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cc-sampling - Re: [cc-sampling] sampling/recombo

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Subject: Development of the Creative Commons Sampling license (or license option)

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  • From: Don Joyce <don AT negativland.com>
  • To: creative commons license list <cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-sampling] sampling/recombo
  • Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 23:58:44 -0700

Title: Re: [cc-sampling] sampling/recombo
Ok, just jumping in here seeing only this email in the thread so far, I like the name.
I do not consider myself a composer, but a recomposer.
Recombo can fit anything, can achieve international legibility without translation, and most important to me, sounds playful - something which fuels and characterizes many recombo works in the first place. It sounds like a dance, medical slang, or an elaborate sandwich. I say bravo recombo! Untypically unacademic too! I can relate.

But what bothers me still is how all these arguments about how to express a willing sharing of cultural raw material have no bearing at all on an unwilling relationship between source and recombo artist. The one we face all the time in reality. Most sources any of us want to use are still copyrighted, still defended as such, and still kept technically untouchable in our permission-only culture. This simply insures that illegal art continues unabated.

If recombo artists can only safely steal from other artists who have stamped their work with a CC license - sorry, but that leaves us practically nothing we actually want to steal, especially all the fun stuff that is coming from an attitude that would never sign up for a CC stamp. From any humorous point of view, the whole copyrighted-forever culture out there is exactly what we want to appropriate from, not just from other art by like-minded artists.

What is the next step to address any of this???
Tell me I'm wrong because it involves Congress, but it seems to me that this would have to involve revising existing copyright law itself to suddenly distinguish between counterfeiting exact products and transformative creative reuses, that they are espousing two different purposes entirely, the latter being a desirable public interest purpose and opened up to a much broader range of fair use rights. A copyrighted, permission-only culture is the death of recombo art of all kinds.  
DJ
Negativland

 




On Aug 5, 2004, at 11:44 AM, David wrote:
So really no justification at all really? Just that you felt like it. Hmmm.

While I work for Creative Commons and Glenn did post a lengthy explanation, I wanted to explain the name change to Recombo from my perspective as someone working on the website behind the scenes. Perhaps it will clear some things up.

If you've been following this list from the beginning, the name of the license was a point of contention for several months. Mash-up, Mash-me, Remix, Sampling/Sampling+, and Collage all came up at one point or another as possibilities. The problem with each of these names was hashed out on the list, but many of the name candidates favored one format over others. Most names were very music-centric, while a few were image-centric. None of the names seemed to appeal to anyone remixing text works.

When the list settled on  "sampling" it was clearly a compromise that wasn't perfect, but in the months of brainstorming, a better candidate never came up.

Fast forward a few months, and the Creative Commons website has internationalized. We have the license engine and deeds translated into six languages and laws of each country. As a designer, I'm learning everyday how difficult it is to build sites, designs. and content that works anywhere in the world. Most of the language on the site is general enough that it doesn't cause problems with translations (we're working on translating the entire site later this year), but newer, regional, and specialized terms are difficult to translate.

In June, Glenn and Neeru headed down to Brazil for a special event at an open source conference which he described in detail last night in a message to the group. The name "Recombo" came out of that event as an idea and they ran with it.

Personally, after seeing problems with translating every nuanced term from our site, I have come around to embrace the name Recombo. The idea is that the word is unique enough that it doesn't require translation. Google is Google in any language, as is Yahoo -- so too could "recombo". It's also unique and doesn't have any history in music, film, photographs, or text, so it doesn't favor one art form over others. It's a new term, but some of our other choices were fairly new as well ("mash up" was unheard of just a few years ago, etc).

While the name was created on the fly and wasn't floated to the list before being decided on, I do believe it solves a lot of problems we had with other names, and will be easier to translate to other cultures, as a new term. It's a neutral term that doesn't have a lot of history in one artform over any other, and this license is different from anything that's ever come before.

I think we have an opportunity here to help define the word "Recombo" to embody the spirit of this list and the license, and be instantly recognizable as a specific thing that has never existed before, and it wil be applicable to all sorts of works.

Matt



 


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