Dvorak on Creative Commons 522
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."
Creative Commons (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't complicate Copyright law. It makes it simpler and more accessible.
Re:Creative Commons (Score:2)
Re:Creative Commons (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Creative Commons (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is knowing how to word one in a way that says people can use it for non comercial purposes but not comercial purposses so that it will hold up in court.
After all, IANAL!
Re:Creative Commons (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Insightful)
The point was that Creative Commons gives you an easy way to express your wishes as to what rights to grant people. Without it, you have to figure out the legalese to write yourself, and chances are you'll leave a loophole and won't have the time or money to fight someone if they take advantage of it. With Creative Commons, you are sure that your choices are expressed properly, both in legalese and in English. Basically, if you want to selectively share your works, Creative Commons is like those "Living-Will-and-Testament-in-a-box" thingies--it gives you pre-written legalese so you don't have to hire a lawyer.
Re:Creative Commons (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Funny)
I don't see what there is to be appreciative about there.
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Insightful)
While your statement is correct, sadly that sort of phrasing leaves a loophole for trolls like Dvorak to twist your words.
A better way of saying it would be that "Creative Commons helps you", not "allows" - that makes it clear that CC is not doing anything funky, it's just providing a simple and straightforward framework that empowers ordinary people to share their creative works on their own terms.
Re:Creative Commons (Score:3, Informative)
The creative commons effort GIVES you some limited rights where you would have absolutely none otherwise. CreativeCommons isn't about saying "hey don't take my stuff" (if all you want is 'no use' then sure, just put a copyright notice on it). CreativeCommons is a
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Informative)
Some have said above "hire your own lawyer". Only a lawyer will say this. How much am I willing to pay a copyright lawyer to draft me a license for something I want to give away for free? Lessig has done a great, great favor to people who themselves do favors to millions of strangers.
Re:Creative Commons (Score:2)
Stop giving the open source movement undue credit. (Score:5, Insightful)
I certainly hope this is not the start of trying to give the open source movement more credit for work it did not do. Creative Commons licenses are not licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative and for good reason. CC licenses are not to be used for computer software [creativecommons.org]. The Creative Commons organization lists the GNU GPL and GNU LGPL as licenses to consider for software. People on /. routinely cite the GPL as an "open source" license despite that:
"open source" is just a description. (Score:5, Informative)
Saying open source is not the same as saying OSI, so you and RMS can both quit getting your panties in a bunch over nothing and trying to redefine the english language to suit your agendas.
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Creative Commons (Score:5, Insightful)
The HTML source is a lot more interesting, as it is there, easy to read, and viewable if you look for it. I would point out that the copyright notice on a book is just inside the front cover, and not slathered over every page, so it is quite legitimate in my opinion, as it's where it can reasonably be expected to be. Much like a book, people aren't going to see the © without knowing where to look or doing a very thorough search.
The law is intended to be used and interpreted by reasonably people. Unfortunately, reasonable is subjective, so theres going to be disagreement. But if you respect the author, the work, and the spirit and intent of the law, I think the "trouble" of contacting someone should at least be attempted. You are using a work that is copyrighted in total in the case of the image. In classic copyright law, you need written permission to do that. So fine, don't use the CC, and see how it's so much easier to follow classic copyright law. Then you might agree that Dvorak is being a bit narrow-minded on this. Or at least, he's not acting like a reasonable and respecting individual. Not that he usually does in the articles, but that's his style in his writing.
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Informative)
To summarize, you have to name the author and title (if any), and if applicable, the URI and the license. If it's a derivative work, reference what it's a derivative of. Attribution should be with any other credits, and should be as prominant. The attribution should also be represented in a manner appropriate to the medium. In other words, the HTML source would not be a reasonable place to stick the attribution for an image. It would, however, probably be appropriate for some CC javascript code.
The legalease for Attribution-No Commercial-Share Alike can be found at here [creativecommons.org], with the attribution clause being 4.d. I would assume that the other Attribution licenses would be similar. I am not, of course, a lawyer.
