[IMC-Tech] Plea / proposal

Mon Jan 9 10:55:49 PST 2006

Given that:

- this discussion of legal / copyright stuff is important
- it shows no sign of ending soon
- it is NOT "tech" but more like "legal"
- the traffic is of high volume
- some of those who don't want to read it do want to read real "tech" 
issues and thus do not want to unsubscribe to the "tech" list
- the exsisting global "legal" list is a semi-closed list, and thus the 
wrong place for this traffic

Could I again plead / propose that the folks who wish to continue this 
do so somewhere (anywhere) else, most reasonably I think on a new list 
called imc-license or somthing like that, which i would ask those who 
are "into" this topic to set up

Please!

Please! (if asking twice will help)

Yes, I know, who wants to subscribe to yet another list? Answer: those 
who are interested in reading the traffic on that list (hint)

Thanks for enduring my rant.

Chris wrote:
> Hi
> 
> On Mon 09-Jan-2006 at 03:32:07PM +0000, Chekov Feeney wrote:
> 
>>>Simon Shine <simon at shine.eu.org>
>>> 
>>>
>>>>https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcDkCopyleft
>>
>>On Mon 09-Jan-2006 at 12:16:05AM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
>>
>>
>>>That page seems rather confused. It describes "free
>>>for non-commercial" as 'effectively a "not for profit"
>>>license" which is misleading. Profit doesn't come into
>>>it. It doesn't allow any commerce, trading, selling,
>>>whatever you want to call it. It's effectively a "you
>>>must make a loss" license and I don't understand why
>>>it's worth hurting Indymedia distributors who aren't
>>>rich, just to be a small irritation to commercial
>>>media.
>>
>>From following the CC thread that chris highlighted:
>>
>>Use cases for NonCommercial license clause
>>http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2005-April/002232.html
>>
>>It appears that The NC license has morphed to become
>>effectively a not-for-profit license. At least that
>>appears to be the dominant opinion among CC legal types
>>on that thread. 
> 
> 
> Yeah, I haven't read all the emails from that month but
> there are ones like this from legal people (though with a
> disclaimer at the end):
> 
>   Just to clarify a topic that has been the subject of
>   some discussion on this list over recent days - the
>   intended meaning of non-commercial as drafted in the
>   CC-NC licenses is any use in a for-profit environment.
>   The drafting of the license was intended to avoid any
>   distinctions based on whether money changed hands or a
>   profit was actually made.  The relevant factor to
>   consider is whether the entity making use of the work
>   has profit as its primary motive.
> 
>   http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2005-April/002160.html
> 
> But the problem with this is that non-profit doesn't equal
> non-corporate.
> 
> - The BBC is non-profit but is clearly corporate -- it's a
>   state media corporation...
> 
> - Most / many(?) of the 'broadsheet' (though they seem to
>   have shrunk to tabloids) newswpapers in the UK don't
>   make profits -- they are funded by rich people in order
>   to get their views across, traditionally they have made
>   losses but they are clearly corporate...
> 
> I think there are probably just as many problems with
> NonProfit as there are with NonCommercial...
> 
> 
>>>Please consider adopting licences which give everyone
>>>the freedom to use, copy, distribute and distribute
>>>modified versions.
>>
>>I dunno about that.  From my point of view, the only
>>point of having a copyright notice at all is to stop
>>corporate media plundering material.  
> 
> 
> But a CC NonCommercial wouldn't stop the BBC (for example)
> from plundering would it?
> 
> For me the only point of a copyright notice is to stop
> others incorporating material into things that are not
> Free (free as in freedom not free as in cost).
> 
> For example I'd be happy to see photos I took and posted
> to Indymedia used to illustrate a book, that was sold for
> profit, that I recieved no money for, as long as the book
> was under the same terms as the photos, for example a
> Creative Commons ShareAlike (or better, ie the GPL) since
> this would allow me to reproduce the book and also sell if
> if I desired.
> 
> However I realise that many other Indymedia contributors,
> who perhaps don't see CopyLeft as being something very
> special, could be very angry to see work they posted being
> sold...
> 
> 
>>I reckon that most of our contributors would be more
>>than a little disappointed if their work reappeared in
>>the corporate media and we told them that, by submitting
>>it under whatever default license we have, they had
>>signed away their right to be remunerated for this.
> 
> 
> Yes, but this is the case now I think -- Dada defaults to
> Public Domain for example... and I think that Public
> Domain is far more preferable that CC NonCommercial...
> 
> 
>>I do think that some sort of non-commercial license is
>>the general expectation of contributors. 
> 
> 
> Perhaps... but perhaps this is something that we should
> try to change...?
> 
> 
>>None of the licenses can be perfect by any means since
>>everybody has a slightly different idea of how they
>>would like their material to be used.  So, from our
>>point of view, I think a non-specific non-commercial
>>clause makes the most sense - with the assumption that
>>in any gray areas the person who is using the material
>>should contact the author to seek clarification - it's
>>only good manners after all.
> 
> 
> What do you understand by non-commercial...?
> 
> 
>>As far as I know 'compilation rights' exist as a
>>separate category in UK and Irish law.  If anybody is
>>particularly worried about our right to use submitted
>>material to compose features, they might consider adding
>>a clause that grants indymedia compilation rights over
>>any submitted material.  Personally, I just don't think
>>it's an issue though - I have never heard of a case
>>where anybody has ever expressed a problem with their
>>material being used in our features. 
> 
> 
> I haven't heard of a problem either, but I think that is
> because we all, generally, ignore copyright and see
> anything on a Indymedia site as available for reuse and
> don't ever check or even consider the different terms
> different material might be under...
> 
> Of course this is only the case for the *content* on sites
> -- we *are* very careful to ensure that the software
> running the sites is Free... Which is one of the reasons
> why I started this off-topic thread here...
> 
> 
>>In my opinion it is a basic ethical requirement that, if
>>you are trading in material for money, you should get
>>the agreement of the author of that work - I don't think
>>that this is something that we want author's to sign
>>away as part of the default copyright license. 
> 
> 
> OK, well that would exclude, for example, any Indymedia
> material being used by the NYC Indypendent, since it's
> available by subscription [1] unless the Indypendent has
> the agreement of the author and since many things are
> posted to Indymedia sites with no contact details that
> would mean that they simply couldn't use lots of
> material... This is not a good solution IMHO...
> 
> 
>>All in all I am fairly wary of going down the road of
>>producing detailled choices of copyright licenses.  It
>>would greatly increase the amount of confusion among
>>contributors, it would increase the requirement for
>>legal knowledge within IMC's - which is not something
>>that I think we have in abundance. 
> 
> 
> Yes, I agree...
> 
> Chris
> 
> [1] http://indypendent.typepad.com/
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> 
> 

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