Creative Commons - a pure copyright license

No its not a contract! At least that is what I have thought before.

Contract requires offer and acceptance. You don't need to accept CC license. Contract goes two ways.
Lets take an example of an pure copyright license: You may sing my song at Harvard square tonight at 8:15-8:16.
Now compare it to the contract: You must sing my song at Harvard square at 8:15-8:16.

First one doesn't require acceptance. You get a very limited permission to use otherwise exclusive right. In contract you need to get the other persons acceptance. License can be easily granted to public at large getting acceptance plays no role because the license granted is just giving rights otherwise exclusive to copyright holder.

I am a bit concerned of the license text: "BY EXERCISING ANY RIGHTS TO THE WORK PROVIDED HERE, YOU ACCEPT AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE." There really isn't a reason for acceptance unless there are something that recipient is agreeing to obey. What could it be?

Moral rights? Some of the legal systems don't require to respect moral rights. You don't have to state the Creator of the work necessary. All the CC licenses require that. Would this turn CC licenses to contracts? Nope. Its again one more restriction to the exclusive rights.

if (moral rights = true
        Creative Commons distribution OK)
else ( exclusive right, no permission) 

Same thing in my previous example
if ( place of public performance = Harvard Square
                                 and time = 8:15-8:16;
                                    -> permission granted)
else ( exclusive right, no permission)

It really doesn't matter what kind of restriction you make: non commercial use is OK, moral rights, national restrictions and so on. If your use doesn't comply with the terms, you don't have a license. If you don't have a license, you are most likely breaching copyright.

There are national restrictions in CC also. Many of people don't know that there are developing nations licenses. They allow some countries to treat works as Public Domain. Again OK! Copyright holder doesn't give the work to public domain just a limited right to use exclusive rights as long as the country is on a list of developing countries.

Why should be label CC licenses either pure copyright license or a contract? Well you can terminate contracts. You really can't revoke a CC license. It is "perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright)". You can try to take the work out of circulation. If someone has the work on their hard drive or even knows that the work was at some point out with CC license, it can reappear even if the right holders doesn't like that.

"Each time You distribute or publicly digitally perform the Work or a Collective Work, the Licensor offers to the recipient a license to the Work on the same terms and conditions as the license granted to You under this License."

Comments

[David Stein]

Sorry - this is incorrect. A license is a contract.

Here's where you're mistaken: Most contracts are "bilateral," i.e., negotiated between two or more specific parties. Each party intends to contract particularly with the others. *However*, you can also have "unilateral" contracts: offers to the general public, where anyone can enter into a contract with you by performing some kind of condition.

One common "unilateral" offer is a commercial advertisement, e.g., "Our store will sell you three cans of peaches for $1." This is an offer to the public - including you - to enter into a contract with the advertiser. You accept this contract (thereby binding both you and the advertiser) by showing up at the store and carrying three cans of peaches to the cash register. At that moment, you have a legally binding contract with the advertiser - they can't back down.

Copyright licenses like the CC operate *exactly* the same way. The licensor is extending a contractual offer any member of the public to become a licensee. By accepting the license and using the software, the licensee promises to abide by the terms of the license (open-source redistribution, accreditation, indemnification of the licensor from liability, etc.) And the licensor promises not to sue the licensee for a copyright violation, so long as the licensee's acts do not violate the terms of the license. That is a mutual exchange of rights and obligations - i.e., a contract.

- David Stein