Karl Jonsson’s Weblog

Stallman vs Creative Commons

dose reports from Copyright 2005, where Richard Stallman and Marcus Bornfreund (CC Canada), apparently had quite an argument.

rms has withdrawn explicit support for the Creative Commons project (though he recognizes it is a “better” option than the mainstream) because CC has added several new licence options (to the original six), at least one of which, in rms’s view, do not do an adequate job of protecting freedom.

At the core of the dispute are different views of freedom. While Stallman believes that certain freedoms are essential for everyone, CC is very much about the author’s choice to share. This argument reminds me of something Lawrence Lessig said at the iCommons Summit last month. In his opinion, CC has no normative mission. It merely provides authors with a means to declare “some rights reserved”, as opposed to all rights reserved.

Personally, I would prefer CC’s mission to be somewhat closer to Stallman’s but, like Stallman, I think CC is preferable to the default.