Allow a way for API developers (and others?) to get copyright license to posts #26
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+1 on the third option. Make it standard and well-known to users (notice on each page, and required for client apps to also display the notice for content submitted to ADN) that the submitted attaches a Creative Commons license to the content. TL;DR
There are a couple considerations on licensing: License choice vs social network expectationsI posted a joke about the consequences of the choice of post license and several of us had a conversation about it. Anyone interested in this issue should take a look. It's a short thread: Also, this post: https://alpha.app.net/meta/post/170429 Summary of the posts - both non-commercial and no derivatives are incompatible with the standard uses of short message systems. Non-commercial use means there is a gray area an app developer that sells her apps may not be allowed to display certain posts. No derivatives means that users may not be able to repost with comments, or modify reposts to fit the message length limit. Choice of post licenseAssuming that a post is copyrightable (see next section) I think the best choice is either CC-Attribution or CC-Attribution Share Alike. Either could work and users could even choose between the two if they like. (Share Alike is similar the GPL in that it requires users to use the same or a compatible license. Of course GPL is inappropriate here.) With the annotation API, clients could even annotate whether the post, or some portions of it, were available under CC-BY or CC-BY-SA. Additionally, annotations could be used for machine-readable attribution of quotes and reposts, even if the text does not contain the mention of the original user. Note - in favor of simplicity, I'd be fine with standardizing on just CC-BY-SA. For the rest of this post, I'll continue to reference both options though. Is a post even protected by copyright?Another consideration is whether a post is copyrightable at all. If copyright protection does not apply to a post, then license grant does not even matter. This is a complicated topic though, because in theory, some posts may not be copyrightable, such as "It's 98 degrees right now." as facts are not copyrightable, but other posts could be, such as a particular expression of a fact: "It's hotter than the devil's armpit!" [Note this second example may still not be copyrightable for other reasons. Maybe a haiku about the current temperature could be copyrightable.] From http://www.canyoucopyrightatweet.com/ :
Also a good summary of the topic: http://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2009/04/article_0005.html There is no clear yes or no answer to this question of copyrightability, but in theory some posts could be. Further, even if a tweet is copyrightable and someone violates your copy rights, if you have not registered your copyright to the tweet then your chances of success in legal action are low. Regardless of all of this, I do think ADN should act as if posts have individual value and respect the wishes of the poster and community norms, regardless of whether that is protected by law. I'd still recommend using the option of CC-BY or CC-BY-SA for individual tweets, but having language in the ToS like "To the extent that a post is copyrightable, all posts fall under the CC-BY or CC-BY-SA license, as the poster's choice." Can a stream be protected by copyright?Facts are not copyrightable; however, a collection of facts can be copyrighted. This is why dictionaries and almanacs can be copyrighted, as well as non-fiction books about historical events. Since this is the case, even if an individual post by itself is not protected by copyright, then perhaps my entire stream of my posts, or a subset, could be protected by copyright. To be clear, when I say stream here, I mean both the entire history of a user's posts as well as a subset of the user's posts when used together. For example, displaying a single post would fall under an individual post license, but publishing or display two or more posts as one item, packaging multiple posts into a new format, or combining multiple posts into some derivative work or performing an analysis across multiple posts would fall under the stream license. It might be academic, especially if the standard is to use the same license for both, but legally it's an important distinction to prevent a loophole. Consider the case of an author posting a (copyrightable) short story as a series of posts. Perhaps one post taken alone is unprotected by the series of several posts are when considered together. The consequences of this are that the ToS should state that a license applies to a user's stream of posts. Certainly that is keeping with the spirit of "your data is yours". Perhaps my individual posts are not copyrightable, so someone in ADN can repost and edit it freely and someone could quote an entire post in a blog without attribution, but republishing a larger sequence of my posts or my entire history would be potential copyright infringement. The stream license could even be a separate license from the individual post license (which only applies to post that are copyrightable), since a post and a collection of posts can be considered two separate works. The ToS needs to explicitly specify that the user grants a license for individual posts, to the extent they are copyrightable (see above), plus specify that the user grants a license to the stream or collections of their posts. In both cases, I believe the choice should be CC-BY or CC-BY-SA. License for multi-user streamsCombining multiple user's streams, whether just as a combined collection (My Stream, Global Stream, etc.), an edited work (where the distinction between posts is no longer apparent), or transformed into a new work or product through analysis or other process, may create a derivative work (if the new product is copyrightable) and the license for that work depends upon the license of the original works. Some combinations:
If ADN goes with the option of CC-BY or CC-BY-SA for posts and streams of posts, then the logical default would be all combined streams of posts, such as Global Stream, My Stream (people I follow), filtered or search streams, be published under the CC-BY-SA license. Note that this would not be licenses flowing through app.net, but rather simply the result of what app.net is allowed to do with content which users have published under CC-BY or CC-BY-SA. It would also mean that any third parties which consume said streams must also republish them under CC-BY-SA. I'm thinking of websites and blogs that embed a hashtag search box, ADN app developers, and third parties which may do analysis or reformatting of streams for their paying customers. |
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@JoshBlake I agree 100% with both your analysis and your recommended path forward. Nicely said. |
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Clearly, non-commercial is not acceptable. However, I still think NoDerivs could be. Remember, a license doesn't take away rights you already have. Most (all?) jurisdictions allow quoting in some circumstances (fair use, fair quotation, fair dealing). The NoDerivs license acknowledges that. This quoting can include excerpting (e.g. due to space constraints), and certainly comments. Actually, commentary and criticism are explicit kinds of fair use. Also, straight reposting (which may be less likely to be fair use) will soon become an annotation, not a copy. NoDerivs is less libre, but will be preferable to those uncomfortable with editorial changes to their personal thoughts, opinions, and reporting. Regarding multi-streams, they may not actually be a derivative work, but rather a compilation. |
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@JoshBlake & @mattflaschen At the present moment, my mental model about content on ADN is heavily influenced by the perspective that this service enables creation, distribution and consumption of user-generated content in a microblogging manner. I know there is a grander future for ADN, but the general premise I keep in mind is that users post data of interest in some time-based manner. As you've both stated above, while copyright could feel like a stretch for each and every post, it is entirely conceivable that the value of the data remains relative to the intent of the user (whether premeditated or otherwise). Perhaps a user's post is the equivalent of a paragraph in a blog, but the stream of multiple posts is the sum of an original thought. Personally, I don't know that I'd want to reserve all rights, but I'd probably not be interested in some random content farm extracting data from the ADN API so they could poach my thoughts without some form of attribution. What is an interesting here is the discussion about derivative work, fair use, etc. I'm definitely not an IP lawyer, so the nuances between CC BY-ND and CC BY-SA feel like they really depend on the threshold of what is considered acceptable deconstruction of accessible content (as @mattflaschen states, access control will still play a part here). I'm sure I don't know the infinite extent to which 3rd parties could remix content, but if someone were to come up with an app that creates robotic text-to-speech renditions of my posts, I don't know which option I'd prefer to have in place. Thanks for the great thoughts! |
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@mattflaschen Good points. You're probably right about compilation/collections vs derivative works, though ADN is going to have real life lawyers review everything anyway to correct everything we get wrong. :) I see what you mean that NoDerivs could still work for individual posts, although I'll still point out that it may be an academic argument from the legal perspective since a thorough analysis of most posts/tweets would likely turn up very few if any that are copyrightable at all. Even if a user selected CC-ND-*, anyone who views the post could still copy it or retype it outside of ADN/ADN apps such as into their blog, not attribute it, change the editorial meaning, etc., and even for the few copyrightable posts it's unlikely the poster could respond with successful legal action. Practical example: http://richkidsofappdotnet.tumblr.com/ copies many people's posts in screenshot form out of context in order to highlight or imply an unflattering image on the ADN community. Even if the posts were submitted under the most restrictive CC license, you're unlikely to get your post removed from that tumblr unless the person controlling it is nice and does it voluntarily. If you attempt legal action, good luck and don't forget about the Streisand Effect. Basically, good advice applies: don't post anything on the internet that you don't want to be copied and adapted way out of your control. Instead, we should focus on how the poster want her posts to be used and not used, plus whether ADN can enforce the spirit of the intention within its own world. If ADN cannot enforce an ND intention technically, or if the enforcement causes too much burden on users or app developers, it may be better to not allow the option due to the reasons above. Why burden users over something that is trivial to work around and unenforceable legally? It could be better to tell posters:
TL;DR for below
Analyzing a NoDerivs intentionFrom http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/:
(My emphasis.) If ADN were to support ND intensions, it'd need to establish rules for how users and app developers can treat ND posts. In the context of short message posts, below is my attempt at a set of concrete rules for use within the ADN network of apps (excluding external reuse for such as blogs) for the NoDerivs intention, accounting for fair use:
I might have missed some intricacies but this is good for a starting point for discussing it. (I'll avoiding using # and then a number when discussing below because that creates a link to and posts on another issue.) Enforcing a NoDerivs intentionWhat can ADN and app developers do to enforce the suggested rules above? *1 is easyAllow unedited native reposting. *3 and *4 is a bit harder but not impossibleApps would have to treat the ND quote as a uneditable object within the post creation process and only allow users to add text before or after the ND quote. It would probably also be required for apps to visually make the start and end of the quote obvious, either blockquote style, different text or background color from the new post, or otherwise. A work-around for preventing app developers from having to create a difficult and cumbersome UI for this would be for ADN to support native reposting as well as native quoting. A native quotation would be a post that has a new comment and a copy of the complete original post in metadata. Apps would then just have a regular editing textbox but display the quoted ND post, and displaying this native quote would be displaying the two parts in a connected but distinct way. I say include the original post in metadata rather than just a link to the original because if the original is deleted, the quoting post would lose information, even though the original CC-ND-* license (or fair use) allows users to republish the ND post. Perhaps native reposts should also be distinct copies for the same reason. This would be a break from Twitter where IIRC if you delete a tweet all native retweets also disappear. It would also mean it is that much harder to undo a mistake if you post something embarrassing. (IMHO, too bad, so sad.) The native quote feature and including posts in metadata may also be useful for implementing automatic proper attribution for the CC-BY requirements. *2 is hardest.The simple approach would be to allow users to "crop" or trim a ND post. The hard part is doing that without letting the user change the meaning of the quote. That might mean the user could only trim entire words or entire sentences, but that requires grammatical and lexical analysis. If the post didn't use punctuation marks analysis could fail. There may also be other ways to work around it. Another option would be allowing the user to quote an ND post and trim it at will, but include the full text as metadata (not counting against the character limit.) Apps that displayed this post would be required to have a feature that displayed the full quote upon tapping or clicking the quote. Of course, a user could just get around the quotation editing and trimming limitations by retyping some or all of the ND post manually. Protecting against that use would be almost impossible because the app or ADN would have to do a substring analysis comparing the new post to the post being replied to. Then users would just enter a new thread post and not a reply, and ADN would have to compare it to every other post ever. Eventually you would get lots of false positives just because two people independently wrote the same phrase. Pros and cons of supporting NoDerivs intentionsThe upside of supporting NoDerivs is that certain users may want to reserve that right and protect their posts, but only partially and in a non-fail safe way. A downside is that users of the system may be presented with one UI for reposting or quoting posts for certain posts and a different UI for other posts, or the UI would have different capabilities depending upon the post being quoted. A downside for developers is that there would be a lot of extra work to support the editing restrictions on ND posts. They would probably be more likely to just only support reposting complete ND posts or not displaying ND posts at all. A downside for ADN in supporting NoDerivs intentions is that the developer ToS would need to have a lot of requirements for how posts are displayed and how they can be edited. Just thinking about what I wrote above makes it sound a lot like what Twitter is doing. Summary of NoDerivs analysisGiven all of the burdens to ADN, developers, and users, my instinct is to just recommend not supporting a NoDerivs license (intention) option. It doesn't really add much. If there are a lot of users who really want this option, then the only practical method of supporting it would be to only implement a subset of the rules from above and only allow native reposting and possible native quotation of ND posts. App developers would have to check for the ND license on each post and if it is there, disable any quotation functionality for that post, and maybe display a message or ND indicator so the user knows why. That might not be so bad though. The ND indicator would signal to the users the intention of the poster and would actually seed a culture of good behavior and respect for copy-intentions (fake copyrights). Users could still get around it very easily, but this is a case of keeping the honest people honest and not trying to implement cumbersome DRM when technical restrictions can never close all the loopholes anyway. Additional thoughts on bots and closed sub-networksThe discussion so far has only been around Twitter-style networking. There are other proposals for access control and applications that would allow someone to create an app that is a closed network where posts submitted by a certain app can only be viewed that app. One example is a clone of Yammer for corporate private social networks. Another is a game that only communicates with itself. These are valid applications of a "social network as a service", regardless of debates or desires that most of the network remain interconnected. Isolated private networksI would think that if an application is registered such that it is isolated network, then the license restrictions discussed above for the public ADN network should not apply to posts for that app. The app developer would then be free to use whatever content license policy she wishes, but at the cost of being not being able to submit posts to the public network. Conceivably the app could consume public network posts though (i.e. a one-way street from public to private) as long as the app respects the license of those posts. Bot-to-bot trafficBy bot-to-bot traffic, I mean posts that are not human generated and potentially not human readable. Posts written by bots with data intended for other bots. Most automated bot or game traffic or metaposts would likely be uncopyrightable data. This bot traffic can occur on regular user accounts but be marked in annotations or another field as not intended to be viewed in human streams. Because of this, I think that if ADN supports multiple licenses, the license should be marked per post and not per user. Clients would of course be free to set a default and hopefully store that default in a well known location in the ADN user profile, but users should be able to change the license on a per post basis, and bot traffic should have an option to be marked as "no restrictions" and not have any technical limitations on reuse. Note: we may need to revisit this issue once bots achieve sentience and can generate copyrightable works, or if for any reason we decide non-human readable bot traffic may warrant attribution during reuse. |
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I like the CC idea, and definitely think CC-BY-ND can be made to work. I don't think, however, that we need mandatory technical enforcement of ND. Technical enforcement is difficult to make and is a rather blunt instrument (the computer doesn't understand nuances like "fair dealing", especially in the US where you often don't have proof-positive that something is fair use until it's been litigated - the technical implementation ends up codifying one interpretation of the law, which will not be universally agreed upon and may not be the court's interpretation). Technical requirements like that also wreak havoc on open source development - can the code not go public until the entire copyright enforcement mechanism is written and debugged? It's a similar problem faced when a patent license only applies to “complete” implementations of some specification. Social norms and a bit of legal work seem like a better strategy for enforcement, especially given the rather low stakes of individual violations on a post-by-post level. If a user violates, reprimand. If they engage in persistent disregard of posting terms, consider account termination. If an app developer persistently and flagrantly disregards ND terms (where the developer, not their users, is responsible for the violation), revoke their auth keys. Transmogrifying publicly-accessible feeds (e.g. ATOM/RSS) becomes a trickier point of enforcement, but that's out of scope for developer ToS anyway. |
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It doesn't matter if only some posts are copyrightable. I think some definitely are (e.g. short poems). There's no way to determine without a trial, so we should assume they all are. It's certainly possible some people could register copyright on their posts. It's important to note that a license defense is much easier than a uncopyrightable defense. Look at Oracle v Google. Google won on copyrightability but only after the whole trial and a lot of briefing. Thus, I disagree with your "copy-intention" idea. We need real licenses. I agree with elehack that we should not attempt to programmatically enforce the license (regardless of what it is). This stuff is way too complicated for an algorithm. We also should not impose rigid guidelines beyond the license. You're right. This is one of the reasons DRM is evil; it can't handle fair use. Your proposed rules would not allow things that are often fair use, such as [...] excerpting and misleading quoting (deceptive is not necessarily illegal). There's also long precedent for various quote symbols (without color or blockquote), so I don't know why "It would probably also be required for apps to visually make the start and end of the quote obvious, either blockquote style, different text or background color from the new post, or otherwise." would be necessary. Bottom line, I strongly disagree with micromanaging how quoting (or other fair use) is done, regardless of license. Again, NoDerivs does not take away fair use/fair dealing; they still apply just as strongly as any other work. You wouldn't feel uncomfortable quoting and/or commenting on a commercial newspaper excerpt, even though that is basically proprietary (not even copying is allowed) NoDerivs. It looks like everything on http://richkidsofappdotnet.tumblr.com/ would be covered by NoDerivs. More importantly, it is also parody. For parody, courts lean toward the copier's side, at least in the US, so they'd probably be okay even if they excerpted, made mocking changes, etc. It's not tenable to pick a license, then say it's not legally enforceable; users are responsible for enforcement, but we shouldn't try to dissuade them from doing so where appropriate. I see your point about separate licenses for private networks, but I don't know if it's necessary. We could easily allow users to add a dual license (in addition to the X license on all posts, this post allows Y) on a per-post or per-user basis. This is common on Wikipedia. However, it is much simpler if there is a common license that applies at least to all public posts. I still think NoDerivs could be workable as is, fully taking into account fair use/fair dealing (incl. the well-established support for quotation, commentary, criticism and parody). If not, though we could add another license on top, similar to the Classpath exception (but of course totally different rights). Something like: "All posts are under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported. As a special exception, the copyright holders also give you the right to:
Again, I'm not convinced this exception is actually necessary to spell out, because of fair use. |
That was my point, that we should treat every post as copyrightable. At the same time, we need to recognize that for many posts all we are doing is pretending that the license has legal force and are asking people to place nicely. The ToS could tell people they're submitting a post under a Creative Commons license, but many posts that may be meaningless, so in order to cover those posts the ToS needs to also spell out as a part of the ToS what is acceptable community behavior and what the consequences for egregious violations accepted behavior. Those extra terms in the ToS are the "intention" part -- the ToS needs to both say what licenses users can submit and how it will enforce (socially, technically, or none) or not enforce the intention of those licenses regardless of copyrightability.
To be clear, those rules and the various treatments were not proposed per se, but hypothetical for purposes of discussing whether or not any technical restrictions would be practical or desired. In the end you see I ruled out that possibly, but pointing out if someone really wanted to push for that the only practical restriction would be limiting automatic quoting. (Even that can be worked around by retyping, so rights are not absolutely limited.)
Look I think we agree on most points and on arm-chair interpretation of copyright law and CC licenses. The one thing I think we disagree on is whether or not it is worth bothering to add NoDerivs as an option:
I don't know what you mean by workable. Based upon this specific medium, even if we assume all posts are copyrightable, the fair use exceptions allow pretty much any use of posts anyway. What specific types of activities would license-abiding users not be allowed to do with an ND post that would with a non-ND post? If there are basically no differences, why bother? It would only give a false sense of security for the poster and be more confusing for the users. Additionally, if ADN is not prepared to adjudicate user disputes and enforce results with deleting posts, bans, or other punishments, then there is no recourse for violating the ND post so it's just more complexity that has more practical meaning. One could argue, "why not use ND just in case, even if there is no practical difference or it is unenforceable?" but the additional license would just be a decoration and add complexity and confusion. We could add all kinds of unenforceable license provisions or things that make no practical difference but the best scenario is making things as simple as possible. Also it's not clear to me whether a CC-BY-SA-ND post, if included in a compilation/collection (streams), would force that collection to also be CC-BY-SA-ND. If so, that would have many undesirable side effects. |
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@JoshBlake wrote:
So you're saying we should take social (not legal) action in response to social abuses (e.g. repeated misleading quoting against the original poster's will). You may or may not be right (I favor an open marketplace of ideas), but that should be discussed in a separate issue. It's basically just a type of community moderation; it's not a copyright issue. We should focus this issue on the license itself. @JoshBlake wrote:
An example would be writing a humorous book about a president, using (some modified, most not) various anecdotes and jokes from app.net (just in the book as paragraphs or sentences, unquoted), licensing it under CC-BY-SA, and acknowledging all the app.net authors on the copyright page as co-authors. @JoshBlake wrote:
Regardless what license we pick, app.net should not voluntarily enforce copyright law; that's not their job. Leave it for the courts and the standard DMCA process. @JoshBlake wrote:
There is no CC-BY-SA-ND. It's a contradiction. I agree with keeping things simple. I would choose one license for all public posts, but users could voluntarily add an additional dual license (this would not be advertised, and reusers could safely ignore the additional license). |
I should have put "if any" in there. I was obliquely referencing @elehack who called for consequences; however, I'm with you and don't think there should be any. Third party apps that create a sub-culture could if they like, though. You're right that that is probably best for another issue.
This is a good example. @retrobabel also suggested an app that read posts through a text-to-speech engine. I remembered another example of various people who make games or other interactive works that use tweets as content in the game. I'm in favor of the "free culture" aspect of Creative Commons and want to push to have the default license to support all of these types of reuse. Unless I'm missing something would indicate either the CC-BY-SA or CC-BY license. NoDerivs would prevent all of these uses.
Agree here. Maybe ADN should think of itself more like a Common Carrier.
Oops, got confused. I meant whether CC-BY-ND could require the collection to also by CC-BY-ND, and whether it could be in the same collection with a CC-BY-SA. I found a CC FAQ that I believe covers this. I think the conclusion is the collection itself would have to include BY but could be either SA or ND, as desired, and that:
This sounds good, but not sure whether the licenses would be compatible. For example, if the two licenses were CC-BY-SA and CC-BY-ND, users could just ignore the ND and alter the work under the SA license. If the one of the two licenses was CC-BY then it doesn't matter what the other one is because CC-BY grants more rights than the others. I can see what you mean about making the default CC-BY-ND as it reserves the most rights out of the ones we're discussing; however, that would result in >99% of posts being ND and we're lose out on a huge amount of free culture opportunities like the ideas discussed above. Ok, I think I can support the idea that some people may feel strongly about applying a ND license to some or all of their posts. So we agree that ADN should not attempt to enforce, technical or otherwise, the copyright license and ADN should not punish or moderate communications. Most casual users of ADN would not care enough about any of this to change their microblogging activities, and I think most microblogging uses would fall under fair use of some type anyway. I think the primary people who would care about the licenses are those who want to use ADN posts while making works external to ADN. The license selection comes down to setting a best-case default and letting users override that if they care to, knowing the override would only be most relevant for reuse outside of ADN microblogging. A possible consensus proposalInstead of default and an additional dual license that you suggested, I propose the default should be CC-BY, so as to maximize free culture, and users can switch individual posts (or change their default preference in a client app) to CC-BY-SA or CC-BY-ND instead of CC-BY. ADN then carries around the license selection as post metadata to convey the poster's wishes and copyright status. Clients and users can view that info and respect it (or not) as they desire. This would be just as simple in the UI as the optional dual-license proposal you suggested, but wouldn't have the problem of either limiting free culture or making the dual license irrelevant. Overhead of the proposalThe overhead for users would be minimal, but interested users could view the license of the post and respect it for whatever they're doing with the post. The overhead for ADN would adding some legal language in the ToS and community guidelines and FAQs plus adding a license field to posts and a preferredLicense field to the user object, but no technical enforcement or social moderation of it at all. The overhead for app developers would be almost nothing. If the client submits a post with no license set, then ADN would automatically set the license to the user's preferredLicense default. Developers can optionally:
If they apps do not implement any of these features, that is fine as users can always just go to app.net and update their preferredLicense in the web profile editor. |
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I'm fine with ADN not trying to do any enforcement beyond the standard DMCA process, particularly for users. It may be worth talking a bit about situations where a developer uses dev credentials to engage in systemic, wide-spread license violation, but I expect that to be a rare case. It could perhaps be solved with an opt-out/app blocking facility, where users can block specific apps from using their content if those apps are engaged in such abuse. Opt-out, of course, not opt-in, but it could well be sufficient control, and gets ADN out of the adjudicating business entirely. If we need enforcement, let's do it by social or legal means, not technical. But official enforcement may not be practical or necessary (and if it is not necessary, I do not think it is desirable). |