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Informative)
With Creative Commons, a content creator can specify clearly that they wish their work to be shared collaboratively, which is the real point of "non-commercial". It's not about peace love and sprouts, it's about getting information quickly into the hands of peers. This intermediate status is an emergent necessity, previously unknown to law.
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly its not for him. He's looking at it completely backwards, and obviously doesn't understand. Maybe someone can explain it to him.
Re:Creative Commons (Score:4, Informative)
Come on, this is John Dvorak that you are talking about, from everything I have EVER read by him, I would have to say he is the second-most incompetant technical columnist that has ever graced this world.
That's just it... (Score:3, Insightful)
He _does_ understand. He's just trolling for ad hits.
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Informative)
But I'll counter his argument with one example where CC worked beautifully:
I asked Leo Brodie author of Thinking Forth to allow republication of his book under a Creative Commons license. We discussed different options... he chose a "non-commercial" clause, but allowed derivative works and share-alike.
So what we have is a LaTeX repub and PDF downloadable from SourceForge by anyone. And he is selling hardcopies of the book through a print-on-demand publisher.
A project is in the works to update all the classic Forth examples to modern Forth usage. Also a translation to Spanish of the LaTeX repub is underway.
How could Dvorak be so obtuse? Of course Brodie could negotiate a separate license with each person who wanted to make some use of Thinking Forth, or just sell copies. But without granting additional rights, he wouldn't have gotten the free labor and TF would have stayed out of print and an orphaned works for 70 PLUS YEARS.
The Creative Commons licenses are just a legal tool, that's all. It's like going to the bookstore and buying a bunch of standard contracts. It reduces the time, if any, you have to spend with a real lawyer in order to grant rights to use your work beyond what copyright allows, safely, to a wide audience without negotating with each user individually, one-on-one.
Simple, understandable. Dvorak, you're just a troll.
-- John.
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's not a simplified DIY copyright kit. Creative Commons is about simplified licensing of copyrighted works. One of the hardest things about getting permission to use someone else's copyrighted work (and Dvorak's arguments about fair use should be read in light of Ivan Hoffman's fair use article [ivanhoffman.com] and the realization that "fair use" varies greatly from legal jurisdiction to legal jurisdiction) is actually tracking down the owner of the approriate rights in order to ask them for permission.
Don't believe me? Check out the copyright clearance section of Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org]. Who has control over which rights is not always clear, nor is it clear how to contact them. A Creative Commons or similar license removes the need (under appropriate conditions) for explicitly obtaining permission from the rights holder.
Now, it's true that the early CC site wasn't very clear as to the purpose and use of the CC licenses. But not anymore.
EricAnother random blog to look at [makeeasymo...google.com]
Re:Creative Commons (Score:4, Funny)
1998 Folks, the Mac platform is through - totally.
1990 I think Windows 3.0 will get a lot of attention; people will check it out, and before long they'll all drift back to... DOS.
1986 UNIX is dead, but no one bothered to claim the body.
1984 The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a mouse. There is no evidence that people want to use these things.
- John Dvorak
Re:Creative Commons (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
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 U
Re:Creative Commons (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not CC, that's just regular copyright. It's pretty hard to simplify copyright--everything you create is copyrighted!
Did you miss the part where he said "but still let other people use my work in limited ways"? That's something you have to
Re:Creative Commons (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks to CC I can do that without having to hire a lawyer (who may not have focused hard enough on copyright law in the first place).
Don't want to turn this into a flame, but I've scanned through the threads in this article and I can't figure out why it is that so many lawyer types can't grok the idea of individuals wanting to GIVE UP some rights. They all assume CC must be meant to enhance copyright protection, and they see no point, since the protection is already there. It's really telling, isn't it?
Re:Creative Commons (Score:3, Informative)
The CC is a selection of licenses you can apply to work for which you hold the copyright. Without copyright there would be nothing to license. Literally, CC licenses tell you what rights you have to copy the work. CC has everything to do with copyright.
Nothing to see here, move along. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nothing to see here, move along. (Score:3, Interesting)
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:Nothing to see here, move along. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nothing to see here, move along. (Score:3, Funny)
Why mess with success?
