[cc-community] What does NC means?

Kevin Phillips (home) tacet at qmpublishing.com
Thu Nov 1 14:47:53 EST 2007


Hey Terry (and all you other guys and gals),

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Terry Hancock" <hancock at anansispaceworks.com>
To: <cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 1:48 PM
Subject: Re: [cc-community] What does NC means?


[giant snip - space rockets and all]

> drew:
>
> "Non-commercial" means "makes no money" to most people, not "makes no
> profit". I personally think the latter makes more sense as a license
> term, but it's a matter of perspective.
>
> There's a TANSTAAFL aspect to this, of course -- if you didn't receive
> any value from a work, then why would you distribute it? Even at the
> most abstract, aesthetic level, the work had to represent some *value*
> in order to be worth distributing (perhaps only "humanitarian good
> feeling" or "corporate image"). Since those things equate to improved
> standing in the world and therefore increase your earning potential,
> they *do* indirectly contribute to your income.

Tricky.  This is one of the things which confuses me about semi-known signed 
artists dropping things into the CC music pool.  I don't have a big problem 
with it, it just seems odd for it to happen.  It spooks me into suspecting 
some kind of hidden agenda or motive, or (more likely) that I need to 
re-think my understanding because it's likely I'm missing something 
fact-wise.

We all do things for benefit or reward, it seems the internet relies heavily 
on peer review, kudos and word of mouth.  The sci-fi vision of a currency of 
trust, combined with the old pat-on-the-back is reward enough for the likes 
of me (and yes when the bills hit the mat I sometimes wonder if what I do as 
a passtime could somehow help out income-wise, as Drew mentions to offset 
some of the costs)....but if I was a signed artist who depends on an income 
from my "art", what would motivate me to throw something out there for free? 
....and which license would allow me to ensure my work doesn't seep back 
into the commercial domain?

hmm.....

> Increasing traffic to your site, and then -- as a result -- receiving
> more advertising income is a tiny, tiny step from that. So the feeling
> that people have that they have to recoup advertising income from NC
> works is really the root of this problem.

Right, and here's the rub.  NC says to me "no" to advertising support for my 
site for remixes of nc licensed works, it says "no" to me for promoting my 
remixes via other sites/stations/channels which have advertising support, it 
says "no" to me selling something directly.

If I want the same benefits which the signed artists are granted from the NC 
license, I'd need to first of all publish something via a publishing house 
and then register that music with a performing rights society (ASCAP etc). 
SoundExchange (or whatever collection agency for my country) would then be 
able to pay me royalties for any performances and internet/commercial radio 
play.

The NC license then says "yes" to me earning royalty payments, but still a 
firm "no" for everything else.  It's the same for me and the signed artist. 
So there IS a kind of commerciality allowed within the mechanisms of the NC 
license (for music).   But wait, where did this support for the commercial 
establishment come from and how come it's built in to the non-commercial 
license?  Who on earth could benefit from it when all means of income are 
suppressed?

> Also, if someone learns something from an educational work, then they
> will improve their earning potential. So the "use" of a work may also be
> "commercial" even in contexts many of us ("educational users") would
> like to see described as "non-commercial".

In a sense knowledge is similar to a sound or sample in a remix, you're 
making use of something someone else created or re-created.

> But, if we try to grasp at every possible way that somebody can make
> indirect money from a work -- well, that way lies madness.
>
> The whole idea is ill-conceived.
>
> However, if CC wants to continue with the NC licensing concept, then it
> REALLY needs to come up with a specific definition for what NC means --
> or more importantly, what it DOES NOT MEAN.

Then once it's established we need some real-world examples of when and WHY 
folks should be using it.  It's harsh to expect people to make informed 
decisions with so much half-baked hearsay flying around.  It's amazing how 
many different versions of "what non-commercial really means" gets tossed 
around the community, with conflicting insight from the very folks running 
some of the top cc-based web sites. There needs to be a song book, and we 
all need to sing from IT.

Please!  Let's have some clear guidelines, sound advice and definitive 
examples.

> And it needs to make that definition public and evident to everyone who
> uses the licenses, as licensor or licensee.

Here here.....

> And unfortunately, that's going to mean making somebody angry! Because I
> guarantee you that no matter where you draw that line, somebody is going
> to be standing on the wrong side of it. But that's a product of how
> muddled things are due to the vagueness of the license -- IOW it's
> "damage already done" by the unwillingness of CC to take a stand.
>

I agree.  The situation at the moment is so confused it's unreal.

Kev


> Cheers,
> Terry
>
>
> -- 
> Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
> Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com
>
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