[Foundation-l] promotion of free licenses

[Fred Bauder]

On Nov 21, 2006, at 10:19 AM, David Monniaux wrote:

> We have a problem getting people to accept free licenses. One of the
> issues is that, at least in some countries, conditions stating that  
> the
> authors allows any usage of his image for any duration are ruled  
> illegal
> by courts (should the author complain), as abusive clauses. The  
> idea is
> to protect authors from abuse by greedy publishers. I've even heard  
> some
> lawyer from a photographers' society explaining to me that free  
> licenses
> (including Creative Commons etc.) where thus illegal.
>
> Lately, in a private email, Greg Maxwell made a remark that I had made
> in other circumstances, that is
>
> For example, surely the 'share alike' nature of copyleft contracts
> prevents the contracts from being considered unconscionable. Such
> licenses would be acceptable for our purposes.
>
> Indeed, that's one point that we may argue: with "sharealike"  
> licenses,
> the authors do not cede all rights with no compensation or insurance;
> they rather have strong guarantees that uses of their work will not
> stray from their intent of distribution of free content.
>
> That's one argument one may want to pursue when contacting sources.

It might be helpful if it could be shown that the creator received  
something in return for their "free" license. We could, for example,  
offer to publish their work on a top 20 website, thus assuring wide  
distribution of their work. This actually makes sense as it creates a  
potential market for their other work, should they try to sell it.

Fred