Re:Nothing to see here, move along. (Score:4, Insightful)
Too true, Dvorak is little more than a professional troll. Sadly, it's easier to get attention by writing something intentionally controversial than practically any other method, witness Marliyn Manson and Eminem.
Re:Nothing to see here, move along. (Score:2)
Dvorak: -10 Troll (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dvorak: -10 Troll (Score:2, Funny)
I second the motion, all those in favor?
But seriously, let's reword the article a little bit:
'one of the dumbest men 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.' Our arguments are that Dvorak unnecessarily complicates keyboarding, and that his name sounds dumb."
Much better in my opinion.
Re:Dvorak: -10 Troll (Score:4, Funny)
One Dvorak alleviates the wrists. The other aggravates the brain.
Re:Dvorak: -10 Troll (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Dvorak: -10 Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
He is not really a troll. He just publishes flamebait. It is not like anything he publishes is offensive in itself. It is just lacking in insight and is intended to create controversy. As such, it really is not that different from a lot of the posts here on /.
Some uses for novelists, some criticisms (Score:5, Insightful)
One additional thing. The humbug would claim that in many instances Creative Commons does nothing that isn't already done by existing copyright, except be trendy. Well, don't overlook trendy, I say. Many younger people on the internet these days have a clue what Creative Commons means, and know little to nothing about copyright. They may respect something labelled Creative Commons, and that's worth something. Also, it's nice to see that certain material is expected to be taken, and the author's permission is explicit and clear. It's possible to end up in court with legitimate fair use when the author and the user disagree about what that means.
And finally, even Dvorak is clueless when it comes to copyright. He says you have to add "Copyright 2005" to something to copyright it. You don't. It's automatically covered (you can still do the paperwork and register it, but in principle you don't). So here's a guy writing an article related to copyright who doesn't know the law, criticizing Creative Commons under the assumption everyone already knows the copyright laws.
Re:Some uses for novelists, some criticisms (Score:3, Funny)
I don't see any "Copyright 2005" in his article, so I guess that means I won't get in trouble for posting the article text about five minutes ago.
Re:Some uses for novelists, some criticisms (Score:4, Informative)
No one can distribute my book under "fair use" copyright law, because it wouldn't be, and certainly commercial distribution is right out.
Just because you're book's still in print doesn't mean that there is no fair use of your book. In fact, the fair use doctrine is what allows people co minimally infringe on your copyright, while the work is still relevant. I can quote parts of your book, even if it is still in print, especially if the parts are relatively short, and I am doing it for teaching, critical or satire purposes.
But you are only partly correct when you state that no one can distribute your book under fair use. If you sell your book to me, and I in turn sell it to a recycled book store, that's legal (First sale doctrine and all, you already got your bucks). The recycled bookstore can resell it, and at a profit also. Can I publish and sell your entire book myself? No. You need to be paid.
And creative commons doesn't change anything about copyright. It's a license, just like the GPL. you still own the copyright to your work, there are just conditions on people using it.
I will agree with your statement about attaching the Copyright notice. I think Dvorak probably heard something about taht in the 1970's. One way to get around copyright for certain works published before 1976 (IIRC) is to find a version published pre'76 without the copyright symbol. Doing so meant it was dedicated to the public. THe Berne convention forced the U.S. to move away from the annoying formalities.
But I agree with you that Dvorka has his head up his arse, He's a frequent understudy in the Billy Goats Gruff.
Re:Some uses for novelists, some criticisms (Score:3, Insightful)
But no one can publish it without your ok, which I hope involves some filthy lucre.
I don't mean to take you to task for any imprecision in what you said, I was just making trying to make a point regarding the first sale doctrine. And I wanted to point out that distribution is different from publishing. Publishing involves copying or printing the book, which
Re:Some uses for novelists, some criticisms (Score:4, Informative)
The book is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs [creativecommons.org] License.
Without the licence I couldn't give my friends copies of the book. With this licence I can, as long as I don't get paid for it, don't change it, and attribute the author.
