Seeking opinions: requests for a signed written copyright permission from the creator

[Ivan Chew]

Hi all,

I'm interested in your opinions on the following:

1. Person A seeks my written permission to use my work.

2. I reply to Person A via email, stating that I am agreeable to him/ her using the work (for stated purpose).

3. Person A asks for a signed statement or sorts. Either by my signing on a printed copy of my email response, or they attach a copyright release form.

I've no issue with 1 and 2. But with 3, somehow I'm uncomfortable with it. 

In the case of a copyright release form, there's a tendency that it veers towards legalese so I'm wary about it. I thought about releasing it under a CC-BY license, and pointing them to the more robust CC-BY legalese. But don't think I can selective grant CC-BY licenses, can I?

In the case of my signing on the printed email, apart from the "how come I've to do all this work now" feeling (perhaps this is my ego speaking), I'm uncomfortable with providing a signature which could be scanned/ copied. Well, I could use a different signature style than what I sign for my bank or credit card transactions. Still...

Any thoughts on this? Would appreciate any comments/ personal opinions.

Regards,

Ivan

--

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Every Book its Reader; Every Reader his Book"
S.R. Ranganathan. 1892 - 1972
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://artisivanchew.tumblr.com

http://project365sketches2013.blogspot.sg

http://ccmixter.org/people/ramblinglibrarian

http://ramblinglibrarian.blogspot.com

[Chinmay Pendharkar]

Hi Ivan,

Here's my 2c based on my understanding of CC.

1. You can selectively give a person similar rights as CC-BY. I don't think that will fall under CC though. It's more like you giving specific rights (similar to those listed in CC-BY) specifically to that person.

2. "how come I've to do all this work now" is something I've been trying to battle quite often. Even with stuff that I've specifically listed as CC or public domain, it's troublesome to have to reply to people that they can just use my stuff. 

3. Signature on release forms. Well, I don't think there's much risk in doing that. Or rather, I'm am not sure protecting our signature is such an important thing anymore. A little like credit card numbers. And since it's a legal document, I am not sure if an initial will hold the same weight. (might be good to ask a lawyer).

-Chinmay

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Creative Commons Singapore" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to creativecommonssin...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to creativecomm...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/creativecommonssingapore.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Michael Tegos]

Hi Ivan,

I'm not qualified to provide legal advice in Singapore, so instead here are a couple of thoughts that I hope will be useful.

As for "selectively granting CC-BY licences", if I understand your meaning correctly, you are correct that you cannot grant a CC-BY licence for a work for a specific licensee; the work will be licensed as CC-BY for everyone from that moment thereafter.

Now, in the event that you are not comfortable with licensing your work with a completely open licence, then maybe CC is not the way to go, in which case I would urge you to seek some legal advice from a Singapore-qualified lawyer, if only so you can make sure your rights are adequately protected when you license the work.

Like I mentioned above, these are just some thoughts and I'm not sure how much they help, so I'd love to hear from others as well!

Best,

Michael

On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 2:00 PM, Ivan Chew <rambling...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Creative Commons Singapore" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to creativecommonssin...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to creativecomm...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/creativecommonssingapore.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

_______________________________________________
Michael Tegos

Tel      : +65 81368676

Email  : mact...@gmail.com 

[Ivan Chew]

Thanks for your thoughts, Chinmay and Michael.

I've thought about my "how come I've got to do this work now?"; figured that if I want to help the other person, might as well do that one more step.

Cheers!
Ivan

[Michael Tegos]

Indeed, plus it will likely save you a lot of worry down the road if anything unpredictable happens, so it's probably worth the trouble now!