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  • From: Paul Keller <pk AT kl.nl>
  • To: Development of Creative Commons licenses <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Thoughts on new wording RE collection societies etc.
  • Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:23:45 +0100


On Jan 24, 2008, at 2:20 PM, drew Roberts wrote:

the reason I am personally interested is that I am from the Bahamas and I
write lyrics which I put under a BY-SA license.

We don't have a BS version of the licenses and I am not holding my breath.

ok, that makes it easier to understand why you are focussing on the unported version

As someone involved in coming up with the language you are quoting (at
least as far as the unported and non-us jurisdictions are concerned)
let me elaborate why this particular approach was chosen. first of all
the language you are quoting is from the unported version and as a
result is primarily intended to cover all those jurisdictions without
a jurisdiction specific version of the CC licenses. it is therefore
intentionally broad as it makes no sense to tailor the unported
language to the situation of a specific jurisdiction (or a group of
jurisdictions as it exists in the scandinavian countries). this
tailoring the licenses to specific situation is part of the porting
process and involves careful coordination between CCi and the
respective jurisdiction projects.

In General, the licenses are ment to express the intentions of the
licensors and it was figured that the licenses required clarifications
on how the core provisions of the CC licenses (royalty free licenses
for all uses vs. royalty free licenses for noncommercial uses only)
interact with collective licensing. The main reason for choosing the
current language was to make the special provisions consistent with
the overall message of these two types of licenses (NC/non-NC) which
broadly state 'you can use my work for free' (non-NC) or 'you can use
my work for free for noncommercial uses only - and i would like to be
paid (or at least asked for separate permission) if you want o use it
commercially' (NC):

In some cases it is not possible to allow others to use that work for
free as there are non-waivable compulsory licensing schemes (like
private copying levies) in place. for this case both non-NC and NC
licenses clearly state that the right to collect these levies is
reserved (in order to not give the impression that the licenses free
the licensee from paying these levies).

wherever such licensing schemes are waivable, the NC licenses assume
that the right to collect royalties is waived for all uses and the non-
NC licenses assume that the right to collect such royalties for non-
commercial uses is waived and that is it reserved for commercial uses.

I think you have these cases mistakenly reversed, but I know what you mean in
any case.

yep they are mistakenly reversed. sorry for this

the same construction is in place for collective rights management
(which usually comes very close to a waivable compulsory license. (In
some cases, as the one given by giselle it might be structurally
closer to a non-waivable compulsory license).

this construction is in line with the overall message of the licenses.
as Gisle points out it may make sense to choose different
implementations depending on the specific conditions in individual
jurisdictions and this is exactly what happens in the porting process
coordinated by CCi. given the scope of the unported licenses i would
however suggest to be extremely careful before attempting to change
the unported language as the current wording seems to strike a good
balance between the 'universal jurisdiction' requirement and the level
of detail desired. As far as i can see the current wording does not
really harm licensors, and licensors have sufficient possibilities to
influence the way thier music can be used by being able to chose
between NC and non-NC as well as choosing to be a CS member or not.

Yes, it does harm me and other like me who want to use BY-SA and would be
happy to waive our royalties for those performing the music etc. but are not
OK in cases where those very people we are trying to help still have to pay
and our would be royalties instead go to those using more restrictive
licenses.

i find it interesting that you seem to be motivated to release your works under cc primarily to ensure that others can have an economic advantage. my experience with musicians suggests that for most cc- using musicians this is not the primary motivation.

So, I think the change I propose is really very simple. Leave the license
basically as is but also don't waive where the "user" of our works cannot
take advantage of our royalty free offer for contractual as well as legal
reasons.

and then how do you get to those royalties? for that you would need to be member of a collecting society (which in most cases will not let you use CC licenses. The only exceptions here are currently KODA (dk), BUMA/STEMRA (nl) and ASCAP/BMI (us). if you are a member of one of these societies you would probably be well advised to use CC licenses that are ported to the jurisdiction where the society is based

So, someone using all BY-SA works in their own venue might not need to sign
with a collection agency at all and could avail themselves of the offered
waiving of rights. Someone who signed a blanket license with an agency and
cannot take a discount as a result of playing my BY-SA works would pay no
more or no less and I should be able to collect my share from the society.

but this scenario should be possible with the existing language. someone who plays exclusively non-NC licensed stuff does not need to pay. in the case of mixed repertoire is really not a problem of the licenses but of the unwillingness or inability of CSes to look at repertoire on a track by track basis. if you were a member of a society they would probably pay you royalties regardless of what the license says. I do not think changing the unported licenses (and that means making them even more complicated) would change the realities on the ground.

