[cc-licenses] Creative Commons and Collection Society

Jamison Young jam at jamyoung.net
Tue Jul 17 00:27:17 EDT 2007


In Australia APRA have a half and full membership. According to APRA  
3000 artists apply for membership each year.  About 500 of these  
application might have something to do with a professional publisher / 
manager/ label.  These 2500 artists are going to be lucky to earn on  
average 5 dollars through the collecting system in the next 5 years  
( that is a guess). The artists (not with publisher /manager/ label)  
that would collect the most in this time would most likely be the  
artists that are performing original works combined with covers of  
popular material. These artists would most likely make more money for  
the publishers of that material than they would for themselves.  
Artists that do create only original works and do not do any live  
performance are going to find it hard to ever become full members of  
APRA. If they do ever collect a royalty they will most likely pay  
more  for the publicity to that publishing system than they get back.  
Its possible to get some radio play through the community radio  
networks in Australia. Yet this airplay means that you get very  
little royalty back as the license fees to APRA are small and for the  
most these stations still play music owned by publishers/labels. The  
commercial networks generally don't play any self published materials  
as the cost for well published material is the same as materials not  
published at all.  The people that benefit the most from these  
artists are the people that master and mix their recordings as well  
as online opportunities that the artists has to pay for. APRA  
recommend that the artists seek legal advice prior to using a CC  
license. Is CC not best just letting artists know that they should  
get some good advice prior to joining a CS ? An artist that puts any  
kind of restriction or cost for use for their material (that is not  
with a publisher/label/manager) seems to be making conditions worse  
for that material.





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