“As a general rule, I don’t believe that it is essential for people to have permission to modify all sorts of articles and books. The issues for writings are not necessarily the same as those for software. For example, I don’t think you or I are obliged to give permission to modify articles like this one, which describe our actions and our views.

But there is a particular reason why the freedom to modify is crucial for documentation for free software. When people exercise their right to modify the software, and add or change its features, if they are conscientious they will change the manual too …”

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.html

As time goes on, I come to favor more BY and far less BY NC ND or
even BY ND.

To paraphrase, I never worry nearly so much about someone profiting from my music as I do about nobody sharing in the experience of hearing it.

Having managed to watch the video (the Cortado player seems particularly buggy on Xubuntu – ironic that I remember it working better on Windows XP), it seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity. It starts out as if the viewer probably doesn’t know how their OS is separate to their hardware (ie their computer “IS” Windows/Microsoft), but then goes on to say “You’ve probably heard of Linus Torvalds” and unbelievably, talks about the kernel! Did they really need to advocate on the GNU/Linux naming issue in an _introductory_ video intended for the general populace! I think the FSF are terrible at picking their battles.

Bunch of hogwash, of course.

It is peculiar to believe that in order to preserve the integrity of an author’s works and honesty in all authors, that copying should be prohibited. That’s back to front. The principle should be that as long as the integrity of authors’ works are preserved and they are honest, authors should be able to freely copy from each other and build upon each other’s works.

Great points.

pfctdayelise,

I doubt lack of an invariant section option in CC licenses led to use of ND in these cases as an ND like statement was used prior to the existence of CC and probably the FDL, AFAIK, and still is used. I’d argue that the practice of prohibiting derivatives is bad however one gets there — CC ND, ad hoc ND, or GFDL w/invariant sections.

You’re correct that acceptable use in practice may not follow the letter of licenses precisely (that also goes for the GFDL and probably many software licenses as well). Work title is probably one of the less problematic cases as the CC licenses say that the title should be used if it is supplied and in many cases it is either very natural to supply and use a title (e.g., a song) or to neither supply nor use a title (e.g., I’d guess a small fraction of photos have a meaningful title).

[In case it isn't clear from the domain name of this blog or its tagline "My opinions only. I do not represent any organization in this publication." ... well, I just wrote the tagline. And IANAL.]

What CC licenses specify and how they are used in practice (and what is seen as acceptable use) is also another matter. While they may have specific instructions re: derivative works, chances are 99% of the time they’re not followed too closely. As Mako pointed out to me at Wikimania, virtually no one even does attribution correctly — because you’re supposed to use the work’s title.

(That was a joke. (Or was it?))

No argument with your first paragraph.

True, public licenses communicate norms and wishes at the same time they are legal tools, and there is some merit to using them as such. But given that they are legal tools, and the more restrictive ones do leave copyright restrictions largely in place, it is dangerous to use them to communicate norms and wishes. Better to use a permissive license and couple that with an extra-legal request to play nice.