[Commons-l] CC by 3.0 not allowed on Commons?

[Joichi Ito]

So here's the explanation from Chatharina Maracke, the head of CCi.

> Generally speaking, moral rights have to be addressed in the  
> unported license to assure that this license would be enforceable  
> by law in every jurisdiction, whether moral rights are exist or  
> not. The criticism, that the wording of the moral rights section in  
> the unported license could be read as if the licensee has the  
> obligation "....to not distort, mutilate, modify or take any other  
> derogatory action in relation to the work which would be  
> prejudicial to the original authors honor or reputation" in every  
> jurisdiction, even if moral rights are do not exist, is not legally  
> correct.
>
> The important phrase "except otherwise permitted by applicable law"  
> refers to every jurisdiction, whether moral rights exist or not.  
> This means, that in a jurisdiction, where moral rights do exist,  
> this whole sentence is dispensable, because the applicable law does  
> not permit anything else, meaning we have to respect moral rights  
> (and in particular the moral right of integrity), meaning the  
> licensee is not allowed to "distort, mutilate, modify or take any  
> other derogatory action in relation to the work which would be  
> prejudicial to the original authors honor or reputation" - whether  
> we like it or not.
>
> In a jurisdiction, where moral rights do not exist, the first part  
> of the sentence "or as otherwise permitted by applicable law"  
> explicitly makes an exception to the rest of the sentence "....to  
> not distort, mutilate, modify or take any other derogatory action  
> in relation to the work which would be prejudicial to the original  
> authors honor or reputation". This exception ensures that in a  
> jurisdiction, where moral rights do not exist, the latter part of  
> the sentence will not be applicable: "except otherwise permitted by  
> applicable law" means "except the respective copyright legislation  
> permits every adaptation of the work", which is (only) the case, if  
> moral rights are do not exist and not included in the respective  
> law. The only problem here is the understanding of the wording "as  
> otherwise permitted by applicable law". The right "to distort,  
> mutilate, modify or take any other derogatory action in relation to  
> the work which would be prejudicial to the original authors honor  
> or reputation" will not be explicitly allowed by applicable  
> copyright law, but you need to know, that it is not prohibited, if  
> moral rights are do not exist.
>
> However, I also see the point, that besides being legally correct,  
> CC licenses should be easily to understand. If people don't use CC  
> licenses, because they don't understand them, we would have failed,  
> even if the licenses are "accurate" in view of the law. We need to  
> find the balance between legally well drafted licenses and a simple  
> language. I agree, that the wording of the moral rights section in  
> the "unported" license could probably have been drafted in a  
> simpler way and less confusing so that everyone understands and it  
> does not have to be discussed and explained in lots of E- mails.

As she says in the last paragraph, if we are not able to be  
understood in the end, we have failed. We'll try to make each of the  
national licenses more clear. We'll also try to make the relevant  
wording in the unported license easier to understand when we version  
up. I just don't think we could fit a version up in the current  
schedule while we're trying to get the local version 3's out of the  
door right now.

On Jul 15, 2007, at 4:01 JST, David Gerard wrote:

> But if this is not in fact the case I'm sure Joichi will eventually
> come back to this thread and clarify how the licenses don't mean what
> they appear to mean.

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