March 18, 2006

Richard Stallman Critiques Creative Commons

Link: LinuxP2P - The GNU/Linux P2P Portal View topic - Richard Stallman on P2P.

RMS: I have already explained the patent problem of MP3 format.

As your question illustrates, people have a tendency to disregard the differences between the various Creative Commons licenses, lumping them together as a single thing. That is as mixed-up as supposing San Francisco and Death Valley have similar weather because they're both in California.

Some Creative Commons licenses are free licenses; most permit at least noncommercial verbatim copying. But some, such as the Sampling Licenses and Developing Countries Licenses, don't even permit that, which makes them unacceptable to use for any kind of work. All these licenses have in common is a label, but people regularly mistake that common label for something substantial.

I no longer endorse Creative Commons. I cannot endorse Creative Commons as a whole, because some of its licenses are unacceptable. It would be self-delusion to try to endorse just some of the Creative Commons licenses, because people lump them together; they will misconstrue any endorsement of some as a blanket endorsement of all. I therefore find myself constrained to reject Creative Commons entirely.

Posted by Anupam Chander on March 18, 2006 at 07:08 AM in Digitization | Permalink