Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford? Dubbed Creative Commons, this system is some sort of secondary copyright license that, as far as I can tell, does absolutely nothing but threaten the already tenuous "fair use" provisos of existing copyright law. This is one of the dumbest initiatives ever put forth by the tech community. I mean seriously dumb. Eye-rolling dumb on the same scale as believing the Emperor is wearing fabulous new clothes.

If you are unfamiliar with this thing, be sure to go to the Web site and see if you can figure it out. Creative Commons actually seems to be a dangerous system with almost zero benefits to the public, copyright holders, or those of us who would like a return to a shorter-length copyright law.

I have sent notes to this operation and never received a reply, in case you're wondering. Meanwhile, according to its Web site, the Creative Commons organization has money from the Hewlett Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. For what?

Needless to say, John got some answers. Especially in Slashdot. Normally I find Slashdot a better source of news than commentary, even though the latter outposts the former by ratios upwards of 500-to-1. But this time, the commentary is quite good, and serves as useful exegesis on Creative Commons licensing, its intentions, and its practical uses. Though disagreements follow, the first response sets the tone:

I've always thought of Creative Commons was a simplified DIY copyright kit. When I create a work (i.e. write in my blog) it automatically is covered by full copyright law. I can't think of a simpler way to make sure I retain the controls I want but still let other people use my work in limited ways without the need to hire a lawyer.

It doesn't complicate Copyright law. It makes it simpler and more accessible.

Chiho says,

Some have said above "hire your own lawyer". Only a lawyer will say this. How much am I willing to pay a copyright lawyer to draft me a license for something I want to give away for free? Lessig has done a great, great favor to people who themselves do favors to millions of strangers.

BiggyP adds,

Creative commons allows you to stipulate how you wish your licensed works to be used, if you want to let people know that they're allowed to use all your stuff for non-commercial purposes, for free, you can do that quickly and easily by attaching a CC license. The automatic protection under copyright law doesn't give you any such benefit.

Haeleth corrects and enlarges,

While your statement is correct, sadly that sort of phrasing leaves a loophole for trolls like Dvorak to twist your words.

A better way of saying it would be that "Creative Commons helps you", not "allows" - that makes it clear that CC is not doing anything funky, it's just providing a simple and straightforward framework that empowers ordinary people to share their creative works on their own terms.

jhoger gives a concrete example of CC at work:

Well I won't give Dvorak a page hit; I don't think he's really a drooling idiot, so it must be a troll.

But I'll counter his argument with one example where CC worked beautifully:

I asked Leo Brodie author of Thinking Forth to allow republication of his book under a Creative Commons license. We discussed different options... he chose a "non-commercial" clause, but allowed derivative works and share-alike.

So what we have is a LaTeX repub and PDF downloadable from SourceForge by anyone. And he is selling hardcopies of the book through a print-on-demand publisher.

A project is in the works to update all the classic Forth examples to modern Forth usage. Also a translation to Spanish of the LaTeX repub is underway.

How could Dvorak be so obtuse? Of course Brodie could negotiate a separate license with each person who wanted to make some use of Thinking Forth, or just sell copies. But without granting additional rights, he wouldn't have gotten the free labor and TF would have stayed out of print and an orphaned works for 70 PLUS YEARS.

The Creative Commons licenses are just a legal tool, that's all. It's like going to the bookstore and buying a bunch of standard contracts. It reduces the time, if any, you have to spend with a real lawyer in order to grant rights to use your work beyond what copyright allows, safely, to a wide audience without negotating with each user individually, one-on-one.

The whole polylogue is very DIY in itself. Read it and watch the barn of common understanding, being built out.