[Foundation-l] Problems with the new license TOS

Thu Apr 16 19:22:05 UTC 2009

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
>> On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 2:44 AM, Bence Damokos <bdamokos at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>   
>>> Hi all,
>>> Could we please summarize the outcome of the long discussions on this
>>> subject instead of discussing different external search services to the
>>> mailing list?
>>>     
>>
>>
>> What is it specifically that you want to know?  The discussions on this
>> mailing list were largely for the benefit of those involved in the
>> discussion, not for others to get a summary afterward.  Furthermore, they
>> were censored to the point where they weren't able to get to the heart of
>> the matter, which is a fundamental difference on the moral issues
>> surrounding copyright law, attribution, integrity rights, etc.
>>     

I am somewhat curious as to the allegation of censorship on this
list. Do forward old e-mails by you that were blocked, to me personally,
if you retain any.
>> Are you strongly opposed to all types of "intellectual property"?  Vote for
>> the change.
>>     
I don't see how this is warranted. As it stands the TOS proposed
is certainly semantically confusing, but hardly in stark opposition
to intellectual property. In fact Lawrence Lessig is on record as
stating taht CC licenses *depend* on intellectual property rights,
even if their purport is to maximally facilitate unlimited re-use, and
keeping the content in play for re-use.

>> Do you believe that the right to attribution is a fundamental natural right
>> which is held by individuals and cannot be alienated by majority vote?  Vote
>> against the change, or refuse to vote at all.
>>     

Now this is just simply beyond the pale. You know full well that the
license as such is implicitly BY. And there is no TOS under vote that
would clearly deny any such purported natural right. The license
even states that whereas jurisdictions have moral rights legislation,
nothing in the license can be construed as limiting those exceptions
to the remit of the license itself.

Fortunately the license under vote is unsorted. Like I have said
before, I would prefer TOS that would require multiple licensing
under all localized license forms, but as a compromise it is enough
that a specific jurisdiction is not chosen as a privileged one.

Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen