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

[Couture Marc]

Jan Velterop wrote:

>
> a (c) licence can only ever be changed from less open/less liberal to 
> more open/more liberal; otherwise the user/reader can always claim to 
> have read/used/distributed under the previous licence or not being 
> aware of the new licence.
>

I completely agree. And the user would not even have to claim ignorance of a new licence. As I pointed out before, CC licences' legal code states that they are "perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright)", and that should the copyright holder change the licence terms at some time, the original licence would remain in force:

"[...] Licensor reserves the right to release the Work under different license terms or to stop distributing the Work at any time; provided, however that any such election will not serve to withdraw this License (or any other license that has been, or is required to be, granted under the terms of this License), and this License will continue in full force and effect unless terminated as stated above [i.e. in case of a breach of the terms of the licence by the user (section 7a)]."

(CC Attribution 3.0 Unported legal code, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode, section 7b).

Marc Couture