[FC-discuss] Enforcing one's entitlements

[Crosbie Fitch]

> From: Steve Foerster
> You had me until this point.  If you don't have an army of lawyers to 
> enforce NC, then you don't have an army of lawyers to enforce any 
> license, and why not release it into the public domain?

CC-SA (like the GPL) isn't really there to be prosecuted by the author.

It's there as a ward against prosecution. It doesn't prevent litigation, but
it does at least say to potential litigants "The more you rely upon
copyright as a basis for your case against anyone who copies derivatives of
my work, the weaker it must become".

The point is, if you're into free culture you have absolutely no need to
prosecute anyone for sharing your work. You don't even need to prosecute
them for not sharing your work, or even for pretending that they can sue
anyone who copies their derivative.

So, CC-SA is not for you to prosecute, it is to defend people who share and
build upon your work - by dissuading litigious sociopaths from prosecuting
them. For example, you publish a song CC-SA, another musician publishes a
derivative via a record label, and then the sociopathic label tries to sue
fans who copy their derivative.

CC-SA makes your work more free by effectively saying "Copyright can no
longer be used to constrain the public's use of this work, or any
derivatives that anyone publishes"

Moreover, it uses the power of copyright to enforce the removal of its
constraint.

This is why simply removing copyright's protection from your work is less
effective if your intention was to utilise a legal mechanism to remove
copyright's constraint. This is because without copyright's protection,
anyone can create a derivative of your work reapply full copyright and
resume all constraints. This can't be done (legitimately) with CC-SA.

The great thing about CC-SA is that it restores your liberty to derivatives
of your work. As Rob Myers astutely reminded us, CC-NC doesn't do this.

There are times however, when you may need to take action against someone
concerning your work, even if you do believe in free culture:

Truth impairment, e.g. they have plagiarised your work - presented it as
their own.
Privacy violation, e.g. they have stolen your work.
Life endangerment, e.g. they are inciting violence against you (qv Salman
Rushdie).

In cases of plagiarism or misattribution, it's usually enough simply to
publicly present your evidence in order to demonstrate your case. This is
because truth of authorship is something that society values as a whole -
not just the author.

Privacy is a mess in terms of legislature. However, it will become ever more
important in the digital age - even if at the same time people are
deliberately exposing more and more of their private affairs. There's a
critical difference between what you publish and having the right to decide
what you publish.

Life, equality, fraternity, etc. The struggle continues.
http://www.amnesty.org/