tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19798349.post115109561297466880..comments2024-03-22T12:20:48.920+00:00Comments on open...: Uncommon Nonsense on the iCommonsGlyn Moodyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04436885795882611585noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19798349.post-1151745786566192302006-07-01T09:23:00.000+00:002006-07-01T09:23:00.000+00:00You're certainly right that there is a big differe...You're certainly right that there is a big difference between why Stallman is doing what he doing and the Creative Commons' motives, in that the former is concerned with ethical issues, and the latter are pragmatic. In this, CC is closer to open source than free software. But my point is that both, paradoxically, are using copyright not to restrict users' rights, but to increase them. So the ends may be different, but the means are identical.<BR/><BR/>And yes, the national governments may well get twitchy about it: but does that matter? Free software and Creative Commons are about giving to users, not to national governments. In fact, government's role is rather negative here: it creates and assigns the intellectual monopoly we call copyright. So if Creative Commons cuts across that to allow users – the people, shall we say – to receive more than their governments deign to grant them, great. You can hardly call such philanthropic acts American cultural imperialism.<BR/><BR/>Finally, I don't understand how you can say that Creative Commons is not about the commons. The 150 million or so items that are now covered by CC licences create different kinds of commons, it is true, but the majority are things that are made available for anyone to use, subject to varying constraints (just as physical commons like parks or roads are also available subject to constrints). So what is the difference?Glyn Moodyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04436885795882611585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19798349.post-1151667788397092682006-06-30T11:43:00.000+00:002006-06-30T11:43:00.000+00:00To be honest I think you are making a mistake thin...To be honest I think you are making a mistake thinking that free software GPL and Creative Commons are the same. They are not. RMS has always been clear that the moral of free software come first. for him sharing code is a 'human right'. Creative commons has no such core value as Niva Elkin-Koren clearly points out in <A HREF="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=885466" REL="nofollow">this recent article</A>. And RMS leaving Creative Commons was a clear demonstration of the difference between the two.<BR/><BR/>Secondly, I think the article is spot on when trying to present the dangers implicit in unilaterally creating these supra-national copyright regimes (i.e. Creative Commons which *is* a copyright regime). No doubt about it, national governments will get twitchy about it. Of course, this means that CC and others will need to get their education hats on to make sure any paranoia is explained away. But the article is merely highlighting this as a possible future problem. <BR/><BR/>Lastly, creative commons is NOT a common. It is a clever space created through copyright, but it is a very different concept to that of a true common. There is no need to obfuscate that fact, like you try to do in this post. Hats off to creative commons, of course, but lets not be completely sycophantic. <BR/><BR/>MargauxAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com