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

drew Roberts zotz at 100jamz.com
Tue Jul 7 15:29:19 EDT 2009


On Tuesday 07 July 2009 01:41:15 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,

your business model may address his concerns and you seem to hint at it in 
this post but you do not spell it out clearly.

You speak of investing in a CC BY-SA license, but by his explanation, you are 
investing in accumulating rights to works that you can license any which way. 
Where in your agreements with the artists do you legally limit yourself as to 
what you can do with your non BY-SA license that you get and others don't and 
where do you legally bind yourself to share the same with the artists and in 
what proportion? If this is mostly / all a misunderstanding and you are acting 
straight up and have this all covered, give the links and this thing will die 
down fast as far as you are concerned.

The larger problem of a need for some standard terms of service agreements or 
something similar will still exist but that is a different thing in a way.


> Paul!

all the best,

drew



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