Creative Commons Add-In for Office Released 134
Ctrl+Alt+De1337 writes "Creative Commons has announced the release of an add-in to Microsoft Office that allows the easy addition of a CC license to files created with Word, PowerPoint, or Excel. It was co-developed by Microsoft and Creative Commons and only works in Office XP and Office 2003. It can be downloaded from Microsoft's download center after a validation check, and CNet has a screenshot available of the tool."
it is a crock off shit (Score:1, Insightful)
I can't see how anyone could construe this as an endorsement by Microsoft of unconventional copyright terms.
Can anyone explain how this is NOT a thinly-veiled a ruse to encourage use of Microsoft's proprietary file formats for potentially important, widely distributed documents?
We'll See (Score:1, Insightful)
Why do you need an add-in? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you want a "Creative Commons tool" for Office? Wouldn't it just be easier to add a page after the title page, like the copyright page, but instead explaining the license of the document? Why do you need a program to do it for you?
What would be far more useful would be a way to tag Creative Commons documents in web pages, and then if some search engine (Google? please?) would explicitly label Creative Commons results as such, and encourage people to listen to, view, combine, mash up (shudder), and otherwise use them.
Why should they need to? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why isn't media created free/public domain unless its creator wants it protected?
Re:it is a crock off shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:it is a crock off shit (Score:2, Insightful)
But I agree, the irony of using proprietary formats for such documents, cannot have escaped the Microsoft Humor Department.
What's the point (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Why do you need an add-in? (Score:5, Insightful)
What this looks like is pretty much a wizard that asks you how you would like to allow your work to be used, and then generates the CC license for those conditions. Although a nice add on, it really doesn't look all that complicated. I'm hoping it isn't long until someone makes a good wizard for OpenOffice.org as well.
Re:Why should they need to? (Score:3, Insightful)
After Validation? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why? And what about OpenOffice? (Score:2, Insightful)
Quoting from the M$ download site: It seems to me that that is the biggest load of lies I've ever heard. It's nearly as missleading as the healthy McDonald's trash. "Microsoft enables users around the world to exercise their creative freedom" Creative freedom?, Microsoft? I guess those terms don't really cope. I think that before releasing such a tool they should try applying some creative freedom themselves.
Re:What's the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:it is a crock off shit (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, one point with (some of) the CC licenses is continued editing; although another point is to maintain the distinction against public domain with "full edit/no attribution" rights. That is, a PDF version might not technically hinder you from integrating a CC work into your own document, but if you use MS Office (or even OO.org), a MS Office document might mean an easier way to do it. This means that we can't say that distribution in ONLY a highly presentation-centric format like PDF would be a good thing, despite it being open.
Lots of people use MS Office and won't convert to anything else if this "licensing wizard" download was missing. It might encourage a few to license works in a clear and less restrictive manner. I see nothing wrong in that.
Re:Why should they need to? (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course if he didn't beat you to it.
Re:Why should they need to? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What's the point (Score:4, Insightful)
Please don't use this! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why should they need to? (Score:3, Insightful)
We tried that. Publishing companies (think of RIAA, but without the need for good PR) simply said that the author didn't delcare a copyright, and made millions without giving a dime to said author until they were taken to court.
It's trivial to make something public domain. CC makes it a bit more complicated, but they do have a theoretical way to authenticate what is and is not allowed, which nicely removes the only problem with public domain -- it can be hard to verify.
Re:Why? And what about OpenOffice? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, he's saying M$ because it's appropriate. Helps remind people that M$ is still taxing the world $40,000,000,000+ per year for about a dozen programs mostly written more than a decade a go with the most difficult bit, the device drivers, largely written by third parties.
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