[cc-community] Rcrd Lbl to offer CC and Free as in Beer Music

Christopher Budnick cbudnick at gmail.com
Sat Nov 17 16:25:39 EST 2007


On Nov 17, 2007 3:17 PM, Rob Myers <rob at robmyers.org> wrote:
> The DIY music movement wouldn't be economically viable if not for
> precisely the technological developments that allow free distribution of
> their work.

That's precisely the issue- DIY music, in most cases, isn't
economically viable and its successes and attractions, as far as I can
consider how they exist in Boston, are that it's especially hard to
monetize. The people coming and holding punk basement shows and
recording their albums in radio station studios or bedrooms aren't
looking for economic viability.

The dissemination of DIY music, at least the sort I know, hasn't
changed terribly much with any recent technological developments.
Instead of selling $1 tapes and everyone copying those for everyone
else they're MP3s that still only a few hundred people are going to
listen to, I'm not sure the audience has changed much for most bands
and certainly the changes that have occurred aren't encouraging anyone
to make music that didn't previous, again, within this very limited
group.

Talking about DIY music as a general spirit or system is difficult
and, I'm not sure if it's terribly productive.

On what Fred said earlier:

On Nov 16, 2007 11:44 AM, Fred Benenson <fred.benenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is a battle that's really outside the scope of CC -- convincing people
> to be absolutely altruistic in their creation of culture is a worthy and
> noble goal, but too often comes off as naive and idealistic when mixing with
> the realities that creators have to face on a day-to-day basis.

I agree, and don't think that this is an either/or situation. I think
as long as CC is free-as-in-choice any arrangement of information that
presupposes validity of a license over another is going to be
problematic. I also think as long as we see this as a way for 'other
people' to license their art liberally to 'us,' we're going to have
serious problems with free culture or CC being anything but an idea we
hope to sell to others.

It's more complex than that and any strategies for promoting it usage
should keep that in mind. CC is, and is also a way of creating, a
completely new structure, one removed somewhat from ARR. I think it's
much more useful and truthful to describe the structure, give examples
of how it can/'t be used, and to see how we use it. Catalonia might
invoke CC to promote and perpetuate a unique culture or language, I
might use it for licensing my next album because I think it'll sell
better, but both are still working through a similar system of
categories and, as affected, are shaped by it.

Economics matter if you're trying to 'sell' someone the idea, or make
it financially viable, especially in terms of promoting its usage in
third-world countries, as Ethan Zuckerman brought up the other day,
with the example of many reporters in sub-saharan Africa that want
nothing more than to sell a story to Reuters and make in 5 hours
enough money for a month. How do we make CC viable to /them?/ Does it
need to be? I think, for some of these cases, we really should (FC?
CC?) look back to the reasons we started promoting copyleft and
Creative Commons, why we've created these systems and tools.

best
christopher


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