[Foundation-l] Proposal: Commons Force

[Sage Ross]

On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Geoffrey Plourde<geo.plrd at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The Commons Force proposal represents a clear and present danger, both for whoever hosts it and participates in it. It is not for a third party to intervene in a contract between two people and only two people.

This kind of attitude seems to me to be a byproduct of the fact that,
despite being intended to help fix the flaws in the copyright system,
Creative Commons and other free licenses are "hacks" that are built on
top of copyright.  The construction of CC licenses as contracts
between copyright owner and user is part of the hack, but not
necessarily ideal for promoting a robust creative commons (in the
lower case, general sense).

If a copyleft license is being violated, that is potentially of
concern beyond the two legal parties, since properly using the license
would mean that derivative works are also part of the commons and
available for others to use and adapt.  And more broadly, a society
that values the commons and with effective norms for following CC
licenses properly is better for everyone who contributes to and
partakes in the commons.  Widespread awareness of the costs and
benefits of joining the commons versus cutting oneself off from it is
a prerequisite for copyleft to work properly (i.e., to incentivize
further contributions to the commons).

Some recent related reading I found interesting:
http://www.copycense.com/2009/08/is_creative_commons_good_for_copyright.html

-Sage