a question of copyright

[BeccaPrice]

Does anyone have any feelings about standard copyright statements v. creative commons statements?

[jgoguen]

I think it depends on what you're trying to achieve. My personal stance is to go as free (as in liberties, or libre) as possible unless you have a reason or personal preference not to. For myself, for software that means the MIT license unless something mandates a more restrictive license. I haven't published text, but I think I would publish CC-BY-NC-SA and entertain other CC variations or other licenses depending on what I was hoping to achieve.

Just because you publish something under a CC license, doesn't mean you can't grant someone else a different license. For example, you could publish a book electronically under CC-BY-NC-SA and then grant written permission for a publisher to do what is necessary to publish, distribute, market, and sell the paper book.

[Harper Kingsley]

I'd keep your copyright on standard lockdown for a book. "Rights Reserved" deal.

I'm a fan of transformative works, but there's no way I would put out a blanket statement about what I'd let people do with my work. It's more like a case-by-case permission for co-authors and remixers. Otherwise there's a big concern of some hate group or someone you're not fond of using your work in a way you really don't like.

Seriously, there's porn of everything, and unless it's really despicable or the author's yelling they've got my stamp of approval on it, I can turn a cheek and not go find it. But if someone's taking my writing and using it for something completely awful, I want to be able to just go to them and say "This ain't happening" without some fight about what I've permitted before.

From what I understand, a traditional copyright statement just says you hold all the rights. You're not stopped from letting people make non-profit transformative works from your stuff. But you can go up to someone that's abusing your material and tell them to knock it off.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

Does anyone have any feelings about standard copyright statements v. creative commons statements?

It's entirely up to the author, and the choice should reflect what they want to allow people to do with their work without extra authorisation.

If the author wants anyone wanting to do something with their work to get explicit permission, then the standard Alls Rights Reserved is appropriate.

For anything else, one of the many CC licences might be more appropriate.

Or perhaps even an unlicense.

[teh603]

I personally use CC licensing (usually no derivative works, with commercial use allowed given proper attribution) for works that I don't feel I'm likely to make any money on. The idea is that they're being done in the name of advertising.

The one I stick with is No Derivative Works. The general idea is that if someone wants to repost the story, they have to repost the complete thing.

[James_Wilde]

I'm another user of CC, with the additions BY NC ND, which, if I remember correctly, means that I require citation of the source (BY), no commercial use (NC) and no derivative works (ND).