Is my suggestion at leat clear in idea if not in words to you?

yes it is, but as you can see from the above i do not think that changing the licenses is the right remedy here. would be interesting to hear what others on this list think...

cheers,
paul





I don't see how this would unduly complicate the unported license and would
benefit everyone in this situation.

all the best,
paul

all the best,

drew


On Jan 23, 2008, at 2:25 AM, drew Roberts wrote:
On Monday 21 January 2008 09:19:19 Gisle Hannemyr wrote:
On 18.01.2008 21:40, drew Roberts wrote:
OK, now I am not sure I have this right, but to the best I have
been able
to determine with some initial digging here, even if I wave my
rights, it
will not change the amount due by a radio station that has an
agreement
with PRS.

So what I was thinking was to include wording along the lines that I
waive my rights where I can except in cases where waiving them
will not
result in a savings for the person making first / direct use of
the work.

Let's say a business has an agreement with a collecting society
where
they pay X% of their gross to use any works they represent.

Let's say I have some BY-SA songs thet the collection society either
directly or indirectly collects royalties for.

Let's say this is in a country where I can waive my rights.

Given these circumstances, (Do they exist anywhere in the world?

Yes. This is the case in Norway (and I think it also applies to
Sweden and Denmark as well - and maybe even Finland and Iceland.
This type of regulation is sometimes known as a "nordic style"
extended collective license.

Some examples:

For music, TONO (composers) and GRAMO (performers) here in Norway has
a blanket license scheme where a company pays a fixed sum for the
right to use ambient music depending on their number of employees.
The income this generates is distributed composers and musicians.
If you use a CC license, you can not be a member (since the societies
require an exclusive license), but the law still say that non- members
can claim remuneration from the society (i.e. the law require the
society to give non-members equal treatment). However, since the
CC-license says that you waive the right to collct royalties,
the societies will tell that by using CC you've waived your right,
and they instead redistribute this revenue (called "orphan revenue")
to those that have not waived this right (i.e. composers and
musicians that do not use CC-licensing).

Basically, the Norwegian copyright law says that if a collion society
represents a "substantial part" of the creators of the category of
works
in question, they are allowed to collect on behalf on /all/ creators
(i.e. members as well as non-members of this category of work). One
of the societies (Kopinor) explains how it works here:
http://www.kopinor.org/opphavsrett/extended_collective_license

I think they
might here, but I am still checking.) my waiving my rights will not
result in any savings to the company playing my songs, say a radio
station or a store, and do I would not want them waived, even
though I
can.

Then it would be up to the companies in my country to negotiate
deals
with the collection society where they can take advantage of such
waivers
by me before I would actually waive my rights for them.

Right now, I would be waiving them but they would still be being
collected. Not what I would want.

I agree that this is unfortunate. I do not like the collection
society part of the license at all. The way it is currently
phrased, of you live in a country were copyright law allow
colletion societies to use extended collective liceses, the
CC license let someone else to make a profit on your work, and you
waive the right to receive it.

For some reason collection societies do not like Creative Commons.
In Norway they use this in their anti-CC propganda. They tell
artists and writers that if they use CC, they will not be eligable
for payment out of of the large revenue streams (in 2005, Kopinor
received NOK 195 million = EURO 24 million) under extended collective
licenses.

So then, do you think some sort of language like I put forth would
make sense
as a change to the licenses in question? Can you see of a better way
to word
things if so?

Thanks so much for the response by the way.

all the best,

drew

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www.kennisland.nl | www.knowledgeland.org






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