| From: |
| Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org> |
| To: |
| lwn@lwn.net |
| Subject: |
| creative commons |
| Date: |
| Mon, 30 Dec 2002 16:43:23 -0700 |
There is a serious problem with these new licenses: they are
contracts, or an agreement between two parties.
The typical 2-4 line BSD or MIT "licenses" that we are familiar with
are not contracts. These headers simply "give up" rights gauranteed
by the government under copyright law. As such, they do not need to
be contracts -- an agreement between two parties -- because the
government has established the exact rules under which copyright works
BY DEFAULT. (I don't need a contract with people that guarantees that
they will not kill me; the government has laws for that. In less
extreme cases the same applies to other laws too: the government
establishes laws and policies for ONE-WAY responsiblity. If a cement
truck runs into my house, there is a ONE-WAY responsibility
established by law).
Since the licenses I talk about just "give up" rights, there is no
need to have a two-way agreement. Regular copyright protections for
the publisher remain in effect, except for those explicitly waived.
A waiver is not a contract. A BSD or MIT copyright "rights waiver
attachment" is not a contract.
Anyways, I believe that heading towards contract law for these extra
things is a very serious mistake. The assumption here by the lawyers
who are drafting these, I suspect, is that they believe copyright law
will eventually fail us. (Or maybe they want it to?)
But is it really right that one hand our community is trying to get
copyright law to be reinforced as it is designed and was intended to
work -- and not weakened -- while the other hand there is an approach
which is heading towards give-money-to-lawyers contract law?
Oh wait! Perhaps in fact that is not what is going on. Perhaps these
creative commons people are just lawyers trying to capitalize in the
future on weak understanding by the public of how strong copyright law
is, and instead, are trying to guide a gullible community into the
financial quagmire of contract law.
Naw, that couldn't be...
Comments (5 posted)
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