[cc-community] using Creative Commons as a fig leave

Paul Keller pk at kl.nl
Tue Jul 7 06:42:09 EDT 2009


Dear Hessel,


thanks for your reply. The way you describe the combination of CC-BY- 
SA and CC+ does indeed make sense, but i have not really seen any  
information about this construction on the Tribe of Noise website yet.  
As far as i can see you do not seem to use the CC+ protocol at the  
moment (at least if i look at a random work on the ToN site (http://www.tribeofnoise.com/viewMusic.php?fileID=71&search=true 
  for example) and the click on the license link the commons deed does  
not contain a more permissions link).

Also good to hear that you want to fix these things. i guess my  
complaint comes down to the fact that right now you are not mentioning  
the additional license grant to Tribe of Noise anywhere except in the  
Terms of Use (not in the FAQs, not in the intro movie, not in the  
upload agreement and not in your user guide). i think some of the  
erlier responses on this list have shown that this is generally  
perceived as a problem of transparency of Terms of Use than as a  
problem of somehow ‘wrong’ terms of use and that means that it should  
be relatively easy to fix.

best, paul

p.s the links to your tips about copyright on the user guide page  
currently links to the wikipedia article on copyright (not sure if  
that means that this article is your tips about copyright or if this  
is the result of an incorrect link.

On 7 Jul 2009, at 07:41, Hessel van Oorschot wrote:

> Dear Paul,
> I have to say I feel both sad and disturbed by your posting.
>
> Behind the scenes my team and I have worked very hard over the last 2
> years to create a legal alternative for sharing music and in this
> period we were grateful for the groundbreaking work Creative Commons
> has done so far. But there is a discrepancy between the ideas you have
> on paper and the real world activities we deploy. There is a lack of
> jurisprudence and not many real life examples to help you mirror  
> ideas.
>
> That is why, from the start, we tried to get as many people involved
> as possible, ranging from musicians, lawyers, CC itself, collecting
> societies, open source entrepreneurs etc.
> Our door is always open and our minds are even more open to good
> constructive suggestions.
>
> What we set out to do was to prove that what the open source community
> has done can be done with open content as well: make it professional,
> make it successful even in a commercial sense, so it can and will be
> widely adopted.
>
> As for our business models, we will have to start making money, we are
> a private
> initiative, we have invested a lot of time and resources in the Tribe.
> But our business models are all indirect, we've learned that from the
> open source community. The models are build around the music. Not
> directly derived from the music.
>
> Now we have a prove of concept; initially people thought musicians
> would not understand CC or would not upload their music. Our next step
> will be the revenue sharing model for the musician. You seem to think
> that the share alike part is a constraint, we actually see it as the
> opportunity;
> the opportunity to waive the 'share alike' part and/or the
> 'attribution' part if a company wants to use your song but can't
> comply with (one of) the two conditions. As a musician you can charge
> money for waiving those rights (with CC+). Videographers, game
> developers, advertisement agencies are paying for this additional
> option. We even provide CC+ licence agreements for free.
>
> CC+ and CC By Share Alike, together with our terms of use, upload
> agreement, user guide and tips about copyright provide a solid legal
> framework for musicians to share music, stay in control and make money
> in the end. Our legal department together with two major law firms in
> the USA and Europe AND hopefully with the input of Creative Commons
> will make sure it stays that way.
>
> And yes we have generated a lot exposure and I will promise you we
> will do our best to keep up this pace. Because if we get exposure the
> artists on Tribe of Noise get exposure! It's one of the main reasons
> why they join our community.
>
> At Tribe of Noise we want to move forward from the theory of law
> towards getting things done in the real world; transparent, open and
> 100% legal. And yes, we will need feedback and sometimes we will
> differ in opinion in this hardly explored terrain. But instead of
> being suspicious and selectively reading between the lines, I feel it
> would be more constructive if you give me a call and say: "Hey Hessel
> I feel you have some contradictions in your terms of use."
>
> You know we would welcome you to our office, have a coffee, and
> discuss how we can improve.
>
> And Paul that people think Creative Commons can be the base for a
> brilliant business model should fill you with pride (excellent legal
> framework) and worries since that means not many people have heard
> from it yet and we still have a lot of words to spread!
>
> We had the kahuna's to actually invest in the CC by share alike
> license, and everybody is allowed to see them, so no fig leaves here
> Paul!
>
> _______________________________________________
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> cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-community
>

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