Feedback and summaries of the CC0 community feedback process will be posted here. This is not a complete list of all feedback, just a summary. We have provided links to specific comments whenever possible. If we missed your comment or concern you are invited to add to this discussion. Comments can be made on this page, the discussion page or on related lists noted below.

Status

CC0 is in Beta Draft 2, and we are actively soliciting public comment on the latest draft. More general information and resources on CC0 can be found here. This will also be a topic of discussion at the iSummit legal day At that time, we plan to engage collaboratively with our CCi project leads and others from the broader CC community in an effort to address to the extent possible the feedback collected as of that date. To make that collaboration as meaningful as possible, we ask that further feedback be submitted by July 25th in advance of the iSummit.

Feedback on the deed and legal code should be directed to the cc-licenses mailing list. To join go to cc-license list

General comments may be posted on the cc-community list here

Deed and Legal Code Feedback

We received a number of comments in response to the original draft of [then]-CCZero, most of which we have endeavored to capture below in the interest of completeness but which are now largely moot due to revisions made in Beta Draft 2. We have noted those instances below whenever possible.

In response to some comments as well as based on our further legal review, we are proposing a few language changes and additions to improve the text of both the Deed and the Legal Code. Please provide feedback to these proposals here or on the license discussion list noted above.

Scope of Rights being Waived

A few comments sought clarification on the scope of the waiver: does it just waive copyright-specific rights, or is it broader and includes rights such as patents[1], trademarks, unfair competition, privacy rights, publicity rights, commercial rights, and/or database rights

We made clear in Beta 2 that with respect to non copyrightable materials (facts, ideas, etc.) the only rights retained by Affirmer were patent related (see the penultimate paragraph of Beta 2).

We now propose that addition of the following sentence at the end of that paragraph, to read: "No trademark rights held by Affirmer are waived, licensed or otherwise affected by this affirmation."

It was also suggested that we make clear that the waiver does not affect third party rights in the content, such as publicity and privacy rights. While this comment is equally applicable to all of CC's licenses and legal tools, we agree it bears mentioning in the text of the waiver itself.

We submit the following proposed language for discussion:

"The Affirmer hereby disclaims responsibility for clearing third party rights that may apply to any intended use of the Work including third party copyright and related or neighboring legal rights in the Work under applicable law, treaty or contract, including but not limited to moral, publicity and privacy rights."

Signature Requirements

There is some concern in the community that a renouncement of rights cannot be made without a signature. We continue to look at this issue, but it does appear to be solvable in some jurisdictions by inclusion of the alternative license language. This issue will be addressed in more depth in the coming days.

• Does the waiver require a signature in order to be effective or enforceable? [2] notes on relevance of signature
• How might a signature be obtained: via emails; a la CC's current PDD process; other?

Restrictions and Limitations on Waiving Moral Rights

Several CCi project leads and community members have commented on the restrictions and limitations on waiving moral rights, particularly in European jursidictions, such as

• German Moral rights are unalienable [3]
• Under Australian law, you can consent to specific instances of infringement of your moral rights, but you cannot waive them. s195AW(1) of the Copyright Act 1968 states that it is not an infringement of moral rights if the infringement is within the scope of written consent given by the author. Comment from Elliott Bledsoe
• Norway - moral rights issue comment from Gisle(law cite needed)
• UK may require a signature for waiving moral right 87 (2)" Any of those rights may be waived by instrument in writing signed by the person giving up the right." Suggesting that 87(4) may provide some wiggle room but unsure how well it would work with regards to moral rights. [4]
• Comment suggesting that moral rights and the conversation from CC v3.01 is relevant [5]
• A suggestion that the only possible solution under monistic systems with strong moral rights would probably be an assertion to never claim and enforce any unwaivable right in the work, although further suggesting that courts won't be readily willing to uphold such an auxilliary construction designed to circumvene non-dispositive law. cc-license list John Hendrik Weitzmann

Jurisdiction-Specific Comments (not otherwise captured)

Some CCi jurisdictions foresee problems with renouncing unrenuncible rights along with other jurisdiction specific issues to contradictory appearing statutes.

• Chile = copyright act - art. 86 ...all the patrimonial rights as unrenunciable by authors [6] Waivers may solve this issue... can't renounce but can waive. There are possibly conflicting statutes in some Latin American countries on this issue [7]
• Spain = similar issues in Spain as Chile: PD = waived rights and some rights can not be waived. David on the cc-licenses list

Beta 2 works to solve this problem by providing a renouncement, a waiver, and a license if the renouncement and the waiver fail in a particular jurisdiction.

Other PD Waiver/License Resources and References

CC is not the first to create a public domain waiver. Below is a list of other Public domain resources:

• ODC Public Domain Dedication and License is a similar license and should be considered in the process. copy of the license comment from Jordan Hatcher other included comment here only deals with copyright and DB rights
• Public domain definitions for commons.wikimedia.org States the nature of why a work may be in the PD
• wikipedia PD-Self Very simple declaration

Beta 2 was influenced by the prior works in this area, and was specifically expanded to incorporate language directed at Databases (See paragraph 4).

Tool / Usability Feedback

One of the primary goals of CC0 is to provide a tool that is easy to use and understand.

• warning needed, or some way to let people know what rights they need to make this dedication.

The issue of informing people as to the rights they need to apply a CC License or Waiver has come up in several contexts. This issue is not unique to CC0 and is being looked at.

• need to express more in the meta data (early comment):

The current metadata states "all copyright, moral rights, database rights, and any other rights that might be asserted over X." and will be updated if other rights are included.

• To be useful you need to explain why you think something is PD. Geni from cc-license

Note: this may be more applicable to the public domain assertion tool.

Human Readable Deed

The Human Readable Deed currently uses the language "The person who has associated a work with this document affirms that he or she holds the copyright interests in the work, and hereby waives all of those interests and any related or neighboring legal rights in the work." This does not explain exactly what rights beyond copyright are waived. We may need to update this language.

• the deed needs to be more specific listing rights waived beyond copyright. (Several sources)

FAQ's needed

As with all CC options specific questions tend to reoccur. Here is a list of current FAQ's for CC0 and possible answers:

• Is CC keeping track of PD stuff? No
• Is CC0 about branding? No it is about expressing rights and uses the rel(rights expression language) is more important then CC0 description.
• Is it a waiver or a licenses?
• What is the difference between CC0 and the old public domain dedication?

1. Possible answer: "Using 'CC0' clearly marks the difference between a work _actually_ being in the public domain, something that varies by jurisdiction and that the creator can't fully control (or so we think), to a work being _effectively_ in the public domain (to the extent possible under applicable law), which the creator _can_ control." Evan
2. Possible answer: Universal instead of US
3. Possible answer: "the key difference from a legal standpoint is that the current CC PD dedication covers only copyright and that CC0 waiver covers other rights as well (and not just database rights)."Jordan on cc-Licenses

• What makes CC0 Active? publication or the work with the CC0 wavier/license

We will be working to reword these informal FAQ's to be more user friendly and expand the topics covered for the official release of CC0.