That makes sense to me. The developer ToS would most likely have protections against abusing the system (DDoS, plus the rate limits), so this allowing users to block apps would allow the community to self-police and take care of gray areas. |
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@JoshBlake wrote:
Right, they don't have to be compatible. Reusers can just choose any license that applies to a post. The idea of one license all posts share is to provide an acceptable baseline so neither posters nor reusers have to think about it unless they want to. I'm aware CC-BY-ND is not free culture. I just don't know if free culture is right for people's personal extemporaneous thoughts and opinions. It's not the same as works people want to maintain over time, like software, documentation, or the Wikimedia projects. The FSF says similarly, "For essays of opinion and scientific papers, we recommend either the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License, or the simple “verbatim copying only” license stated above." I do like the idea of dual licenses being visible through metadata. @elehack wrote:
The DMCA mandates:
so it would be appropriate to terminate developer accounts that repeatedly infringe. |
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I'm a user not a service developer. I almost always repost with modifications (eg to shorten a post enough to allow me to add a comment). If different posts have different licence conditions, that will be need to very obvious. I'd tend to unfollow people using ND a lot. I regard anything I post as CC0 (roughly similar to public domain). After all, plagiarism is detectable via searching and time stamps if it ever matters. If there's going to be an option for people to mark their posts ND either overall or post by post, I'd like an option to mark mine CC0 with the same granularity. Full disclosure: I haven't read the whole thread above sorry:) |
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So long as the global stream is visible to all, it seems these discussions of what is legal or what is fair or what handling of 256 bytes honors the intentions (which intentions may need moe than 256 bytes for clarity and only be present by reference) of the poster fly in the face of all the clever malice and sloppyiness of casual Internet communication. Is there a context for this discussion that includes a more controlled ( up or down stream filters?) core app.net service? I half expect the answer to be that discussion of this issue is aimed at discovery of what form that greater control might have to take. I am grateful to Josh and the rest of you who so ably hammer on these questions and hope more will follow the links here and read. This is one area where app.net can avoid some of the embarrassments that forced changes at FB and google. My curmudgeonly two cents is that if I want control of what I write after it is written, I am not going to write on a wall in a public place...I might even ask readers to pay for it so they put some value on it and are thus inclined to be protective of it. I see a fundamental inconsistency between wanting instant broadcast of some content to all eyes and yet wanting immutability of that content. |
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I probably don't understand what makes the ND clauses of a copyright notice so hard to enforce but I can imagine it is indeed a chore beyond the resources of even the RIAA let alone a brave little start-up. If the content is the property of the poster, the onus of control ought to fall on them to whatever extent ADN ToS amount to "We are just the messenger, we don't shoot the bad guys for you!". What tools can ADN easily implement in core services to aid the anxious poster? The service connects so readily, by automation or drag-and-drop, to other social network broadcast services that detection of repeated or mashed up content seems impossible. |
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As I mentioned above ND does not take away fair use or fair dealing. After all, you can quote, excerpt, comment on, and parody any commercial newspaper, even if they don't give you a license to. @in-app-ropriate wrote:
I don't quite get your point. Just because something is visible doesn't mean you have a license. And what do you mean by "up or down stream filters"? I agree that app.net should follow the DMCA but not otherwise "shoot the bad guys". @in-app-ropriate wrote:
This is a big reason for the ND. Your opinions and thoughts can't be incorporated (as distinct from quoting or parodying) into a modified work you had no role in. |
Yes, a dual license does not need to be compatible, but I was pointing out that if the default license was CC0, CC-BY, or CC-BY-SA, then it would not matter that a user added the CC-BY-ND as alternate license. The default, more free license would already grant more rights and there would be no way for users to force the ND license. I'm against CC-BY-ND as the default because most people won't change it and my opinion is that we should promote free culture here. (Segue to next debate point.)
Eh, FSF/GNU/Stallman are valid to reference for open source software licensing, but I wouldn't look to them about general cultural/creative works. Even so, I don't see how microblogging can be considered equivalent to an essay of opinion or a scientific paper. I doubt that very many if any people bother themselves to consider what their artistic vision for the post is when crafting a post or a tweet. On the whole people are more worried about whether it fits in the box and whether they have made a typo that inverts the meaning of their post because they were typing it so quickly on a mobile device while stopped at a red light. Or something like that. On free culture, there are a number of creative transformations that would be allowed under CC-BY that would not under CC-BY-ND, even considering fair use. One example (besides the ones already discussed) is if someone decided to take some of the conversations on ADN (maybe someone would do this for discussions that @gruber participates in, for example) and used those as transcripts for a http://www.xtranormal.com/ movie. That would be an adaptation and have sufficient creative input so as to be a new work. IANAL, but I don't think it would be allowed under fair use or NoDerivs. Free culture is not just about maintaining and updating a collaborative project like Wikipedia or software documentation. It is about fostering a culture of expression and creativity where people are generous with their contributions and desire others to add to the creativity, often in unexpected and uncontrolled ways. In summary, FreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedoooooooooooooooommmmmmAs @in-app-ropriate pointed out:
Participating in a highly fluid, reposting/retweeting, resharing service as Twitter or ADN is incompatible with protecting a singular artistic vision within posts. Here again, we're just debating the default setting. The path of least resistance and the choice that is consistent with most people's natural expectations would be CC-BY. I'm not saying that is the only option. If someone does want to serialize their novel via ADN, or has an application or other use that calls for another license, they should be able to specify it for those posts, but also be ready for the consequences (people RPing parts, trolls RPing while changing words to "butt" etc), and enforce their own copyrights if someone does try to reconstitute the entire novel outside of ADN inconsistent with the license. In addition, if someone creates an application (regardless of if it is an isolated network or on the public network) where for that specific context it makes sense for all posts from that app to have a specific CC license or some other custom license, then they should be able to do that.
