Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

On Thursday, February 19, 2004, at 10:40AM, Thomas Uwe Gruettmueller 
<sloyment AT gmx.net> wrote:

>If I press the button of a tape recorder, what exactly is the 
>"performance" then? The pressing of the button? 

I Am Not A Lawyer.

On a conceptual level, the act of translating a score into sound waves by a 
musician could be considered roughly equivalent to the act of translating 
data into sound waves by an electronic device.

Public performance" and "public playback" are therefore roughly equivalent, 
and so can fall under the same legal category. In both cases, "performance" 
means "causing people to hear the music". 

IIRC you mentioned that in German law there may be specific licensing 
conditions for public playback of a recording. Are these exclusions from a 
more general category? Can I get more general terms or do I have to 
specifically include each term in a license? Within the terms of the CC 
licenses (written under American law), public playback legally falls under 
"performance" for historical reasons. For historical reasons, the words have 
different scopes in each country's law. I think this is a good example of why 
the iCommons are a good idea. :-)

- Rob.