[Wikimedia-l] Study: Nobody cares about your copyright

[Samuel Klein]

I like the cc-licenses list thread you linked, Mike; thank you.  I
take it that thread didn't continue past December?

I agree generally with the points Greg London was making there:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2011-December/006472.html

For me the central value in choosing a sane default may is unifying
the message about what term is sensible. We need to focus on a single
benchmark - without cutting off personal options for customization -
to avoid shed-painting.

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 3:59 PM, Mike Linksvayer <ml at gondwanaland.com> wrote:
> Samuel Klein wrote:
>> We should figure out a reasonable term for the sort of rights that are
>> currently covered by 'copyright' and embed that term into all free
>> culture licenses.  That includes all CC and FOSS licenses: all should
>> explicitly term out before the ultralong default term.
>
> Maybe. I don't think the need is pressing, understanding that (a) and
> (b) can be considered separately and terming out complicates (b). Some
> more on this at
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2011-December/006454.html

It sure seems pressing to me; we have a thriving free culture movement
at the moment, recent (c) extensions are still in memory and so
evidently ridiculous to the current generation, and we're not all
distracted by trivia like world wars or plagues or armageddon.  Why
wait?

Terming out should not complicate the opt-in commons.
* Set a standard that all recommended licenses become PD in at most N years.
* Define the PD-date of a derivative as the latest of its component sources.

>> I don't think the right term here is "0 years".  Perhaps "7 + 7".
>
> This would be a huge improvement of course, but see below...
<
> given 14 years or any other shortening is totally infeasible
> in the near term, I'd prefer a bit more visionary advocacy
> that resets the debate, again putting artistic production
> at a far lower priority than freedom etc.

I also agree with Todd Allen that 5+5 or 3+3 might make sense too.
But we should pick a maximum in framing a campaign.

I disagree with your premise about above - we can do more than
'advocate': we can change ourselves.  CC is one of the most powerful
forces for copyright-license change on the planet, particularly among
the Internet residents who dominate production of creative works
today.  Wikimedia's license choice is copied by many others in the SA
commons.

I am talking about CC making sane the terms of the licenses it
promotes most heavily around the world.  And Wikimedia using those
sanitized licenses for its projects.  That is what we can do *right
now* to fix the unreasonable terms of the licenses we all use - and
encourage others to use - every day.

If we agree that N = 70+L is not sane, and some N <= 14 is a sane
maximum, we can spend more time discussing how to make it happen.

Todd: I like many of your points; though I think the early success
will be in changing the norms of the opt-in commons, and of
sanity-friendly publishers, not changing national copyright laws.

Sam.