That's a good point too, and also relates to something I said earlier about the license that is applied to bot traffic. Going with the "common carrier" theme, I think ADN should have a licenses property on posts. That property is an array (allowing the option for dual or more licenses if desired by a client, but dual is not a standard behavior). Each element of the licenses array has the name of the license, the wellknown type, and a details URL. The license type is "wellknown:CC-BY" or another CC license, or "other", which allows extensibility for unforseen uses. If the client omits the license property while submitting a post, then per the ToS ADN will assume the default license, the choice of which we are currently debating. The licenses field could even live completely within the annotation API rather than a top-level field; however, I still think the ToS should say that ADN will attach a default license to all posts that do not otherwise specify one.
I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. If you mean ADN technical enforcement of the chosen license, we discussed above and decided that wouldn't be a viable option. If you mean enabling the API to search or filter on a particular license, then I think that is a good idea. If the licenses were implemented as I suggested above, then it could work within the regular Filter API (which is not implemented yet). That would allow third parties to get a stream of posts that have licenses compatible with the intended use, such as a publicly accessible interactive display or game that consumes ADN posts. |
Creative Commons licenses also do not waive publicity or privacy rights. Also, the Attribution term already includes some protections against attributing a corruption/modification to you. The NoDerivatives is not necessary to achieve those protections.
(Emphasis mine.) So, if people are worried about someone taking their CC-BY App.net posts and creating Hitler-themed image macros (i.e. a LOLCAT except with Hitler) with the poster's words, they can rest assured that the CC-BY license doesn't allow attribution that implies endorsement or affect your reputation, and if the words are modified, the modification must be noted, and if nothing else you can notify the person that they must remove your attribution.
All that is in plain old CC-BY. The only reason to choose NoDerivs instead is because you do not want your artistic vision changed at all from the original and you do not want your work to participate in the collaborative free culture. |
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Very grateful for the tutorial on CC. You make clear a point I was hardly aware of regarding protection against false or misleading attribution. |
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Regarding the question of just what sort of a "work" you can claim in 256 characters or less, I think I agree with the point Josh is making here
IANAL either but if there ever comes a court case that revolves entirely around a single post or tweet, it will surely be a judgement hanging on a fact ( she was in a canoe when her ex was shot) or factual information ("Rufus, you should sell all your apple shares") not copyrighted stuff...that is not what copyright is for. This seems to weaken the need for ironclad licenses encumbering posts. |
It doesn't matter if there are conflicting licenses within the array. Each one is a unique license grant that the recipient has the choice to use. This is moderately common in open source software but odd to other uses of copyright licenses. Here's an example of what is going on: Alice has a copyrightable work (a song, software, writing,etc.) can turn to Bob and say "I grant you license A that lets you do X with my work for free" and then she can turn to Carol and say "I grant you license B that lets you do Y with my work since you paid me." Alice is free to grant as many licenses to different people as she likes. She can also grant multiple licenses to the same person. For example, later, Bob pays Alice and Alice also grants license B to him. Lets assume license A and license B are irrevocable (the same way Creative Commons licenses are irrecovable - you can stop distributing under a license but cannot retroactively cancel previously distributed works under the license). That means that in the above example, Bob would simultaneously have license A and licence B as independent contracts. That means he can choose to exercise any rights granted under license A or any rights granted under license B. Suppose license A grants non-commercial use and lets you modify the work (CC-BY-NC) and license B grants commercial use but no modifications (CC-BY-ND). Bob can distributed a modified work non-commercially or an unmodified work commercially. All of those rights have been granted, starting from an All Rights Reserved model, and the two licenses do not conflict. This example does not allow commercial distribution of modified work, though. In theory, a copyright license could be constructed with language such as if license A said "if you ever distribute this work commercially under another license, then your rights granted under this license to distribute modified versions of the work is revoked." That would mean, in this example, the use of license B would neuter license A. This is not the case with Creative Commons licenses and most commonly used "open" licenses. (In this case, if Bob paid Alice enough money that she grants a custom license C which allowed Bob to use her work to suggest endorsement, then license A's non-endorsement clause would revoke itself. ) Now that you can see how Bob could first be granted license A then later pay to get license B, and also continue to exercise rights under both licenses, one could imagine a case where Alice simply wants to grant both license A and license B to Bob in the first place at the same time. That is why the license property of posts is an array to allows multiple licenses. |
This is most likely correct; however, the discussion above (realizing not everyone will read this whole thread) between @mattflaschen and others and I included thoughts on whether a post is copyrightable, and whether we should treat a post as copyrightable even if it is not (since determining copyrightability would require a court case.) The conclusion is that even if most posts are not copyrightable, it is not ADN's place to determine that, and that ADN should act as an impartial intermediary between posters and consumers of those posts. I also pointed out that the ToS should include language making the poster aware that the licenses being discussed only apply insofar as the individual post is copyrightable. I think a good way to think of it is this: I can write down a copyrightable short story on one piece of paper. I could also use that paper to write down an uncopyrightable grocery list (as long as the grocery list is not too expressive, I mean, or meant as art.) Then, could I not use a post-it note, which could only hold about 256 characters, to write down a copyrightable work, such as a haiku, extremely short story, or other act of expression? I could use the post-it to write a vehicle license plate or do some short math calculations, or write a short uncopyrightable note of fact or speech to myself or someone else, but that does not mean the post-it is inherently unable to be the used for the expression of a creative work. The post (or tweet, etc) is simply the medium - a tangible (digital) form of expression upon which a copyrighted work can be fixed. Taking this to the extreme, there are extremely short stories which are copyrightable. Consider this one:
