Dvorak on Creative Commons

pHatidic writes "In a recent article, John Dvorak trashes creative commons as being, 'one of the dumbest initiatives ever put forth by the tech community. I mean seriously dumb. Eye-rolling dumb on the same scale as believing the Emperor is wearing fabulous new clothes.' His main arguments are that CC unnecessarily complicates copyright law, and that the name sounds dumb."

CC is an important part of the IP revolution

[intheory]

Other than the blog software than allows so many to take part in the wonderful world of information sharing, Creative Commons is one of the most important developments to really help people create, share, and improve without the expense or fear of complicated and cash-mongering copyright lawyers and the like. Dvorak probably just Doesn't Get It, as usual, and as others have said, is simply trolling for attention.

What happened to the days when journalists knew a little about what they were writing about? Did they end the day bloggers started mopping the floor with has-beens at the NYTimes et. al.?

Re:Nothing to see here, move along.

[BlogPope]

he's just stiring the pot folks, gotta print something to save his job...

Sometimes I think he writes using the "Million Monkeys" theory, about 1 in 10 of his articles is really useful, the other 9 are usually horrible misrepresentations of reality with dubious aims.

Any idea if Dvorak is ghost eritten these days by 10 different writers?

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does slashdot get a flat fee for each dvorak article they flog on here or is it % based or hit based or what?

He's actually one of the better writers on tech issues on the web. I know the slashbot crowd hates him because he doesn't worship steve jobs, or open source unconditionally but get over it. An article can still be insightful and spark good conversation without having the same viewpoint as your own.

It's a good question

[91degrees]

But asked in a stupid way.

And as far as I can see, the point is purely political. Creative Commons is just a brand. It's indicating that people subscribe to a belief.

The belief is that while copyright has its uses, in many cases sharing copyrighted material is a good thing, and creators of original content encourage this. It already has reached the public perception in a small way.

The public and the politicians need to be made aware of this. They need to realise how many creators of original content there are who enjoy some form of protection but don't want excessive powers like the DMCA and eternal copyright extensions.

At least that's how I see it. If you see it differently, please share.

I use CC for songwriting all the time!

[tetrahedrassface]

As a fairly lazy but extremely serious songwriter, I use creative commons quite a lot. I have not released a cd, but unlike some folks covered here, I do release my studio stuff up on the net. With creative Commons i am assured that it won't be altered, or sold commercially, or profited from. The songs can be performed by someone if they wish, but even those performances cannot be shipped and sold for profit. I like CC because it lets me set something free, but on my terms, in a way that won't affect the ability of me to maybe one day get a check for one of works..

This Dvark is an ass.. Power to the commons!

Re:Creative Commons

[RealityMogul]

Ok, so lets say you take a photograph. You decide to put it online and you want to use the Attribution license from Creative Commons, like many people do on Flickr. According to that license, people have to give you credit for your picture.

Now, lets say that I find your pic and I plan on using it on my website. Lets also say that you're like everybody else on Flickr and don't specify "HOW" credit is to be given to you. Can I just assume that a 1pt font is ok? How about a comment in the HTML source. I don't know what I can do with it without having to go through the trouble of contacting you. So how has that simplified anything?

Re:Some uses for novelists, some criticisms

[mbrother]

Creative Commons is a way that lets me explicitly give permission to people to download my book in its entirety and outline what they can do with the book above and beyond copyright law. It's a license, clearly stated. Fair use doesn't legally allow you to take my novel and make a copy for someone else, even if I think that might be a good idea. Creative Commons does, while also explictly saying you're not legally allowed to charge money for doing so.

I want people to read the book, like the book, tell their friends about the book -- and I'm letting a lot of people do that for free online -- so that I can sell some extra paper copies and copies of future books, I hope. Existing copyright doesn't let this happen, and I certainly don't want to just have it in the public domain.

Re:Creative Commons

[DigitumDei]

Exactly. Although I guess it complicates things for Dvorak, I mean, he'd have to actually read it.

