Creative Commons Canada

[Russell McOrmond <russell AT flora.ca>]

  I agree with Ryan McGregor as far as individuals being paid being
separate from whether or not the *work* is commercially
distributed/copied/etc.  The whole donation box/individuals being paid/etc
should not be of concern.

  There is an area of all of this that still bothers me, and it would be 
great if someone could clarify.

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Julien Lamarche wrote:

> 3. If we take music for the soundtrack that is NonCommercial-ShareAlike,
> then so is the video. 

  Is a video that includes separately authored & performed music
considered a (with quotes from section 2 of the Canadian copyright act):

  a) a "Collective work"

         "collective work" means
         (c) any work written in distinct parts by different authors, or 
         in which works or parts of works of different authors are
         incorporated;

  b) a "compilation"

         "compilation" means
         (a) a work resulting from the selection or arrangement of
         literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works or of parts 
         thereof, or


  Is it a derivative work (not defined in the act) in which case the 
whole work would have to be licensed in a compatible license to all the 
individual components (IE: if the music or video clips were ShareAlike 
that the result would need to be ShareAlike)?

  In the case of a collective work it suggests to me that the resulting 
work must be in a license that is compatible with all the licenses of the 
individual components (Like when you link different pieces of software 
together to create one binary program).

  In the case of a "compilation" it seems to be separate from the 
individual parts (See below...)


  Is it a "performance"  (defined in act) of the music, and if so it is a
performance of the musical work each time the video is viewed, or is it
only a performance once for the purpose of creating a video?

  Is each copy of the video considered also a copy of the music?  The
copyright act suggests otherwise given the soundtrack is not considered a 
"sound recording"

     "sound recording" means a recording, fixed in any material form, 
      consisting of sounds, whether or not of a performance of a work, but 
      excludes any soundtrack of a cinematographic work where it
      accompanies the cinematographic work;



  In the past I thought I understood all this, but the "dj nonsense
presents an educational compilation ``here's another sample ...''"  made
me question this.  This is a mechanical CD handed out at the CC-CA launch
that has a CC license on it where it says:

   "This work is licensed under a Canadian Creative Commons (cc-ca) 
   License (NonCommercial 2.4).  You may use, modify and redistribute this 
   work provided that this original work is expressly attributed to the 
   creator and is used for non-commercial purposes.  
   http://creativecommons.ca";


  One of the songs was a Peter Gabrial song "Shock the Monkey".  I asked
how Creative Commons Canada managed to get their label to offer that song
under the AT-NC-ND license. The answer I was given was that it wasn't
offered under this license.

  In the above license "This work" relates to the compilation (the
arrangement of songs), and does not refer to a license for the songs
themselves.  Even though there is clearly a CC license on the CD, I would
supposedly be infringing copyright if I ripped the CD and distributed the
songs via a P2P network.

  Am I right in my interpretation that the arrangement (compilation) can
have an entirely incompatible license to the components of the
compilation?  If so, why was this not expressly detailed on the CD given
most people looking at this type of CD would quite legitimately assume
that they were authorized to non-commercially share all the songs
(individual or in a group) that were on the CD?

> Would appreciate any advice, even if it comes with a legal disclaimer.  

  I am not a lawyer or law student, just a peer production activist trying 
to make sense out of the mess we call copyright ;-)

-- 
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Happy Hacking, Eh!    http://www.digital-copyright.ca/blog/2 (My BLOG)
 Sign the Petition Users' Rights! http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/