Re:Some uses for novelists, some criticisms (Score:5, Informative)
What Dvorak misses, and I think what you're also confused by, is that CC does nothing to complicate copyright law. In fact, what CC does is ease the restrictions on copyright.
Under normal copyright law, for someone to take a piece of your work and do something with it, even if it's post it in their blog, is an infringement of copyright. If I were to quote your text on Slashdot here and put it somewhere else, say, in an email to a friend, that's copyright infringement.
Now, most people don't care about it. They don't want their work limited, and they don't want their audience afraid of using their work. However, they also don't want to say "Feel free to copy my stuff!" because what if someone compiles stuff they wrote or created into a book and published it for money? How do they make a distinction that they are waiving copyright for people who just want to copy it and disperse the information for free, vs. those who want to turn a buck?
That's one of the biggest reasons for the CC license. Technically, it expands fair use. It says "Yes, I still have copyright on my work. However, these are the things you can do with it that you wouldn't be able to under an 'All Rights Reserved' copyright statement."
CC is powerful because it informs the audience what they can do with the works they're looking at. In some cases it's text. In others it's pictures, or schematics, recipes, music, whatever. With a music comparison, regular copyright would restrict people from putting it on a P2P network, correct? Under CC, the original author explicitly can state that it's OK to put it on a P2P network, or make copies for friends, or broadcast the work. But that it's not OK to press CDs and sell them to people, or put them on a compilation and sell that, or include it with a radio show that is pay-only.
Looking at that, it's obvious how it does the OPPOSITE of adding complexity to copyright law -- it loosens the copyright of the author in a specific and easy-to-understand way. It points out the copyright of the original author, yet explains what the audience is free to do without repercussions. In this day and age of RIAA lawsuits and C&D letters, I find it exceedingly important to have easy-to-understand-and-use licenses like Creative Commons.
Re:Some uses for novelists, some criticisms (Score:3, Interesting)
I want people to read the book, like the book, tell
Creative Commons... not too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Creative Commons... not too bad (Score:3, Informative)
* it raises awareness of your rights as an author
* it helps you to understand that copyright is no one system but a tool which you as the author can use, it also allows you to dedicate it to the public domain etc.
A copyright system as opposed to a droit d'auteur system puts focus on the person who uses the work in order to make money out of it.
A CC license is like a human rights declaration or the US constitution with its "pursuit of happiness". You
Re:Creative Commons... not too bad (Score:3, Informative)
Who is "you" in that sentence? "A content producer", yes, that is true. The reason you choose to use a CC license, is precisely because you want to give up rights to the consumers so they can use your works in specific ways with explicit permission. They don't have to ask you personally, they have a very good idea of exactly what is allowed because of the CC license without having to contact you. A lot of the goal of the
Call me crazy... (Score:2)
</sarcasm>
Get over yourself, John. (Score:5, Funny)
The Collected Works of John C. Dvorak (Score:3, Funny)
Just imagine how many of us nerds will buy a copy just to burn it? And if it's printed on quality paper, it might even be the perfect quality to wipe your ass with!
And now for something completely different: Why is the underline tag not allowed?
Re:Get over yourself, John. (Score:3, Informative)
--SP
Re:Get over yourself, John. (Score:3, Informative)
This clause primarily affects the music industry. The artists get their music "back" from the labels after 35 years. As a side note, remember the story a while back about the Congressional secretary slipping in a provision defining music as being works-for-hire? He claimed that it was simply an editorial change that clarified existing practice when in fact it drastically altered the way things curren
I made Front Page (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I made Front Page (Score:5, Funny)
1) Mention Google....is it rumored that Google may buy a company that searches pictures of toenails online? Front page baby.
2) Link to any article proposing a bug or flaw with anything Microsoft. Some 15 year old writes a blog saying he thinks the next version of Windows has "a bajillion security holes"? That's not only front page material, you're maybe even looking at duped front page material
3) Paul Graham wrote an article about his flower garden, and how he's a "hacker" for using fertilizer? You know that baby is front page material.