He doesn't seem to have a clue. For examnple, from the article:
"as far as I can tell, does absolutely nothing but threaten the already tenuous "fair use" provisos of existing copyright law."
and
" It's called fair use. I can still do that, but Creative Commons seems to hint that with its license means that I cannot."

from the creative commons licence:
"2. Fair Use Rights. Nothing in this license is intended to reduce, limit, or restrict any rights arising from fair use, first sale or other limitations on the exclusive rights of the copyright owner under copyright law or other applicable laws."

Damn Dvorak, click the CC icon, it takes you to the human readable summary, click the legal code link and read. Its not hard. Really.

Re:Creative Commons

[Stephan Schulz]

You don't have to put a fancy label on it for it to be copyrighted; common law provides the protection.

Common Law as the common source of British and US law does no such thing. It has no concept of copyright at all. In early times, copyrights were established for each work individually by Royal decree.

Current copyright law, with automatic copyright even without a copyright notice, is a recent concept, and due to the Berne Convention [wikipedia.org], originated in 1886, last revised in 1971, but becoming law in the US only in 1989. That is one reason why e.g. AT&T and SCO are in trouble with UNIX copyrights - AT&T may have published UNIX without copyright messages before 1989.

Re:At least he's being honest

[binford2k]

Hey, I took your advice (and stole your content, don't tell!)

-------------start----------------------

From: "John C. Dvorak"
To: "Ben Ford"
Date: 19 Jul 2005, 04:18:34 PM
Subject: Re:

no

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Ford"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 3:43 PM

> Mr. Dvorak,
>
> I just read your article, "Creative Commons Humbug", and would like to
> reprint it on my blog as a tutorial on how to wax indignant about a
subject
> without performing even the most basic research about it beforehand.
>
> May I?
>

Re:Creative Commons

[geoffspear]

"You may use this for non-commercial purposes". Then, if anyone does, don't sue them. Are you fearing that someone else will try to sue someone for using your works?

Dvorak Doesn't Get It

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1995, a computer game called Quake was released by id Software. It was open enough to permit large numbers of teenagers and teenagers-at-heart to produce add-ons to share among themselves. The intended purpose among many of those producing material was to share it with like-minded fans of the game - at no cost to the recipients.

The reward in doing so was to have one's self and one's work become known and appreciated by the game's community. This reward was not entirely without specific economic value, as some authors became employed (and their lives significantly changed) by game companies on the basis of their work.

One of the banes of the community were the "net scrapers", the unscrupulous pests who, in willful violation of copyright law, would download hundreds of author's add-ons, remove their copyright notices, cut a CD, and sell it as a commercial product.

I was annoyed by the blatant disregard for the little-guy copyright owners by various companies and put up a web site that exposed some of the worst of the violators with a combination of publication of exchanges about their activities and caustic commentary. As an archive documenting the willful violation of copyright by some large publishing houses, it got some attention and I believe helped to convince some of them to start contacting authors and asking permission to use their material.

In 1997, I got fed up with being ripped off, and with $10,000 in hand to spend on lawyers, approached a Seattle law firm that specialized in intellectual property with a pile of evidence against one particular violator. They had never seen anything like it and didn't know how to proceed. It seemed like something meriting class action status to them, but although they could see hard dollars being exchanged, they couldn't see hard dollars lost. The entire point of copyright law - keeping legal control of the right to copy in the hands of the owners - seemed irrelevant. Frustration was the outcome.

I believe it is this frusteration among individual copyright owners that has contributed to the formation of things such as Creative Commons. I don't know whether the Creative Commons license strengthens someone's position legally if they wish to distribute material solely for noncommercial use or not, but I can certainly understand the desire by some people to do so.

Dvorak doesn't see this, perhaps because he's never tried to distribute something for noncommercial purposes only to have it blatently stolen - repeatedly.

Re:Creative Commons

[RubberDogBone]

Don't forget the time he said Gateway's retail computer stores were the best idea ever and would revolutionize retailing and sell a PC to the entire world+dog. There'd be a store on every corner!

Yeah. Right.

Dvorak says a lot of stuff. He's kind of a living opinion blog. Most of what he says is interesting to hear, about half of it is right. Not a lot different than other news people but most of them aren't so blatantly off the wall. They just manage to hide it better.