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

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  • From: Christopher Randall <chris AT positronrecords.com>
  • To: cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [cc-sampling] Oh, boy.
  • Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 15:20:24 -0600

This is making my head hurt.

We have, despite some interesting comments from the pressing plant, got our first CC Sampling+ CD out the door and in the stores. We're now working on our second Sampling+ release, and a couple questions have come to light. I want to get some comments here so I can make an informed statement on the matter.

1) For the album in question, we had a remix contest for one of the tracks; the winner would have his/her mix included on the album. We got 26 mixes entered, and voting is now occurring, as we speak. ( http://www.positronrecords.com/artists/micro/contest/index.html if you're interested...) Now, if I understand this correctly, for the 25 mixes that don't make it to the album, the people that created them have the rights to their version of the song under the "creative transformation" rule, as long as they credit me as the writer / original license holder.

However, for the one that does go on the album, what the hell do I do? Since I am commercially releasing the record, and the track is a remix of one of my Sampling+ songs, technically it would be a creative transformation, and I would need to pay the creator a royalty. However, that's never been the case with remixes, where the original copyright holder retained the rights to the song, no matter how much it was transformed, because it fell under the work-for-hire clause.

Again, this wouldn't really be an issue except that we sell almost all these songs to libraries and production houses for use in television shows and movies. Can I not license this song to a production house, even though it is a transformation of my original work, without the permission of the person that did the remix, and compensating him accordingly? For Title 17 I know the rules, but this does change matters a bit.

2) This particular album is 95% instrumental, and one of the fans had an interesting question. Theoretically, under the mash-up rule, he could add his own vocals to the songs, and release them pretty much as-is otherwise, as long as he credits me and the other writers. Is this correct? I have no problem with it; more curious than anything else.

Thanks for any input on this matter. I love exploring new territory; it would have never occurred to me to do it with Title 17, but there it is.

Chris Randall
Positron! Records, Inc.

http://www.positronrecords.com


  • [cc-sampling] Oh, boy., Christopher Randall, 12/07/2004

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