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

drew Roberts zotz at 100jamz.com
Tue Aug 5 20:31:24 EDT 2008


On Tuesday 05 August 2008 19:27:05 Kevin Phillips (home) wrote:
> 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.
> >
snip
>
> 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.

I perhaps wasn't at ccMixter from the very beginning, but I know at a time 
that I think was fairly early, they took a decision that they wanted all 
content on the site to be remixable with all other content on the site.

They could go with BY and BY-NC like they did.

They could go with BY and BY-NC-SA which lately I think I would prefer and I 
can't see any way it would harm the path they have chosen.

They could go with BY and BY-SA which I hope they do some day with a Free 
Mixter site.

You can't have BY, BY-SA and BY-NC all on the same site and meet the goal of 
having all bits remixable with all other bits on the site.
>
snip
>
> 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.

Yup, but then the goal of all bits being mixable with all other bits on the 
site would be out the window.
>
> >> 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.  

Any hope of this?

> 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.

And so have I while putting a BY-SA copy of the work on the internet archive 
and pointing to the alternate license version on the ccMixter site. It is the 
best I could figure out how to do and work on the Mixter in a way I am 
comfortably comfortable.

This leads to an odd paradox... I only look for BY works to work with on the 
site but don't want to release my works as BY. I don't feel great about this 
situation but I will see how things go.
>
> 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.

Hey, I was just told that oog vorbis files were not appreciated and that the 
Mixter was an mp3 community. I pointed to the mp3's that the archive makes 
from the flacs I put up there.
>
> >> Bingo.  I'd love to use SA all the time, but some web sites don't
> >> support it
> >> so I take what's offered.

Yup. I am working on a related list (income ideas for a band using BY-SA):

http://packet-in.org/wiki/index.php?title=Income

Just added a Kompoz link after seeing your reminder below.

> >> 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.

Well, I would be happy if they just offered a parallel Free Mixter until.

> 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

We also need to reach a Free and copyleft critical mass. Lots start using GPL 
software because there is a lot of it and the success of it is evident. We 
are not anywhere there yet with BY-SA music. Plus, there is a legal end run 
around BY-SA licensed music that the big boys can avail themselves of which 
does not exits for GPL software.

I just remembered to add the fix for this to my 'Some thoughts on a "Copyright 
Offensive"' post here:

http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.html
>
> :)

Kev, if you find you can do something with some of my stuff on the Mixter, 
please do and reviews would also be welcome. Do you have links to your stuff 
there?
>
> Kev
>

all the best,

drew




More information about the cc-community mailing list