[cc-community] ASCAP VS CREATIVE COMMONS

Bjorn Wijers mailings at bdisfunctional.net
Fri Dec 22 19:44:55 EST 2006


Drew et al,

>>> It is precisely because of this desire for a one stop shop by radio
>>> stations why I think that such a clause would be useful.
>>>
>>> Let's say a BY-SA or BY songwriter puts their BY or BY-SA works with a
>>> collection society. The stations pay for using these works. Has fraud
>>> been commited? We would have charged people to use something for which
>>> they have the right to use for free.
>>>
>>> Ot would the society collect from the stations but not pay the BY or
>>> BY-SA songwriters?
>>>
>>> What would the situation be?
>> The current situation would be:
>>
>> 1) An artists cannot use a CC license AND be a member of a collecting
>> society, at least in The Netherlands and as far as my (limited)
>> knowledge goes this is the same for the rest of Europe (Although I
>> belief the UK is different in this).
> 
> Why is there some law against it, or are the collecting societies just being 
> pic headed?

Mostly because the rights collecting society (in the Netherlands) seems 
not to be willing to change their contracts from an exclusive contract 
(they get all the rights) to a non-exclusive contract. As far as my 
knowledge goes this is the main issue between CC licenses and their 
contracts.

> In the US at least, I htink a new collecting society could spring up that 
> would agree to accept artists using CC licenses.
> 
> Does the law in come countries give monopoly protections to certain blessed 
> collecting societies?

Yes, sadly we have a government that did this. Although I belief this 
will change due to EU regulations. Paul and other people on this list 
are probably more knowledgeable than me in this matter.


>> 2) The collecting society will collect the money and distribute it among
>> their members. 
> 
> So, how do they collect the money for works they have no rights to. Wouldn't 
> this be fraud? Can you explain how their deals with the artists works and how 
> how deals with say radio stations work?

I cannot explain how it works (yet). I'm currently trying to get more 
information on this, but let me be very frank on this:

The information is pretty hard to get and the rights collection 
societies are all but open or transparent. It's probably easier to 
infiltrate in some gang than get any insights in the innerworkings of 
the Dutch rights collection societies ;)

My hypothesis is that they collect most of their money under blanket 
licenses and try to gain insight into which tracks have been played 
(although I've also heard they don't...). Based on this they create a 
repartion scheme and pay their members. The money from tracks collected 
that don't point to members will probably be 'kept' until they can pay 
it to the right person, if ever. In the meantime it will probably be 
quite usefull for the rights collection society with interest and 
such....

>> So the CC-BY and CC-BY-SA artists will not see a penny 
>> back. Again this is the situation in the Netherlands. It is getting so
>> bad that I know of several bands and musicians that were using Creative
>> Commons licenses (Silece is Sexy, Feverdream etc) and stopped using it
>> because of this situation. Although these bands would love to keep on
>> using CC.
>>
>> 3) It seems even venues usually pay a blanket license (stil researching,
>> so I'm not certain yet) and thus the CC artists get less money when
>> performing than a non-CC artist.
> 
> I don't follow this logic. Can you elaborate?

The venues pay the rights collection society (RCS) for the music being 
played, but because the venue seem to use a blanket license the money 
for CC artists will be collected allthough the artists won't get a penny 
from it. Thus the CC artist get less money than those being part of a 
rights collecting society.

CC-artist = gig money

Non-CC and member of RCS = gig money + royalties


>> As I mentioned already, I'm currently researching this because we
>> (Simuze.nl) fear that CC will become only something music creators will
>> use when they are die-hard CC believers in the Netherlands. Only these
>> artists are willing to accept the fact that they will not get the money
>> a collecting society is collecting 'on behalve' of them.
> 
> If a radio station were to start up that only played CC By and BY-SA music, 
> could the collecting society demand payments?

No. This is a nice clear example, but sadly not how it works in reality. 
No 'serious' radiostation or any media outlet would be concentrating 
only on licenses as a filter to determine what to play and what not. And 
they shouldn't. Personally, I wouldn't create a favorite playlist based 
on license nor would I select my dinner based on color ;)

>> Basically using CC licenses with music is a lot harder than just
>> sticking with the old system. Even when bands or artists are actually
>> quit fond of the whole CC concept. This needs to change if CC is to stay
>> 'alive' in the Netherlands (and perhaps the rest of the EU too..).
> 
> Personally, I don't care too much unless they are using BY or BY-SA licenses. 
> Those using NC don't much interest me. I am insterested in solutions for 
> those using the two licenses I mention though.

If we are not able to resolve these issues it doesn't matter which 
specific version of the CC licenses at all at this moment. We need to 
resolve this if CC is ever to be usefull for musical creators in the 
Netherlands at all. If we can solve (some of) these issues we can 
concentrate on educating people why we would like them to use BY or 
BY-SA instead of other licenses, but first we need to solve some more 
fundamental issues.

grtz
BjornW








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