The Creative Commons License As "A Revocable Covenant Not To Sue"
By Alex Wild
This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
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The Scrivener's Error picks up my post on Creative Commons misuse and describes the problem in code:
Alex Wild doesn't quite go far enough in criticizing the (mis)use of the Creative Commons license. The real problem is that it is not a license, and is therefore misnamed; it is, instead, a revocable covenant not to sue:If you limit your use of {this CCL work} to {insert particular subspecies}
then the current holder of the rights to {this CCL work} promises not to enforce his/her/its exclusive rights to {insert particular subspecies}
else the current holder of the rights to {this CCL work} makes no promises whatsoever and you are subject to his/her/its whims under the full range of copyright, trademark, and other relevant law
end;
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