The advertisement of the Creative Archive has raised a bit of a stink amongst certain circles. There are some neutral reports, like this one in Wired, or the one in The Guardian. The CC-UK list has given the licence a lukewarm reception, with downright negative vibes coming from the Friends of the Creative Archive list. Others have concerns that the licence is not compatible with Creative Commons (one may want to ask “so what?”). Others have concerns about the No-Endorsement clause.
I am slightly concerned about the snipes from the Creative Commons orthodoxy about a new licence model. Why should the BBC follow the CC model if it doesn’t fit? To me it is much better to have loads of content released under an open licence, whatever that licence may be. I do not believe that all free and open source software should use the GPL, or the BSD licence; one of the great things about open source is that you can choose your licence. I am afraid that the open access and creative movement may be moving towards the monopoly of Creative Commons and the use (and abuse) of McLicences. Compatibility is nice, but complaining about breaking with CC orthodox belief is just silly.
4 Comments
Lilian · April 19, 2005 at 6:02 am
Have you heard that the Berkeley lot are apparently building a "generate your own open source license" application?
Andres Guadamuz · April 19, 2005 at 7:38 am
NICE! Do you have a link?
David Jennings · April 22, 2005 at 4:58 pm
A couple of answers to your 'so what' question are given in this message from the Friends of the Creative Domain list. I don't think people are complaining about CC 'orthododoxy' for its own sake (certainly I wasn't in the post that you link to) — but if everyone produces a different licence, that will create confusion and end up limiting the scope for re-use of material. That in turn defeats one of the aims that CC was established to achieve, which is an issue worth highlighting.
Andres Guadamuz · April 23, 2005 at 5:05 am
David,Thanks for the comment. This is one of those subjects that I find difficult, mostly because I haven't really made up my mind. I strongly believe in Creative Commons, but I also believe in customisation, because it is not possible that one licence (and even different variations of that licence) fits all the situations. I do understand the need to have one movement that is easy to understand with the public, but I think that this applies mostly to the public. Large organisations hasve more nuanced needs than your average creative individual.