The capabilities of the 'Creative Commons' licence are a threat to readers

The contract – not a particular contract, but any contract – is a very different power relationship from that which exists under copyright. It's an asymmetrical relationship: he who holds the licence also holds the cards. There is no ambiguity about where I stand as the buyer of a book. The author has no hold on me; he can't complain that I put on a funny voice while I read out loud a passage I found absurd. He can't stop a teacher from reading the book to a class. He can't complain that because I find the entire book ridiculous I toss it in the recycling bin. He can't forbid me from sending it in a box to a charity which sells it to a secondhand bookshop which gives it a $50 price tag when they notice that it’s a first edition ... and so on.

A licence is different: it’s a contract. The Creative Commons is a liberal licence, but it's not the only possible licence. Once licensing is an accepted principle, the only debate left is over terms. And because I can't refuse the licence if I want the work, licensing creates an asymmetrical one-to-one relationship which doesn't exist today.

Do licences apply to books now? Yes, between author and publisher. But as a consumer, that has nothing to do with me.

The duration of the relationship is also a worry: when does the licence expire?

Again, it depends. The Creative Commons licence is explicit: it exists “for the duration of the applicable copyright” – which binds the licensee to contract terms which endure (under American law) for 70 years after the death of the author. So in consuming a Creative Commons work, I am bound to the terms of a contract which will probably outlast me.

What if a licence is to a company? It could endure a very long time indeed; and I know of no impediment to an author becoming incorporated, producing all creative works under the auspices of a company, leaving the shares of that company in a will to others, and having those works published under a licence which would outlive the terms of copyright.

If the Mickey Mouse amendments to America's copyright laws were a bad thing, take another look at a world in which literature were licensed rather than copyrighted: ownership of the licence could endure forever.

Finally, there's the matter of jurisdiction. Copyright in Australia is controlled by Australian law, with outside influence coming only from our status as signatory to various international copyright treaties and conventions.

A licence is different. Read a common software licence one day: they all specify jurisdiction, including the court which would hear lawsuits. Again, it may not be the intent of the Creative Commons licence to extend the reach of American law, but it is the effect. If books are published under licence, the author of the book and owner of the licence is free to apply their own terms to that licence. It's a contract; take it or leave it. If you accept the licence, including its requirement that all disputes arising from it be heard in California, the matter is settled. So in accepting a licence over a book, I am accepting an ongoing relationship with its author, which I don’t necessarily want; which might impose conditions I don’t want and which might be more restrictive than the rights I now hold; and which might even bind me to the laws of another country.

All licences are contracts. Nearly all contracts exist not to empower the individual with new rights, but to persuade individuals to trade off their normal rights in the hope of the other party gaining something. So to apply a contract – even a liberal one – where no contract existed before is to pave the way for the destruction of rights. My right to read is not tributary to the kind of licence the author wants to impose.

If you want to know whether another country is a security threat, you assess not its intentions but its capabilities. The Creative Commons licence is like that: it has the best of intentions, but it represents an unintentional threat to my rights as a reader because its capabilities are so great.