[cc-community] Copyright enforcement and CC BY-NC licenses

Kevin Phillips (home) tacet at qmpublishing.com
Tue Aug 5 19:27:05 EDT 2008


Hey Terry,

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Terry Hancock" <hancock at anansispaceworks.com>
To: <cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 9:14 PM
Subject: Re: [cc-community] Copyright enforcement and CC BY-NC licenses


> Kevin Phillips (home) wrote:
>> No, I don't object to it.  We were talking about irony, and the irony of 
>> the
>> NC license being setup to support a very commercial set of procedures and
>> organisations. None of the other licenses (including arguably the most
>> "commercial" BY) have been made "compatible with collecting societies", 
>> only
>> NC.
>
> The real problem is that "non-commercial" depends on who you mean.

I know :)

> As used, it means that the recipient of the work can use it only for
> "non-commercial" uses.
>
> But the principle reason for having such a limitation is that the work
> itself IS "commercial" and that the author of the work wants to "retain
> commercial rights" in the work.
>
> IOW, the name of the license is user-rights centric, but the choice of
> license is author-rights centric. Thus, from the author's PoV, the name
> creates confusion, and that probably means that errors are made in
> selecting a license.
>
> Since the "non-commercial license" is really the "license of choice for
> commercial authors", this is indeed ironic.

Exactly!  I understand the PoV from both angles, largely thanks to you guys
from previous discussions.

> One solution might be to rename the license -- it could be called
> "commercial-rights-reserved" (CR), for example.

Yes, great idea.  I think we've discussed this a little previously and came
up with a bunch of new naming conventions for good measure.  However,
it's not just a question of  "what's in a name".

There's a whole world of NC licensed music out there now, the cats
out of the bag and as Drew mentioned in his response many of the
top tier CC music sites are responsible.

This is part-way understandable, as ccMixter for instance was from the
off a site to encourage the remixing of songs via competitions, seeded
from the commercial world.  The site has since taken many twists and
turns, some of which are encouragingly towards self-seeded
source material.  This is what I'm personally interested in, I don't care
so much for the remix competitions but enjoy nothing more than remixing
other community member submissions and being remixed in return.

The NC license really has no place in the latter context.

> One thing that certainly ought to be done is to have the license
> selection wizard ask its questions differently.

Absolutely.  Again, a great idea and we've discussed this too.  I'm no
fan of the "deed" - it's a little too Fisher Price for my liking.  Sometimes
it's good to simpify things for us common folk, but the deed really is
an over simplification.

At the very least there should be a link to some real-world examples
of what you can and can't do with the work (from both PoVs).

> Right now, it asks the author a user-centric question:
>
> "Allow commercial uses of your work?"
>
> This is okay at telling you what the licenses do for the user, but it
> doesn't tell you what the effect of the choice is on the *author* (the
> one who's reading and answering these questions). In fact, I've answered
> questions from some authors who get so confused they think THEY can't
> use the work commercially if they choose an NC license.

Absolutely.  It's so confusing in fact that some folks who understand it
initially are often persuaded of an alternative meaning, wrongly by others.

I've had a discussion myself with a guy who was convinced the license
would mean he could no longer use his own music on his own web site.

> A better -- more author-centric -- question would be:
>
> "Do you want to retain a monopoly on commercial exploitation of your
> work (for example, so that you alone can sell the work or collect fees
> from collecting societies on the work)?"

I personally enjoy the direct nature of this one :) Though, can't imagine
the liberal thinkers would let you get away with using the "e" word.

I'm sure the legal department could come up with something.

> I think that would make the true use-cases for NC (and ND) much more 
> clear.

Yes, I agree.

>>> I'm not understanding your objection here.
>>
>> Clarity is the grounds of my objection.  I'm not against commercial 
>> artists
>> releasing works into CC, I think it should happen more.  I'm not against
>> them being paid for their work via their CS as they've always been.  I 
>> just
>> think it's not helpful that the NC licenses has been manipulated aka 
>> "made
>> compatible" to their ends, which otherwise would be (and is) very strict
>> about non-commercial uses.
>
> I think the real problem is that NC is *NOT* the right license for
> "purely non-commercial uses". If you just want a work to be for
> non-commercial use, because you want it to be free and you don't want it
> to be "exploited", then you'd be much better off with a By-SA license.

Right, and that's what I was getting at with the ccMixter situation.  Where
a mix has been community seeded, remixed, remixed again and again....why
is the default for that mix NC?  SA is a much more suitable license for that
kind of work.

>> Meantime an amateur musicians could chose BY-NC with the waiver intact,
>> because she's not signed up to a CS and she doesn't want commercial uses.
>
> Unless by "amateur" you really mean "semi-pro", I don't see why they'd
> want to use By-NC in the first place. Bottom line: unless you're trying
> to get revenue from selling the work, By-SA is a better option for
> keeping the work "free".

They wouldn't normally chose it if they were more clued-up or given more 
choice.
To become more clued-up there needs to be a push from the inside,
from CC itself.  Same for choices.  When an amateur who does not have
CS affiliation posts original work on a site like ccMixter they look at the
license choices and there's no SA license to choose, so they pick NC.

My guess is that many of the musicians on ccM don't even know about SA,
let alone understand the difference.  There seriously needs to be some kind
of informational drive, to push out some knowledge into the community.

>> Bingo.  I'd love to use SA all the time, but some web sites don't support 
>> it
>> so I take what's offered.  A lot of musicians don't get the concept of 
>> SA,
>> so they choose NC thinking it will stop corporates nicking their music. 
>> If I
>> want to remix music the majority of stuff is NC.
>
> Both of those are severe social ills, and should (IMHO) be fought.

'fraid so.

> Boycott those NC-only sites. Use the ones which permit free licensing
> instead. We need to support the people who support us.

I could, but then I'd have limited scope for remixers.  Kompoz started 
offering
SA a little while back, so my next couple of projects will be posted there.

That doesn't help my friends on ccM though.  And suggesting they jump
ship to another site, well, I'd sooner walk the plank :D

> As for musicians not understanding the licenses they pick for their own
> works, shame on them! Get educated.

Actually, I think it's more like :
The poster child of CC, ccMixter rejects SA licenses....shame on them.
Musicians fail to get CC's garbled messages.....shame on those garblers.

It seems like the only way to really undestand all the options and licenses,
and the subtlety therein, is to read this mailing list! ....heaven help us 
:)

Kev

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