[GOAL] Re: [cc-community] CC-BY and - or versus - open access

[Alan Cox]

> 1.	Am I missing something in the legal code, i.e. does it say somewhere that this license is only for open access works?

CC isn't a specialised licence. It's genericity is its power.

> 2.	Is there any reason why a publisher could not use a CC-BY license on toll-access works? (Here I am talking about an original publisher, not a licensee).

Not really. If you want to preserve its freedom you proably want
CC-BY-SA. However the underlying argument I think is that if you have a
CC-BY copy then that grants the recipient of that copy a set of rights to
make more copies, so there is an economic spiral to zero unless the
re-seller is offering a value. I could sell locked up copies but you'd go
get one from someone else who has a CC-BY copy.

> 3.	Is there anything to stop a publisher that uses CC-BY from changing their license at a later point in time? (Assuming the license is the publisher's, not the author's).

If the publisher owns the work then the author already lost control.
However you can't generally "unlicense" something. So once a CC-BY copy
is out there you can't really swat it and make it go away, merely offer
other licences. The parallel licensing model is a common one in some
fields.

That may not always be true - but consult a lawyer as always on any legal
matters.

> 4.	Is there anything to stop a toll-access publisher from purchasing an open access publisher that uses CC-BY, and subsequently selling all the formerly open access journals under a toll-access model and dropping the open access versions? The license would not permit a third party to do this, but what I am asking about is if the original licensor sells to another publisher.

Nothing in CC says that someone who acquires the rights to the work can't
simply burn it. However they can't "unlicense" the existing copies or the
rights that came with those copies to make more CC copies.

Alan