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cc-licenses - Re: derivative works question: "cover" songs

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: "Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>
  • To: "Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts" <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc: "Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts" <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: derivative works question: "cover" songs
  • Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 10:23:33 -0500 (EST)


William Morgan said:
> I realize this may be straying away from the CC aspect of things, but
> does anyone have insight into whether royalties need to be paid if the
> recordings of such works are distributed for free?

> It seems like current copyright law was not designed with the "folk
> process" in mind... sigh.

the "compulsory license" allows cover songs for a
predetermined royalty. I'm guessing that since
"royalty" implies percentage of a price, then you probably
can't use compulsory license if you're not charging
a price.

Copyright law was designed to create a "Market Economy"
that rewards private investment and private risk to
create new works by granting the creator a limited
monopoly that allows them to recoup their investment
by selling copies and possibly make a profit that
balances the risk.

a "Gift Economy", individuals contributing to a greater good,
can exist inside of Copyright law only by licensing most
of teh Market Economy rights away to the public. You have to
do some extra work to create a Gift Economy of songs,
writings, photos, etc. Copyright, by default, creates a
Market Economy for the Author.

Compulsory Licenses are specific for Market Economies,
wording in Royalty payments, which assumes that the
only reason someone would create a Derived work, a
cover song, is for money. Gift Economies is not even
on Copyright Law radar.

Part of teh reason for my document "Drafting the Gift Domain"
is to show how Copyright law could be changed to allow
Market Economy and Gift Economy approaches to exist
side by side in the law.

--
Draft the Gift Domain:
Put Free/Libre/Open/Public licensing
concepts directly into Copyright Law.
http://www.greglondon.com/dtgd/html/draftingthegiftdomain.html





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