From fa936769c13c15f5ba775981d504d76b66ad9fe7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Seth Schoen <schoen@loyalty.org> Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2023 22:30:29 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Add note on Creative Commons's enforceability concerns --- notes.md | 17 +++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+) diff --git a/notes.md b/notes.md index 5f9aa60..1c9ff94 100644 --- a/notes.md +++ b/notes.md @@ -208,6 +208,23 @@ Licenses](https://creativecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Springing-licen Lawrence Rosen's book *Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law* uses the term "eventual source". +# Enforceability + +The Creative Commons review seems to have been concerned that springing +licenses can have enforceability problems. For their older Founders +Copyright project, they actually used a copyright assignment to the +Creative Commons nonprofit rather than (as they usually suggest for +public licensing of creative works) a unilateral license document. + +(Was that because of concerns that copyright can't necessarily be +abandoned under U.S. law, or because of concerns that a licensor or the +licensor's heirs could withdraw or revoke the license if it were given +unilaterally with a delay?) + +It might be helpful to understand how serious the enforceability concerns +are, although it doesn't seem that they've ever been tested in court, so +it may be hard to say anything definitive. + # Threads where we have posted Look in the follow-ups in these threads (and subthreads thereof) for -- GitLab