[cc-community] Ask for help: I agreed to a license by mistake
Terry Hancock
hancock at anansispaceworks.com
Thu Feb 21 22:03:37 EST 2008
Cesare Marilungo wrote:
>>One question I do have -- did you mark the works with your By-NC-ND
>
> At the time they were. Recently I re-uploaded all the mp3s on my server
> with a better quality and I didn't put any info about the license since
> I thought that people who downloaded them from my website would have
> read the license on the page.
Oh, don't ever assume that. Metadata is often bad, because people don't
know how to set it correctly. But if you've got that problem solved,
don't stop using it. There are a zillion-and-one ways for a work to get
separated from a webpage referring to it, and the metadata is always
going to be more authoritative.
In this case, for example, if your metadata says "By-NC-ND" and the
referring site says "By-SA", then I'd say the "By-NC-ND" is the license
that actually applies. I can't swear that a court would back that up,
but I'd at least bet my pocket change on it. :-)
> In my profile page on Opsound I've put the link to my website for
> additional informations, and there the license has always been by-nc-nd.
Which, IMHO, is still more authoritative than Opsound's data.
> I understand this. And I agree with you. It's just that I should know if
> I'm giving my work to the commons
Well, yeah. That's why verifying intent is so important.
> Also, the web (as well as peer to peers, torrents) are full of
> copyrighted mp3s shared illegally.
Though quite a few are shared legally, too (either because of licensing
or because of differing statutes -- file-sharing _is_ fair use in some
countries).
> By-nc-nd gives you the permission to
> do this legally. Releasing your own music under this license you also
> take the statement that you don't think that music should be sold.
Not necessarily. There's still significant motivation to pay for NC-ND
music. It's a lot more work to burn and label your own CDs, for example.
You can regard that as a form of "ancillary" marketing of course, since
it's really the packaging and not the music you're selling, but it's
much the same. (Yeah, I still use CDs, and I wouldn't trust my music to
be just stored as an MP3 on a flash drive -- that's fine for throwaway
stuff, but not music I care about).
Still, I appreciate your reasons for using NC-ND.
> That
> you want to communicate and share your art first, and that support to
> artist should be voluntary. All the people I have met in person think
> that this is crazy. Go figure.
Well, it's always voluntary, really.
> I understand this, too. You're right. But if somebody has used those
> tracks on a gpl game or a movie or something else or he/she has made a
> cover or sampled a track he should have credited me. And I would have
Yes, of course.
BTW, I did mis-speak slightly. If you had released By-SA, I would have
to license the game content By-SA, not GPL (the engine might be GPL).
Which is what I meant to say.
> know about this. If this hypothetical derived work could not be found by
> googling, I can safely assume it has never been published. What I'm
> trying to say is that I am sure nobody would be hurted.
Google isn't all-powerful. I've tried searches like you suggest and not
found references that I know are published (Google might actually find
it, but not list it until 30 or 40 pages back -- which I'm not going to
find). For example, I have a full CV online, but searching for my name
doesn't turn it up (at least not early in the results).
> So what do you think I should do? :-)
I'm still unclear on what the problem is. It sounds as if you've already
done most of what you can do easily. You can send no-fault take-down
notices to people who are using your work illegally (I don't think
citing Opsound's incorrect reference is sufficient to defend their
actions). Explain that the listing was an error and that you aren't
intending to prosecute, but that they need to remove the material.
Reputable users should have no problem with that, if they understand
what happened (I know I wouldn't).
Anything beyond that is going to require a lawyer, and your willingness
to deal with the time and money costs that prosecution might require.
Or you could just decide to chalk it up to experience, and not worry
about it.
It was, ultimately, your mistake, though, even if it was just a
technical one of not reading Opsounds' ToS. So you can't really expect
someone else to pay the costs. That leaves it up to you to decide how
much effort you want to put into this. How badly do you care?
Cheers,
Terry
--
Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com
More information about the cc-community
mailing list