Wendy Seltzer wrote:
> The concern about limiting implied licenses is important...
> If the rfc encourages people to add licenses, it opens up
> the possibility that their explicit terms will contradict
> and override what has previously been implied.
This is precisely why I have normally argued against adding rights
and licenses mechanism to Atom and other formats. Unfortunately, it is has
been a losing battle (Atom has <rights/>) so, I'm now trying the tack of
attempting to get explanatory text and weakness in the language in order to
mitigate some of the damage that might be caused.
Oddly, I think part of the push for these dangerous licensing
mechanisms is the result of success of Creative Commons. We may be seeing
that a movement intended to expand rights will indirectly create a situation
where rights are more easily restricted. People really like the CC mechanism
for granting rights and as a result want cleaner and better understood means
for associating Creative Commons licenses with their content. Unfortunately,
an unintended consequence of satisfying this desire to publish CC licenses
might be that it becomes easier and more common for folk to publish
restrictive licenses.
Readers of this thread might be interested to see that Denise Howell
has been discussing very similar issues on her new Logarithms blog.[1][2]
I've put some comments in there and have also responded in length concerning
what I, as a non-lawyer, consider some of the implied licenses that attach
to RSS/Atom syndicated content.[3]
bob wyman
[1] http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howell/?p=17
[2] http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howell/?p=18
[3] http://www.wyman.us/main/2006/09/magazine_or_mus.html
