[cc-community] CC licenses and recording rights for music
Denver Gingerich
denver at ossguy.com
Mon Dec 17 15:15:30 EST 2007
I've been involved in several church and parachurch organizations,
most of which pay for an annual license (from a company like CCLI) to
print songs or display them with a projector during their services.
>From what I've seen, most artists get very little income from
licensing their songs in this way [1] [2].
Given this, it may be in the artists' best interest to allow churches
to print their songs or display them with a projector for free, but
retain the right to record the music so they can earn money that way.
Recordings tend to earn songwriters more money than CCLI (or similar)
royalties anyway [3] [4].
(Allowing churches to print/display songs for free would hopefully
increase the adoption of the songs because all churches could use
them, not just those that have paid a license fee. For those churches
that do have a license (most of them), the availability of free-to-use
music would allow them to migrate away from a license. Aside from the
financial benefit, migrating away from a license would remove support
for licensing companies whose practices songwriters and
license-holders often disagree with [5] [6].)
Of the CC licenses, BY-NC-ND seems to be the best for the alternate
distribution mechanism I described. It would prevent anyone from
making a recording of the printed words and music (No Derivative
Works), but would allow churches to use it in their services as long
as no recording was taking place.
However, BY-NC-ND may be slightly too restrictive. Artists may want
to allow users of their materials to add chords, harmony lines, or
other enhancements without getting explicit permission. But this
would be disallowed by the No Derivative Works clause. The artist
could use BY-NC-SA, but that would allow anyone to make a free
recording of the work, which would reduce the income made on
commercial recordings made by the artist (since people will use the
free recording instead).
Is there a license that would allow for printed/typed derivative
works, but would disallow recordings of the work?
I would appreciate if someone could comment on the correctness of my
interpretations of CC licenses. This would give me greater confidence
in communicating the correct information about CC licenses to
songwriters who may be interested in using CC licenses for their
works.
Denver
1. http://www.christiansongwriters.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8059
2. http://www.praisesongstore.com/ccli.htm - search for "top 5000"
3. http://forums.howwhatwhy.com/printthread.php?Cat=&Board=entertainment&main=295147&type=thread
- search for "$1200 royalty check"
4. http://www.christiansongwriters.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=59878 -
search for "$400?"
5. http://forum.christiansongwriters.org/viewtopic.php?t=4990
6. http://www.coffeeswirls.com/?p=1812 - search for "CCLI does not disclose"
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