I'm sure i'm missing some others here....
Re:I made Front Page (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, yes.
4) Change your name to Roland Piquepaille.
CC is an important part of the IP revolution (Score:3, Interesting)
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.?
Dvorak... (Score:2)
glass houses (Score:2)
So does Dvorak
http://slashdvorak.org/ (Score:5, Insightful)
Much, much more! (Score:5, Funny)
He also has the same last name of that guy that made that keyboard layout!
Really now.. (Score:4, Informative)
What gets me is the response... (Score:3, Insightful)
Creative Commons is neither a replacement for nor a substitute of Copyright Law. Creative Commons, like the GPL, is a license that works separately from Copyright. For instance, Microsoft owns the Copyright to the Windows Operating Shi^H^
Awareness (Score:3, Insightful)
Hadn't the selection of a license been included in these webapps (flickr, some bloggin software, etc) I really doubt the users would think about these matters, less pick a license for their content.
It has made it simpler for the publisher and the "consumer".
Quite different from what Dvorak says:
"Creative Commons actually seems to be a dangerous system with almost zero benefits to the public, copyright holders..."
Dvorak is definetly trolling there.
Automatic reaction to John Dvorak articles (Score:2)
Don't Go to His Site!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Creative Commons Humbug
07.18.05
Dvorak
Total posts: 36
By John C. Dvorak
Will someone explain to me the benefits of a trendy system developed by Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford? Dubbed Creative Commons, this system is some sort of secondary copyright license that, as far as I can tell, does absolutely nothing but threaten the already tenuous "fair use" provisos of existing copyright law. This is 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.
If you are unfamiliar with this thing, be sure to go to the Web site and see if you can figure it out. Creative Commons actually seems to be a dangerous system with almost zero benefits to the public, copyright holders, or those of us who would like a return to a shorter-length copyright law.
I have sent notes to this operation and never received a reply, in case you're wondering. Meanwhile, according to its Web site, the Creative Commons organization has money from the Hewlett Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. For what?
I have begged critics of the system, such as The Register's Andrew Orlowski, to explain to me how Creative Commons works or what it's supposed to do that current copyright law doesn't do. He says, "It does nothing." Okay, then why are bloggers and do-gooders and various supporters making a point of tagging their material as being covered by Creative Commons? Is it just because it's cool and trendy--a code for being hip amongst a certain elite? There is no other answer.
There are several things that bother me about this initiative. First, Creative Commons is similar to a license. You sign up with the group and post a message saying that your material is protected or covered by Creative Commons. This means that others have certain rights to reuse the material under a variety of provisos, mostly as long as the reuse is not for commercial purposes. Why not commercial purposes? What difference does it make, if everyone is free and easy about this? In other words, a noncommercial site could distribute a million copies of something and that's okay, but a small commercial site cannot deliver two copies if it's for commercial purposes. What is this telling me?
This is nonsense. Before Creative Commons I could always ask to reuse or mirror something. And that has not changed. And I could always use excerpts for commercial or noncommercial purposes. It's called fair use. I can still do that, but Creative Commons seems to hint that with its license means that I cannot. At least not if I'm a commercial site and the noncommercial proviso is in effect. This is a bogus suggestion, because Creative Commons does not supersede the copyright laws. In fact, the suggestion is dangerous, because if someone were sued by the Creative Commons folks over normal fair use and Creative Commons won the suit, then we'd all pay the price, as fair use would be eroded further.
There's another thing that bugs me about Creative Commons. When you see its licenses the wording will say something like "Creative Commons License: Public domain." This means that the item is not covered by copyright but is in the public domain. So what's Creative Commons got to do with it? Public domain is public domain. It's not something granted by Creative Commons. Yet you see this over and over as if it were!
A good example is found on this page of the Prelinger Archives--a site that has a slew of old training films and miscellaneous campy productions. An information box at the start of a film review includes the notation: "Creative Commons license: Public Domain." Either this is incredibly pretentious or people do not know what public domain means. If I write something on my blog, for example, and decide not to cover it with th
Re:Don't Go to His Site!!! (Score:3, Funny)
In other news... (Score:2)
At least he's being honest (Score:5, Informative)
Re:At least he's being honest (Score:3, Informative)
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?