Pretty funny for two words! (Note - the title is not copyrighted since that is the identifier of the work.) I quote this work in its entirety here as any smaller further excerpt would be useless. It is copyrighted, yet my use of it here is a fair use for commentary and review purposes. As @mattflaschen points out, many valid fair uses of a short work such as this may be covered by fair use. Suppose Bubien pushed that work as a post and attached a CC-BY-NC-ND license. Others could repost it, comment upon it, etc all as fair use, but someone could not copy that joke for the script of a sitcom TV show. Practically speaking, though, Bubien probably recognizes the nature of the short work and relatively simple humor means others could easily have independently invented the same joke and he would not be able to prove infringement if he raised legal action if it saw it on a TV show, unless that show also gave attributed it to him, ironically. The lower limit for possible copyrightability of text seems to be one words. Even http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/ could be copyrighted. Actually, it's even funnier if you view the source of the webpage! The web source is an expression and could be copyrighted independently of the fact that computer code is copyrighted. It contains a link to an ATOM feed for the page and this tidbit of javascript, and LOL more in the comments. if (!(typeof worldHasEnded == "undefined")) {
document.write("YUP.");
} else {
document.write("NOPE.");
}Back on topic,
This isn't about ironclad encumbering so much as it is recognizing that the data belongs to the users, including the copyrights, and empowering them to be in charge of the licenses they distribute the content under. This is in contrast to other web companies that simply blanket all user-generated content with a world-wide, non-exclusive, sub-licenseable, perpetual grant to everything. |
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@in-app-ropriate wrote:
My point in quoting the FSF regarding "essays of opinion" was to to show that I'm not the only person who thinks opinions (certainly very common on microblogging) might not be a perfect fit for free culture (which I strongly support in various contexts). I think the same may apply for spur of the moment thoughts. My position whether posts are copyrightable is that some definitely are (e.g. certain micropoetry), and it's not our job to figure out which. Also, bear in mind that a post could be longer when including annotations. |
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@mattflaschen I just realized while writing my last post about the extreme short story example that if ADN treats itself as a common carrier, then the license grant does not apply to ADN (the same way you're not granting a license to your internet provider in order to transmit your copyrighted pictures.) Then, as long as the ToS makes that clear and also makes clear that third-party applications (at least, certain classes or features of them that extend the "carrier" functionality) also fall under the common carrier status, then NonCommercial is not incompatible for use on posts. Not that I'm saying we should encourage NC usage, but if ADN wants to avoid enforcement it has to be transparent to the license completely. |
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Is anyone actually advocating NC (non-commercial) as the main license? I don't know much about how common carriers relate to copyright apps. However, I think there will be many interesting commercial apps that are not carriers. http://appnetstats.com/ (run by Splunk) is just one. |
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Let me begin by stating I am not a lawyer, just an App.net founder whose primary focus is engineering. The point stating that 'you own your content' is primarily about retaining ownership of your content, so that while you grant a fairly liberal license to us (and that we then grant to the consumers of our API), it is (obviously) non-exclusive and you can take your content away, post it elsewhere, etc., if you like. The basic grant license grant is something that I view as "plumbing" for the purposes of making the infrastructure of the API possible. I expect that it will come with a specific provision to ensure that there is no misattribution, and perhaps we will allow you to specify some additional license, e.g., CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, CC0, etc., for uses outside the scope of the "plumbing" license. It's a delicate balance between having too broad of a license and not being able to openly syndicate your information. I would like for us to try to find the line at which we're able to satisfy the desire for protection of rights and open sharing. Given that this is fundamentally a sharing service, I assume we'll end up doing a better job at the latter than the former. Thoughts? |
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IANAL either. But I think it would be good if there is no need for a separate plumbing license, at least for public posts. That would necessitate that the main license also lets app.net do what it needs to. |
No, not as the main license. I was just making the point that if ADN and third-party apps (important that they are considered together), together the ADN Network, were covered by DMCA Safe Harbor or other laws, or else legal language in the ToS (as @berg mentions, the plumbing license) then the license that the ADN Network publishes posts back to the outside world could be anything that the user desired, CC-wise or custom, and ADN could be transparent on the license with which users publish their content. I was about to agree with @mattflaschen that it would be ideal if the plumbing license was the same default license that we've been debating about; however, if the user can specify their own license(s) or custom licenses for content, the ToS would still have to require a minimum set of rights granted to ADN for proper functioning of the ADN Network (which includes third-party apps), and then use the user specified licenses when redistributing content outside of the ADN Network. In the end it would be simpler to understand if there was a plumbing license (I'd call it a Network License though) and a user-chosen redistribution license, and if the user does not explicitly choose a license then ToS specifies one as a default. (CC-BY is my preference for the default.) The Network License applies only for use within the ADN Network, and any exposure to people/apps outside the ADN Network the redistribution license applies. I'd still push for the Network License to be a Creative Commons license, possibly CC-BY-ND with additional restriction that it can only be used for distribution with the ADN Network. This would allow a user to specify a custom license in the post metadata that reserves almost all rights, and that custom license would only apply when ADN and third-party ADN apps display/redistribute the content to users and other entities. Defining the ADN Network to include third-party apps is still tricky, though. Suppose a user has an idealogically opposition to anyone making money by displaying ads along-side her content, so she chooses a Non-Commercial license. Could an app that has advertising be in the ADN network, thus avoid the Non-Commercial restriction? If third party apps are outside the "Network" and subject to the redistribution license, would that mean all apps that aren't 100% free have to filter out Non-Commercial licensed posts? I don't know best solution here. Need @berg and his lawyers to chime in. |
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My tweets (and posts) are covered by my registered copyrights, as a greeting card designer since 1987, my sentiments, as little as 7 words, are indeed covered by copyright law and already fixed in other media. I have no problem with granting the non-exclusive rights as per the user ToS, but will not accept a developer's Creative Commons license, since as it is not in my best interest, since I make my living licensing my work, and have thoroughly reviewed what the Creative Commons offers with my IP attorneys. In short the CC licenses you have mentioned protect the interests of the developers, not the creators of the content. Take this comment as notice, I do not agree to such a licensing and I will respectfully stop using the service and deman that all of my content be deleted from the App.net servers. Please consider the kind of language that Twitter uses for example, I have no problems with the non-exclusive display of any of my posts, with any other posts or comments, as long as attribution is preserved. |
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adding 2cents here, definitely something i'm interested in taking advantage of! app.net publishing ftw! |
Can you elaborate on how you see Creative Commons as being a developer's license or protecting the interests of developers over creators? Which Creative Commons licenses are you referring to?
