MIT/BSD licenses basically say: Hey, use the stuff, but don't claim it's yours.
CC-By license (without nc and the such, just the plain cc-by) says: Hey, use the stuff, but don't claim it's yours.
Now is there any substantial difference between these licenses? What is the legalese trying to hide from our suspicious eyes?
One point I could think of:
CC licenses aren't meant to be used for software.
I think that's the only difference.
The MIT license is specific to Software:
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
... blah blah blah
emphasis mine
Same for BSD:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. * Neither the name of the nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
again, emphasis mine
CC-by is more generic, referring to any work:
"Work" means the literary and/or artistic work offered under the terms of this License including without limitation any production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever may be the mode or form of its expression including digital form, such as a book, pamphlet and other writing; a lecture, address, sermon or other work of the same nature; a dramatic or dramatico-musical work; a choreographic work or entertainment in dumb show; a musical composition with or without words; a cinematographic work to which are assimilated works expressed by a process analogous to cinematography; a work of drawing, painting, architecture, sculpture, engraving or lithography; a photographic work to which are assimilated works expressed by a process analogous to photography; a work of applied art; an illustration, map, plan, sketch or three-dimensional work relative to geography, topography, architecture or science; a performance; a broadcast; a phonogram; a compilation of data to the extent it is protected as a copyrightable work; or a work performed by a variety or circus performer to the extent it is not otherwise considered a literary or artistic work.
... blah blah blah
once more emphasis mine
So basically anything you can do or make can be covered by the CC licenses, that was the point of the whole Creative Commons, to extend the "free as in beer" idea of open-source to the rest of the worlds creative enterprises and thus to empower individuals to contribute to the sum total of human knowledge and art that we all own.
Also MIT requires the license be as given by MIT in the source code, while the CC-by license says a URL is OK:
You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) for, this License with every copy of the Work You Distribute or Publicly Perform
Go through the stuff at http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/
To rephrase you:
MIT/BSD licenses basically say: Hey, use the stuff, but don't claim it's yours, and distribute it together with the text of the license.
CC-By license (without nc and the such, just the plain cc-by) says: Hey, use the stuff, but include a claim that it's mine, following the terms I choose.