Please stop posting this shit (Score:5, Insightful)
If we ignore him, he will go away. As it is, every time he posts one of these articles his employer gets a nice big boost to their advertising revenue.
Re:Please stop posting this shit (Score:3, Insightful)
No he won't. Even if everyone who hates him stop linking to him (which won't happen), many others (like magazines) will still pick up on it.
Consider this: The guy writes something that's completely wrong. (Done with the jokes yet? Good. Let's keep moving.) If Slashdot links to it, there will be thousands of people who other people trust to know this stuff that have had time to go through his argument or disinformation and be able to counter it. Would you rather have peop
Dvorak can't comprehend being less restrictive (Score:4, Informative)
Certainly the principles of fair use allow you to use excerpts from people's work for media purposes, but it doesn't allow you to recombine pieces into clips, it doesn't allow you to use it as background music for an informational broadcast, it doesn't allow people to re-mix your work in with others to create something new. Creative Commons DOES allow these things.
It also has a very effective proviso that allows you to specify that others can't use your work to make money off of it through this license. If they want that, they have to make special arrangements with you. This fits many people's philosophies much better than current copyright laws do. "Give my stuff as much airplay as you like, but if you earn money off of it, I want my cut".
Journalism at its finest. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice to know he seeks independent, unbiased views. Next up, Dvorak interviews Steve Ballmer on the benefits of Linux...
Tiny good point among the chaff (Score:4, Insightful)
Other than that point, though, the article is worthless. The same principle that always must be pointed out with the GPL applies to CC as well: by default, copyright gives you *no* rights to copy except fair use, so any of these licenses can only *add* rights. In the case of the GPL, they add "you can copy this freely as long as you publish the source to any changes you redistribute", etc. The CC licenses work exactly the same way, with a different set of rights given.
Re:Tiny good point among the chaff (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Tiny good point among the chaff (Score:3, Informative)
It's already in there: http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/fullrig h ts [creativecommons.org]. So he's wrong about that, too.
I think it's fair to say that he's just a moron who doesn't take the time to perform even
fair use FUD (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet every single CC license clearly states "Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above."
Lessig wrote a very interesting book [free-culture.cc] on the subject. An articulate response to that would be great, but Dvorak is just spreading clueless FUD.
He's a dork. (Score:4, Funny)
Dvorak is a tool (Score:3)
Once again, Dvorak doesn't get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
to quote from his "column" (used in a very loose sense of the word):
There are several things that bother me about this initiative. First, Creative Commons is similar to a license. You sign up with the group and post a message saying that your material is protected or covered by Creative Commons. This means that others have certain rights to reuse the material under a variety of provisos, mostly as long as the reuse is not for commercial purposes. Why not commercial purposes? What difference does it make, if everyone is free and easy about this? In other words, a noncommercial site could distribute a million copies of something and that's okay, but a small commercial site cannot deliver two copies if it's for commercial purposes. What is this telling me?
What it's telling you, John, is that you're a dumbfuck who hasn't figured out that the CC license is a MODULAR license.
The basic CC license is, essentially, "public domain" -- there are no restrictions on your reproduction of the material. CC then offers legally defined exceptions. With all of the CC terms in place, you have essentially the full standard U.S. copyright restrictions.
What CC does is it gives you a legally well-formed copyright system that lets you protect your work, yet lets it be redistributed somewhat more freely than typical material, but not-quite public domain free.
it just so happens that one of those optional restrictions is "no commercial distribution". I'd like to point out that this does not in any way trump "fair use", something that Dvorak would know if he had the IQ of a pet rock.
as to why I use CC: I want to allow my works (should I actually get around to putting some content on my website... any day now, folks... ;) to be distributed, and I want to encourage their distribution -- however, I want them to be protected. Namely, I want credit for what I do, and I want more people to release their work freely. So I have a "By, Share Alike [creativecommons.org]" License -- Commercial derivations are perfectly ok.
