[Foundation-l] Some thoughts on CC 3.0

[Jimmy Wales]

First, I think there has been some misreading of the license terms.   
Please trust me that CC does not support "moral rights," and that  
these are
complex matters.

The clause in question merely says that the license does not seek to  
invalidate or interfere with moral rights.  The primary reason for  
that, as
I understand it, is that there is some concern that a license which  
attempts to do the impossible may thereby be ruled completely  
invalid.  Most older
versions of CC licenses simply ignored moral rights in a way which  
might appear to be attempting to waive them.  One exception was the  
Canadian
localization, which attempted to waive them (perhaps successfully,  
under Canadian law).

As a practical matter, the different ways to waive moral rights are  
complicated and inconsistent across jurisdictions.  Additionally, in  
jurisdictions where
moral rights are strong (important), attempts to weaken them are  
politically dangerous.

So the best approach seemed to be to keep CC licensing out of the  
moral rights business altogether.  These are copyright licenses.   
They explicitly do
not (and cannot, in many important jurisdictions) touch on moral  
rights issues.

In fact, nothing has changed between previous versions of CC licenses  
and this one, in terms of the actual effect of the licenses.  Before,  
the licenses said
nothing at all about moral rights.  Now, the licenses simply  
explicitly acknowledge that they say nothing at all about moral rights.

I see no reason to get excited.

--Jimbo