Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

IANAL, TINLA, I'm not Creative Commons.

Notes on fan work and copyright:

http://fanart.lionking.org/Copyright.shtml
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

I'm concentrating on *audiovisual* fan work here, not fan fiction.

On Wednesday, October 20, 2004, at 07:37AM, <DOKool AT aol.com> wrote:

>I'm part of the AMV (Anime Music Video) community.  The basic idea is like 
>any other fanvid - purchase existing source (both footage and music), and 
>re-edit the anime to create... well, just about anything, as more and more 
>AMVs are starting to rely on editor-created elements, from original effects 
>to original 2 and 3-d animation.

You may own the effects and any unrelated animation. :-) The rest is 
derivative work if it features material from the original work.

>There's currently a debate among the scene regarding video theft - 
>basically, new editors taking clips and sequences from other people's AMVs 
>and using them to create their own.  The debate basically falls along 
>several lines... "I worked hard to make that sequence and some brat just 
>takes it?" "You don't own the rights to the footage in the first place, why 
>does it matter?" "OMG DBZ R0XXORS!" etc.

Fan work is derivative, copyright on it belongs with the original copyright 
owner. You cannot legally object to mistreatment of your fan work based on 
copyright, as you do not hold the copyright to the work. You can object 
socially, which shouldn't be underestimated in fan circles. :-)

>The problem is that AMVs, and derivative fan-works in general, fall under 
>many questions of ownership.  Of course, the American licensor owns the 
>distribution rights to the anime in the US, and the Japanese production 
>company owns the rights to the show itself.  Furthermore, you have an 
>artist/band who owns the music we use.

The ownership is clear: the bands own the music, the anime companies own the 
original footage AND any derivative footage.

>So, I suppose the big question is, can our vids be protected in any way 
>under Creative Commons?  It's a tricky ethical issue to navigate, but I'd 
>like to know what the general feeling is on the issue.

It' not tricky, I'm afraid: CC licenses are copyright licenses. You need 
rights to the work to license it. Since the work is derivative and you don't 
have the rights, you cannot legally CC license the work.

As my usual aside on this topic, this is handled explicitly by the Open 
Gaming License's "representation of authority to contribute" clause.

>I'd also like to extend the debate to anime fansubs, but for now I'll end my 
>post and see what people think about fanvids, and perhaps even fanart and 
>fic in general.

Subs & dubs are derivative works as well. So are drawings & cels of 
characters.

Now I'm of the mindset that anime fandom *created* the market for anime in 
the West, so if the anime distributors ever try to limit fan operations, they 
should be invoiced for all that free publicity & sales work. 

AMVs sound like exactly the kind of creative remixing CC is designed for. A 
fan license (NC or remix) would allow the fans free reign, build the 
community & market for anime, and prevent commercial exploitation. It would 
be a win-win scenario for anime companies and fans. But as things stand, fan 
work in general can't be CC'd as the fans don't have the rights to the work 
that the CC licenses need to operate. 

IANAL, etc.

- Rob.