Microsoft and the Creative Commons have made a deal whereby Microsoft Office will provide the ability to add Creative Commons license language to Office-created products.

It is a good move for all. A besetting problem of the open source software movement is the proliferation of licenses, a phenomenon that significantly increases everyone's transaction costs. A major benefit of the Creative Commons is that it reduces the number and systemetizes the licenses avalable to creators who want to distribute their work without charge.

PFF does not buy into the hype that surrounds the copyleft movement generally, but there is no question that many works, including our own, are produced by people who do not want to charge for them, but do not want to make the total cessation of control required to put something in the public domain. By creating common templates for meeting this need, the Creative Commons is indeed performing valuable public service, and by aiding it so is Microsoft. High transaction costs and confusion help no one.

Thinking long term. much of the current orphan works problem concerns grey literature, "documentary material that is not commercially published and is typically composed of technical reports, working papers, business documents, and conference proceedings." Trying to untangle the rights in this stuff, and feeding it into the next iteration of Google Print, will be the devil's job. But much of it would have been distributed under a Creative Commons license, had such a thing existed; so this Microsoft/CC wil do much to end this problem.

It is amusing to consider the number of issues on which Microsoft and the backers of the Creative Commons do not agree (like, for example, the existence of Microsoft), and each is no doubt using a very long spoon. But the resultiing supper is still palatable.

posted by James DeLong @ 12:58 PM | Access: Commons, Fair Use, Orphan Works, Public Domain

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | Post a Comment(0)