Creative Commons License Flaws Claimed 233
bloosqr writes "Dan Heller, in a series of three articles, claims to have found a number of problems with the Creative Commons license, particularly within the realm of photography. In the first article he states there is a problem with people relicensing copyrighted work under the CC license and having subsequent users of that copyrighted work sued by the original owner. In the second article he fleshes out these ideas and states that there is an increased risk of being sued if you use a CC license. Finally, in the third article, he states that people can 'game the CC license' for profit, by suing people who use your CC'd work which you have subsequently revoked from the CC license. This series of blogs has generated a fair amount of discussion on several photography forums, and I would like for the Slashdot community to clarify matters."
How often does that happen? (Score:5, Insightful)
First, how often does that really happen?
Second, why is this a problem with CC? It would be a problem with anyone placing a copyrighted work under any license, or even claiming copyright on a work copyrighted by someone else. It's more a problem with copyright and the legal system.
--Rob
ummmm (Score:5, Insightful)
I LOL'd.
Re:Relicensing is the issue (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the gist of the article is thus:
Owner A has photo
B releases A under CC to X,Y,Z
A sues X,Y,Z, but really B is to blame.
The game is that, I could take one of my friend's photos, and put it up on the likes of Wikipedia. Then, my friend turns around and sues Wikipedia for infringement. In other words, the claim is that the license somehow makes it possible to "game the system", but, as you already pointed out, I don't see how that isn't possible with any license.
It Only Has To Happen Once To Be Scary (Score:1, Insightful)
Why should I worry about Dan Heller's opinions? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I Must Be Confused ... No Backsies! (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, if someone releases work under CC for which they do not own the copyright, and you use that work, you are liable. But so is the person who illegally redistributed it under CC. This would be true with any other license; it is never legal for someone to arbitrarily re-release someone else's copyrighted work at all, under any license, CC or otherwise.
Using CC content increases your chance of being sued, yes, but not because the license was CC, but rather because someone else generated that content. Whenever you use any content that someone else generated, under any license, you increase your chance of being sued. This is because the laws governing the issue, and the means of use available, are complicated, not because the CC is fundamentally flawed.
On the issue of revocation; you CAN NOT revoke the CC license on a work after you have released it under that license. You can re-release that same work under a different license (provided you own the copyright on it, of course), but the copies you had previously released under CC remain under CC. So the point is moot.
Copyright law is a mess, and it is only getting messier. That about sums it up, I think.
intellectual property my ass! (Score:4, Insightful)
And that applies to anything that can be put in digital form: text, software, images, sound, video, and photography.
If you don't want your precious piece of information to be used by others, then just don't put it available to the public. Period.
The very term "intellectual property" doesn't make sense.
WANLBWPLOTV (Score:5, Insightful)
??!!!??!!
Do you actually think that the /. community contains anything but dangerous and specious interpretations of legal matters?
What next?
You're going to write to a Garden community to ask for medical advice?
Re:No Termination (Score:3, Insightful)
The other problem is the issue of model release, and I agree that a lot of people who CC license their work don't know about that.
not exclusive to CC (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I Must Be Confused ... No Backsies! (Score:5, Insightful)
On a more serious note.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, and people in hell want iced water.
Seriously? This is not the place to look for anything substantial. Most Slashdotters are not lawyers (myself included). Few know the actual law and even less are able to separate the standing law from their Utopian ideals. Slashdot makes Wikipedia look like an absolute braintrust in comparison.
And that's not to say that people shouldn't express themselves. Not at all. What it is to say is that if you're looking for the solid leggings of today's law this simply isn't the right place to look. Tons of posters have all kinds of good ideas and good intentions but that's not going to get you anywhere if you find yourself standing in front of a judge. There is a lot of talk on Slashdot about change in the laws involving IP but so far I haven't seen anything aside from talk. From time to time I like to call one of the more vocal anti-IP talkers out and tell them why don't they openly break the law and let me know how their reasoning works out in court. I have yet to find anyone who takes up this challenge. Regardless of where we stand on IP law, we all know the basic truth behind it and all the intellectual masturbation that goes on around here doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the face of the reality of the situation.
And to be very honest, most of the ideals that people spread around involving the lessening or even revoking of IP laws simply can't stand up in our society. We have far too much riding on this structure and drastic changes to that structure are going to cause wide spread hardship. I don't think that today's society is built out of the kind of people who are willing to bear hardship for any real length of time to right the wrongs of yesteryear.
It's going to be both a sad and comic day if most of the changes that people suggest and support around here ever come into being. If we want serious change that isn't going to leave itself open to short term corruption we're all going to have to take a loss. Most people here don't care about loss until it's their loss that we're talking about. The revolution will not be on Slashdot.
Re:The catch with CC (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I Must Be Confused ... No Backsies! (Score:3, Insightful)
How is that not a risk with non-CC licensed photos? I mean, that seems to be a general risk. Period.
At best, CC images, should be available in packages with copies of the model releases included. This is how the major stockphotog sites handle it. You must upload an image including the releases.
But even then, you've got the switcheroo problem I've just outlined.
The 'old switcheroo' problem is trivial to work around. Users need to simply protect their investment by documenting how and where they got the photo, preferably with screenshots, showing the photo and its CC license. They should do this with *all* photos they buy or otherwise acquire.
If anything, CC photo distributors should simply make the process more 'transaction like' so that images downloaded, while still 'free', are bundled in packages with model release forms, with confirmation emails indicating that the image had been downloaded from the-site, on such and such a date, under such and such a license.
I.e. its not a flaw of the license, its a flaw of the distribution system.
If 'bigstockphoto' let you buy download credits, and then when you clicked on a link and downloaded an image they simply removed a credit, we'd have the same problem. No evidence that you purchased and licensed a particular photo... at best evidence you paid for a photo. But no, they send you confirmation emails identifying the file, with custom download links etc etc. So if you get sued later on, provided you kept everything you can document that you obtained the file from them, legally.
And even then you should do more diligence; what if bigstockphoto.com goes under and vanishes from the internet. Suddenly users everywhere get sued... all they have is some confirmation emails that say they bought "image0005234.jpg". But possibly no copy of the license, and no proof that image005234.jpg is the image they are being sued over...
Re:WANLBWPLOTV (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WANLBWPLOTV (Score:3, Insightful)
First rule of civil suit, who has the most money and the best lawyers wins. Once you have put something on creative commons you can't take it back, you have initiated what is in effect an open contract and would have to get every one on the planet to agree with the alteration of contract, however that certainly doesn't stop you from getting some greedy ass hat lawyer to take the case and bleed you dry trying to win it, or as is often the case scare off the defendant who doesn't want to pay for their own lawyer.
So will greedy cheats try it on? Release stuff on creative commons, let people use it, take it back and deny everything, and then try to gouge them for money, of course, it's the modern corporate way, pretty much copying standard patent tactics and putting them into the copyright field.
The only way to simplify things is to force people to register content for copyright approval and then it can checked for originality and proof of ownership can be provided, and so all content that is not vetted and registered is then public domain is creative commons work.