[cc-community] Orlowski vs. liblicense

Giorgos Cheliotis giorgos at smu.edu.sg
Thu Aug 23 04:46:35 EDT 2007


Wow, a lot of food for thought! I will not try to comment on all of this, as one cannot possibly be an expert on all these different media types and art forms. But I'll pick on just one point that was made:
 
> Musicians make money from live performances, and selling tour
> paraphernalia,  Albums generate an insignificant income.
 
Is there any serious proof or at least substantial evidence for this? I keep hearing this argument for a long time now and I keep having my doubts (as well as hearing from individual musicians that this is not the case for them). Perhaps it depends on the specific part of the music industry or genre that the musician is active in?
 
Also, my initial question on exaggerated fears of losing future revenue was more about people whose work will never make any money because it's not good enough, or not 'marketable', or for whatever other reason, and are still overprotective of their work. I wonder how many of those exist (my guess: many).
 
Giorgos

________________________________

From: cc-community-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of drew Roberts
Sent: Thu 8/23/2007 10:06 AM
To: cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [cc-community] Orlowski vs. liblicense



On Wednesday 22 August 2007 08:55 pm, jonathon wrote:
> On 08/22/2007 09:07 PM, * drew Roberts wrote:
> > * A musician in a band loses very little revenue by releasing material
> > under any CC licence; * A composer in that band, OTOH, loses most of
> > their revenue stream, by releasing a song under any CC licence;
> >
> > I don't get how you can arrive at this conclusion. Can you explain?
>
> Musicians make money from live performances, and selling tour
> paraphernalia,  Albums generate an insignificant income.
>
> For composers, royalty payments are the major/only revenue stream. In
> most jurisdictions, CC licences, and Collecting Society requirements
> conflict. As such, one loses revenue because one is unable to collect
> it, or one keeps revenue, but does not use a CC licence.

Ah, well, yes. The thing is, this is not doe to a feature in the licenses, or
a bug in the licenses. This is because the collection societies are acting
like turkeys.

If all of the artists got together and said this was going to change, it
could. But I now get where you are going with this thought at least.
>
> > Not that I like CC-BY-NC-ND, but how would a composer lose most of their
> > revenue stream for a song by choosing such a license?
>
> Between them, NC and ND put the vast majority of the market that pays
> royalties out of bounds.  That results in less income than a standard
> copyright licence.

Only if you feel that for some reason you can use one and only one license on
your works.

For people who would normally pay royalties, what is stopping an artist from
giving out a another license on the work that would require royalties?
>
> > And for the following, can you explain the reasoning behind your
> > statements?
>
> It all comes down to royalty streams, or their non-existence.
>
> > * A playwright loses most of their revenue, by releasing material under
> > any CC licence;
>
> With CC-BY-SA there is no royalty stream;

Only if the players are willing to put on a BY-SA performance and allow the
audience to video tape, etc.

Otherwise they need to arrange another license.

> With CC-NC there are no performances;

They just need to arrange another license.

> With CC-ND there are no performances;

They just need to arrange another license.
>
> IOW, it doesn't matter what is picked, there will be no royalty stream.

There will be royalty streams from those using the alternate license. What ma
I missing if you disagree?
>
> >> * A choreographer loses very little of their revenue, by releasing their
>
> Choreographers don't earn royalties on their output. They earn royalties
> from their consulting business. There is a small, but technical
> difference between to the two. The output from their consulting business
> is copyrightable. The output from choreography is not copyrightable.
> But the film of a production that they choreographed is copyrightable.
> [A potential issue is whether or not the film is a derivative work, or
> not.]
>
> >> * A poet loses very little revenue with any CC licence;
>
> Poets don't earn money from their poetry.  (Individual poems seldom
> generate enough revenue to pay for their individual copyright.)

Except where adapted as song lyrics perhaps?
>
> >> * A writer of text books loses their entire revenue stream by using a
> >> CC-BY-SA licence;
>
> The revenue stream is thru repeated purchases of a book that is used in
> classes across the country.  With a CC-BY-SA licence, that income is
> gone. (Why pay US$100 for a hard copy, when you can distribute the PDF
> gratis?)

OK, perhaps.

But, why should a school or a government buy such books when they can pay
someone to produce one under a BY-SA license?
>
> >> * A visual artists loses most of their revenue stream using a CC-BY-SA
> >> licence;
>
> With a CC-BY-SA licence, the difference between "authorized' and
> "unauthorised" reproduction is, at best, extremely fuzzy. This means
> that the secondary revenue stream (royalty payments for reproductions)
> has been cut off.  It doesn't matter if the visual art is a photograph,
> painting, or sculpture.

OK, except for signed or signed and numbered limited editions... ? One could
also play logo games and "Officially supporting the creator" games.
>
> With a CC-BY-NC licence, a (theoretical) royalty stream from
> reproductions is maintained.
> (The Orphaned works Copyright Act (Or whatever it was called) that was
> dropped last year, to be incorporated in some other legislation pretty
> much put paid to royalty payments for photographers.)
>
> ########
>
> A cleaned up (with complete citations) of this probably belongs on that
> page that describes the issues and hazards of selecting different CC
> licences.

I think overall though, we are looking at this from different angles.

You seem to be explainig things from what would happen if one were to choose
one CC license and one license (CC or not) only. Fine.

I am looking more at, what does choosing CC license X restrict your ability to
license in other ways?
>
> xan
>
> jonathon


all the best,

drew

--
(da idea man)
http://pc.celtx.com/profile/zotz
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