Greetings Open Colleagues:
As many of you know, Creative Commons (CC) is in the process
of creating a new version of its licenses - version 4.0. We have published a
first draft as a starting point (available at http://wiki.creativecommons.org/4.0_Drafts),
and we are in the process of getting feedback to create and publish a second
draft in June / July. The full versioning process will probably take until the
end of 2012. For more information about the 4.0 schedule, as well as extensive
information about the various issues being addressed and debated, please visit
our 4.0 wiki (http://wiki.creativecommons.org/4.0).
If you have not already, please also join the license discuss email list where
many of the issues are being debated (http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses).
We are hoping to receive as much input as possible from the
OER community, and while
you are all are most welcome to
participate in any part of the 4.0 discussion, CC would like your feedback on
the following questions about attribution in CC
licenses.
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In draft 1
of v.4, we tried to simplify the attribution and marking requirements by
putting them all into one section of the license in list form. This is designed
to make it easier for licensees to understand and comply with their
obligations.
Specifically, when sharing the work,
licensees must provide the following information when it is supplied by
licensor:
- Name of the author
- Name of parties designed by licensor
for attribution
- Title of the work
- Copyright notice
- URI associated with the work
- URI associated with the CC license
- Notices, disclaimers, warranties
referring to the CC license
(1) Is there any other
information we should require licensees to provide when fulfilling the
attribution and marking requirements under CC licenses? Alternatively, is there
anything in this list that is unnecessary for licensees to provide even when it
is supplied by the licensor? Our goal is to make the requirements extensive
enough to satisfy licensors’ desire to be attributed and recognized for their
work without making the obligations impractical.
(2) All of these requirements may be
fulfilled in any reasonable manner based on the medium the licensee is using to
share the licensed work. This flexibility is intended to help ease compliance
with the license conditions. Does the current language grant licensees too much
flexibility? Not enough? Is there anything else we should change to make it
easier on licensees that are remixing content from multiple sources – the
so-called “attribution stacking” problem?
(3) If the URI associated with the
work refers to a resource that specifies the name of the author (or attribution
parties, if applicable) and title of the work, licensees may include only the
URI rather than specifying that information separately. This is another attempt
to make compliance with the license conditions easier and more flexible without
compromising the needs and expectations of licensors. Is this shortcut
appropriate and/or helpful? If the URI points to a resource that includes the
other required information (e.g., the copyright notice), would it be preferable
to allow the URI shortcut to satisfy those other requirements as well?
(4) Some licensors have more
detailed expectations for attribution of their work. Should we make allowances
for licensors who want to include specific attribution requirements (e.g., a
particular attribution statement), or would this unnecessarily complicate
license compliance? Note that any particular requirements would need to be
subject to the reasonableness standard to be consistent with the explicit terms
of the license.
(5) Another possibility is to change
the language to a more general requirement to acknowledge the author and cite
the original work. We could then include the current list of attribution and
marking requirements as an example of best practices rather than as a specific
legal requirement. This would potentially give licensees more freedom to adapt
attribution to their particular circumstances, while maintaining the spirit and
purpose of the requirements. Is this a proposal we should pursue? Why or why
not?
We sincerely appreciate your feedback!
Cable
