Is Portugal Really Trying to Make Creative Commons Licenses Illegal?

Glyn Moody links to a translation of the relevant sections of a proposed bill.

Here: in sum, every author (except software authors, so thankfully free software isn’t affected) has the right of getting money out of private copy, and they can’t renounce it, so every Creative Commons license, where saying “You are free to share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work” (or actually, in legalese, “licensor hereby grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual license to reproduce the Work”) is illegal.

Moody goes on to provide some useful analysis. In particular despite early confusion about what the actual intent here may be, a follow up seems to confirm that the oddly specific language is indeed aimed squarely at free culture.

Moody nicely ties this into a point made by Rick Falkvinge in a recent op-ed, that those advocating for this sort of restriction start from an incorrect assumption. Copyright isn’t about any guarantees on the ability to make money, rather it is a compromise to generate appropriate rewards to encourage cultural creation. If both public interests of cultural creation and access to culture are served without monetary exchanges, that should be sufficient. To use Falkvinge’s word, this proposed law is revolting for interfering with outcomes, fixating an incidental circumstances of some intermediaries, at certain points in the history of cultural production.

Portugal to Make CC Licenses Illegal? Glyn Moody

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