Can you provide any additional details of how the way Twitter handles things is better than a Creative Commons license? |
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It's not how I see it, it is the language of the CC licenses. Although I have issues with the words "modify" and "sublicense" even on Twitter, their ToS does not go as far as the CC licenses, especially CC-BY-SA which would in essence release my words into the public domain. If you read the legal versions of the Creative Commons licenses, your IP attorney would see some truly alarming language, even with the non-commercial usage, ie. sharing on p2p. I err on the side of creator's rights, granting specific usage on a case by case basis, but contrary to open Internet mythology, my showing my work, covered by copyright laws in the U.S. and internationally, does not constitute permissions to use it in any way other than to provide the service. I hope to see a ToS that makes specific usage grants, explicitly spelled out so that there is no confusion, or rights grabs. |
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Again, speaking to my personal beliefs here. I don't want to make any promises which I can't keep in an official capacity, but I am personally just trying to understand the conflict here. In the case that @katcaverly is describing, the distinction between "developer" and "user" is misleading. If I understand Kat correctly, she is talking about giving overly broad rights to anyone who is not the creator of the content (i.e., her) by virtue of the fact that she has published content on App.net. "Rights of developers over creators" is a straw man. Let's instead discuss "creator" versus "others" and not focus on the word "developer." In this case, Kat does not want CC-BY-SA to apply to her content. I understand why she wants that to be the case. What we don't yet know is what specifically what uses are required "to provide the service." I do know, however, that this project -- which is effectively a communications medium -- simply won't work if Kat is required to check a box for every single possible use of communications she is publishing. I truly hope that's not what she's advocating for. So let me distill this down to a concrete use case: I assume that Kat is fine if someone who follows her sees her photo in, e.g., the Flipboard app. But she doesn't want to grant a license to Newsweek to use her photo on the cover of one of their iPad (or print) issues just because she posted it here. |
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Yes @berg you understand me correctly. Clear and concise language is required in the ToS, including but not limited to spelling out the definitions of terms used. The problem with most ToS is that they are vague and are written to just protect the service, and maybe, just maybe, App.net will rise above this practice. I am grateful to App.net for this chance to see how complicated the 3rd party developers are in relation to the ToS. It is simply not acceptable that anyone can do anything they want with the user's posts just by having a developer's account. Please forgive me for being paranoid. It just goes with the territory, and how user's have been treated on the Web. |
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Ok, let's look at Twitter's Terms of Service:
That is pretty much all rights. Twitter can do anything they want with your posts, and let anyone else do the same, and they even state their intention to display targeted advertising alongside your content. There is no protection for, or even mention of, attributing your content to you. There are no restrictions placed on these rights grants. The only restrictions listed in that document are restrictions on how you may or may not use the service. But we already know Twitter is on the wrong path; that's why we're here. In contrast, the most restrictive Creative Commons license, the CC-Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (which I presume you would choose, if forced to choose) states:
This is a much more narrow grant of rights, plus it has further restrictions on the rights that are granted (requiring attribution, not allowing commercial use, and requiring removal of attribution upon request.)
Looking at the differences between Twitter and CC-BY-NC-ND, I'm surprised that you prefer Twitter's language.
You mean this in 4b?
All that does is clarify that the exchange of digital files is not considered a commercial behavior. It doesn't broaden the grant of rights or lessen the other restrictions. The more permissive Creative Commons licenses are similar in style and only grant the specific rights that the license is intended for while providing protections and restrictions that protect the creator against all unintended uses. Suggesting that the CC-BY-SA is equivalent to public domain indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose and intent of Creative Commons. If you make a living off of writing short, witty phrases, then it is probably a good idea to not share those for free on the internet. Regardless, even if you want to share your work, then you'll notice in the latter half of this thread, my proposals have been that, aside from the limited grant of license required for operation of the ADN service and (as @berg said), the user is free to choose any license she likes, Creative Commons or not. Clearly you and some others would not ignore this choice if it is important to you, and I am not suggesting you be forced to use a Creative Commons license if you do not want to.
I think that your paranoia is unfairly placed upon third-party developers. The vast majority of limitation of creator's/user's rights and erosion of privacy has been committed by the core services - Facebook, Twitter, etc., - not the small, independent third party developers that use the service. The only examples of abuse performed by third-party Twitter applications are those involving spamming, which are against the ToS anyway, and spammers are not known for caring about copyrights anyway. Regular independent developers (who are simply creators of another type) and small shops that create apps for these types of platforms simply want to create a great application that people will enjoy using, often times for free but sometimes as an attempt to make a living doing what they love. They're not out to get you. |
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It's complicated, I know @JoshBlake but I don't trust anyone just because you say so. I am just waiting for the ToS, and the spelling out of what the terms are for the developers as well. As for all the legal stuff, @berg and @dalton have attorneys for that, I was just expressing my concerns. |
Right now, https://github.com/appdotnet/terms-of-service/blob/master/terms.md#your-content--conduct says:
"When you post, link or otherwise make available content to the Service, you grant us the right and license to use, reproduce, modify, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute your content on or through the Service.
Aside from our limited right to your content, you retain all of your rights to the content you post, link and otherwise make available on or through the Service."
So app.net has a license, but they do not have an explicit right to sublicense. There's no license for developers, and it's not clear if app.net could provide one without the right to sublicense.
The Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms) and Twitter TOSes (https://twitter.com/tos) explicitly give them the right to sublicense. The Google one (http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/) is a little different. It says, "you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license". I assume "those we work with" covers developers using their API.
Separately, there are also licenses where the licensor grants everyone a license directly, like the Creative Commons Attribution or GPL 3, so sublicensing is not necessary.
So I can think of three options so far:
In any case, the access control provisions should still apply (a license is effectively irrelevant if an ACL prevents you from ever getting the content). Facebook calls that out ("subject to your privacy and application settings").
I think app.net could reinforce their position as technical plumbing (rather than media) if the content license did not flow through them.
What if we chose 3. and the license was Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/legalcode). Basically, that allows anyone to copy the posts, but not modify them, as long as they attribute the author.
One part to be careful about is whether any minor reformattng app.net and other clients do is allowed, e.g. as "fair dealing".
Many successful services (e.g. Stack Overflow and the Wikimedia Foundation) have made other Creative Commons licenses work.
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