4.0/Sandbox

This page is designed as a gathering place for suggestions from the community. If you have an idea for an issue that is not yet addressed in one of the issue pages linked from the 4.0 page, please follow this process:

Review the existing issue pages to see if your new idea would fit on an existing page. If so, feel free to add it yourself.
Please refer to the Legal Code Errata^[1] page to see if your concern is addressed here.
If the issue is not addressed, please refer to the License Versions page to review issues debated in prior versions.
If your issue is not adequately covered or if you would prefer that HQ decide where it best fits on the wiki, please add the issue in the relevant section below.

Moral rights

There are two basic issues:

Current moral rights language is complicated, difficult to understand -- see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode section 4(d):

Except as otherwise agreed in writing by the Licensor or as may be otherwise permitted by applicable law, if You Reproduce, Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work either by itself or as part of any Adaptations or Collections, You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation. Licensor agrees that in those jurisdictions (e.g. Japan), in which any exercise of the right granted in Section 3(b) of this License (the right to make Adaptations) would be deemed to be a distortion, mutilation, modification or other derogatory action prejudicial to the Original Author's honor and reputation, the Licensor will waive or not assert, as appropriate, this Section, to the fullest extent permitted by the applicable national law, to enable You to reasonably exercise Your right under Section 3(b) of this License (right to make Adaptations) but not otherwise.

Some fear 4(d) causes licensee to agree to more restrictions -- how expansive is "permitted by applicable law" in removing agreement to restrictions -- and have encouraged use of US ports eg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/legalcode which do not contain 4(d) at all or unported with a waiver of 4(d), eg http://markmail.org/message/34oisku4irs4naqe

This was previously an issue during discussion of Wikimedia migration to BY-SA, nearly prompting a version 3.01 in order to address, see discussion of possible changes to address at Version_301#Section 4(f), which should be a starting point for 4.0 proposals.

Technical protection measures

TPM language in CC licenses eg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode 4(a) and similar in 4(b):

You may not impose any effective technological measures on the Work that restrict the ability of a recipient of the Work from You to exercise the rights granted to that recipient under the terms of the License.

This has been controversial for a long time, potentially unnecessarily (and paradoxically, given anti-DRM clause meant to protect) limiting user's freedoms and complicating use of CC licensed material in widely used platforms that have DRM built in. The addition of a "parallel distribution" (of non-TPM version) was discussed for Version 3#DRM but decided against.

Some think a more elegant, freedom-compatible approach is to be found in GPLv3:

3. Protecting Users' Legal Rights From Anti-Circumvention Law.

No covered work shall be deemed part of an effective technological measure under any applicable law fulfilling obligations under article 11 of the WIPO copyright treaty adopted on 20 December 1996, or similar laws prohibiting or restricting circumvention of such measures.

When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technological measures to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work, and you disclaim any intention to limit operation or modification of the work as a means of enforcing, against the work's users, your or third parties' legal rights to forbid circumvention of technological measures.

See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html#neutralizing-laws-that-prohibit-free-software-but-not-forbidding-drm and summary of some discussions leading to this clause at https://fsfe.org/projects/gplv3/drm-and-gplv3

Summary of potential 4.0 change -- drop prohibition of effective technical protection measures, add permission to circumvent, possibly using GPLv3's well vetted language as closely as possible.