Can we please not have any more Dvorak on /.? He's just so mind-bogglingly stupid, he makes me feel physically ill. Seriously.
Hey, John - i got two words for you (Score:3, Insightful)
gsf.org/copyright
the worst part of this is...i fscking clicked on his link...
crap, frazzel
shit.
aw hell, i guess the damage is done, i might as well read what he has to say.
I use CC for songwriting all the time! (Score:3, Interesting)
This Dvark is an ass.. Power to the commons!
missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole reason CC exists is because people are getting sued left and right for using someone else's work. He says "Creative Commons tries to insert itself as another layer into a system that already protects content developers like me to an extreme.", but CC is set up the other way. If you write something and want to make sure people understand that they can copy/redistribute/etc *without* worrying about getting sued, then they use CC. If you want to be a dick and restrict the crap you create then you can stick with traditional copyrights.
CC is *not* a way to retain *more* rights, it's a way to clearly share your work with others.
Summed Up (Score:5, Informative)
Next!
Emperor's new clothes fairy tale (Score:3, Funny)
Please ban Dvorak (Score:5, Insightful)
NOTHING by Dvorak has any place in a
Nope, he doesn't get it... (Score:4, Informative)
The emphasis was mine. Now, check this out from the Creative Commons web site:
Ahem. First: IT IS A LICENSE. Just like the GPL, the MPL, the BSD license and ten thousand others. It.Is.A.License. Which means that I can release my work, explicitly tell people what they can do with it, and under what terms. The CC guys are releasing pre-written licenses that cover common situations, which is a Good Thing(tm) because every dweeb who writes some crappy web novel isn't forced to write his own license, and because it promotes explicit licensing of individual's work before it becomes an issue- like when some other dweeb steals it and puts their name on it.
There, see Dvorak? That wasn't so hard. It has a purpose. To promote explicit licensing (a prophylactic, to be sure) and to promote sane licensing so content can be re-used.
What does Dvorak want? (Score:3, Insightful)
But then I realized, at some point you need to sit back and remember that people have different motives for doing things. For example, when Dvorak writes a column, his goal is to generate ad revenue for his employer. Factual accuracy and an even-handed approach to the issues don't do much for that goal.
Consent and Fair Use (Score:4, Informative)
You can still quote Creative Commons licensed writings all you want. The license doesn't affect fair use at all. The only time you need to worry about getting a license to copy a work is when it exceeds fair use.
If you're going to denounce somethign with such vitriol, you should probably at least understand it first.
It's hard to respect any columnists anymore... (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to be very naïve about this. I used to believe that columnists, through their transparant attempts for readership, tried to be fair and honest about what they did. Then I heard an interview with a pretty prominent columnist at an even more prominent newspaper say that she routinely wrote things SHE disagreed with because the point of writing a column is to get people talking.
So, they can and will say anything to get readers. Many of you may think this is a "duh" moment, but it was amazing for me. Dvorak could write an article about how "some people" think that, for instance, Linus is evil and should be dead. (Hey, it's plausible. I'm sure in the entire world there are two people that don't like Linus enough and wish he were dead.) That'll generate a lot of controversy and get more readers. But is it right?! Where's the line?
More and more often, it seems like there isn't any line.
It's clear to me now. Columnists are professional trolls.
(Heh. I guess this means that all those folks that get modded down will wind up working in "journalism" some day. Quite possible. Imagine! A G.N.A.A. feature. Some trolls can dream.)
Re:Agreed (Score:5, Funny)
No no, the keyboard: try to read the article, and it quickly becomes obvious it was written by someone normally writing on a qwerty keyboard, with a dvorak keyboard, while looking away at the cute secretary down the hall...
Re:Agreed (Score:3, Funny)
This is the idiot Dvorak.
Re:A+ for Dvorak. F for Slashdot. (Score:3, Insightful)
What a sparkling endorsement of the law -- "Our law is so ridden with bullshit, even intelligent people can't comprehend it!" What's your point again?
Re:So wait, what's the difference.... (Score:3, Informative)