[Feature] Dedicate the rest of the legal tools’ text to the public domain

[Jayman2000]

trafficstars

Problem

I would like to use CC0 to help me dedicate some of my software to the public domain. I would like to include a copy of CC0 with my software since that’s recommended. Parts of CC0 are legal code, so parts of CC0 were dedicated to the public domain under CC0. Parts of CC0 aren’t legal code, so parts of CC0 are licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Other than the Creative Commons trademarks (licensed subject to the Trademark Policy below) and the text of Creative Commons legal tools and human-readable Commons deeds (dedicated to the public domain as specified below), all content on this site is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license unless otherwise marked.

Creative Commons makes the legal code of its licenses and the CC0 Public Domain Dedication available under the CC0 Public Domain Dedication.

Quotes from “CC’s Licensing Statement for Content and Software Code” by Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Elements of the license page that are not part of the legal code

Anything not specifically named as legal code above, including:

• “CC is not a law firm” disclaimer at top
• […]

Quote from “Legal Code Defined” by Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0)

I’m perfectly fine with adding some attribution information whenever I distribute a copy of one of the legal tool’s text. The problem is that most software developers who included a copy of CC0 with their code (or a CC license on their assets) probably didn’t know that they needed to provide attribution. I sure didn’t when I started using it.

Another problem is that this partial licensing situation is overly complicated.

Description

Dedicate the entirety of each legal tools' text to the public domain. This would remove the requirement for attribution and make the situation less confusing. It would also cure the accidental violations that have already happened.

Alternatives

We could add documentation that explains this and gives attribution instructions for the legal tools' text. This would make it more of a hassle to use the plain text versions of the licenses.

Another possible solution is to include attribution information in the legal tools' text.

Neither of these alternatives would do much to address the accidental violations in the past. Neither would make the copyright situation less complicated.

Additional context

It seems like CC intended to dedicate all of the legal tools’ text to the public domain anyway.

[…]the text of Creative Commons legal tools and human-readable Commons deeds (dedicated to the public domain as specified below)[…]

Legal text (we call this legal code) and Commons deeds: Creative Commons makes the legal code of its licenses and the CC0 Public Domain Dedication available under the CC0 Public Domain Dedication.

To me, legal text would be the entire text of a legal tool and legal code would be something different. Those quotes from “CC’s Licensing Statement for Content and Software Code” imply that they’re the same thing.

Implementation

• [ ] I would be interested in implementing this feature.

[Jayman2000]

I’m now realizing that this problem is worse than I originally thought. The part of “CC’s Licensing Statement for Content and Software Code” that makes content available under CC BY 4.0 says (emphasis mine)

Other than the Creative Commons trademarks (licensed subject to the Trademark Policy below) and the text of Creative Commons legal tools and human-readable Commons deeds (dedicated to the public domain as specified below), all content on this site is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license unless otherwise marked.

The “text of Creative Commons legal tools” is explicitly mentioned as something that isn’t available under CC BY 4.0. Since CC0 is a Creative Commons legal tool, this means that the text of CC0 is definitely not available under CC BY 4.0. This means there are parts of CC0 that aren’t available under any sort of formal license or public domain dedication.

There is an informal (or maybe implied) license for the plaintext version of CC0 offered by the CC0 FAQ:

May I apply CC0 to computer software? If so, is there a recommended implementation?

[…] It is also recommended that you include a file called COPYING (or COPYING.txt) containing the CC0 legalcode as plain text.

But that’s only for computer software and doesn’t give permission to modify CC0.

EDIT: I’m now realizing that “CC’s Licensing Statement for Content and Software Code” also says

Legal text (we call this legal code) and Commons deeds:

Perhaps that sentence makes the terms “legal text” and “legal code” equivalent. Does that equivalence apply to this sentence (one that is placed before that bold phrase)?

Other than the Creative Commons trademarks (licensed subject to the Trademark Policy below) and the text of Creative Commons legal tools and human-readable Commons deeds (dedicated to the public domain as specified below), all content on this site is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license unless otherwise marked.

If it does, then the parts of CC0 that aren’t legal code are perhaps available under CC BY 4.0 (is “the text of CC0” the same as “the legal text of CC0”?).

Another possibility is that the phrase

Legal text (we call this legal code) and Commons deeds:

redefines the term “legal code” for that paragraph and makes “legal code” mean the same thing as “legal text”. In that case, the entire CC0 would indeed be available under CC0:

Legal text (we call this legal code) and Commons deeds: Creative Commons makes the legal code of its licenses and the CC0 Public Domain Dedication available under the CC0 Public Domain Dedication.

[mindspillage]

All of the text that appears on the pages containing CC licenses and legal tools should be released to the public domain under CC0. (The licensing statement was written prior to clarifying which elements on those pages are and are not legal code!) The policies page has now been clarified to state that all accompanying notices on these pages are also released under CC0. Does this resolve your issue?

[Jayman2000]

All of the text that appears on the pages containing CC licenses and legal tools should be released to the public domain under CC0. (The licensing statement was written prior to clarifying which elements on those pages are and are not legal code!) The policies page has now been clarified to state that all accompanying notices on these pages are also released under CC0. Does this resolve your issue?

Pretty much. I would only change one thing:

Creative Commons makes the legal code of its licenses and the CC0 Public Domain Dedication available under the CC0 Public Domain Dedication, as well as the text of all of the notices and accompanying text on the ~~license~~ legal tools’s pages.

since CC0 isn’t a license.