Inchoate Relicensing
So David's relicensing his blog content - good for him. One thing struck me:
doesn’t allow any derivative works (I don’t really see the relevance of it in this context, but I’m happy to be persuaded).
In the context of Australian law, with our whole not having fair use like the US, what implications does this have for quoting from your blog? What if I quote the whole entry and comment on each paragraph? What if I have ads on my blog - does that make it commercial? How is the average Joe supposed to work out all this?
July 3rd, 2005 at 6:33 pm
/What if I quote the whole entry and comment on each paragraph?/
If you do that, and you are commenting on each paragraph, I reckon you’d be ok, because that would be fair dealing for the purposes of criticism or review (see section 41 of the Copyright Act. According to The Panel case, the issue here is whether you are really ‘passing judgment’ on the post - which in my experience, most people do when they decide to comment on a blogpost like that. So I reckon that would be fair.
Importantly, the Creative Commons Licenses are deliberately written not to interfere with fair dealing rights. So the license doesn’t affect the fact that the Copyright Act lets you do that kind of copying, AJ. (not like some EULAs, which are designed to override fair dealing/fair use type rights).
/How is the average Joe supposed to work out all this/
Ah, now that’s the real question. That’s the problem with the whole license/Creative Commons idea. Even if you try to make it really, really simple - it’s still just confusing in the end. We would be better off getting the Copyright Act right (and making it more generous) than relying on the whole contract thing - which is such a very American solution to a problem!
July 3rd, 2005 at 7:50 pm
Thanks Kim, that helps a lot.