Once More Into The Metadata

Any of the lawyers out there wondering in response to my last couple of posts whether the
Creative Commons licenses have an integration clause, and what it might provide? They do; et viola:

This License constitutes the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the Work licensed here. There are no understandings, agreements or representations with respect to the Work not specified here. Licensor shall not be bound by any additional provisions that may appear in any communication from You [the licensee]. This License may not be modified without the mutual written agreement of the Licensor and You.

For the nonlawyers, this goes along with my thought that "invisible," or primarily/solely machine readable, information about a license probably would not play much (if any) role at present in an analysis of the license's formation. However, as a licensor I certainly would insist that any such information be consistent with my intent concerning the operation of the license. Even if the terms of the license might not be "modified" by the metadata or XML/RSS, it is not difficult to imagine a court considering the additional -- "parol," as we sometimes say in the lawgosphere -- information to help interpret a term of the license it might find ambiguous. (An ambiguity could arise about what "work" the license covers, for example.)

Shelley Powers and Shawn Dodd posted some interesting related thoughts today.