Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

On 29 May 2005, at 12:33, drew Roberts wrote:

> > 1) The original source material for music tracks is going to be  
> > huge.  I
> > think wav files are about 70 Mb for 7 minutes.  Even with only 4  
> > tracks
> > (guitar, bass, drum, vocal) that's 280 Mb

280MB is nothing these days. If a song's source would fill a DVD or  
three, that's a small price to pay for a student or practitioner of  
music, and as Drew says:

> BitTorrent may help in some way as well.

Bandwidth and storage media are the major chargeable commodities of a  
data/culture "gift economy", so passing big files over p2p or handing  
DVDs around is no bad thing. p2p bandwidth will be a major revenue  
driver *if* we can move enough content. Providing source is a good  
way of doing this.

> I also wonder if it may be possible to have ogg and wav versions of  
> the
> multitrack project files. Get the ogg version for experiments, then  
> get the
> wav version if you think you made something worth while and want to  
> release.

This is where understanding what transparent, editable and source  
material resources for a work might be is useful.

> > 2) The tools being used can be very expensive.  The software  
> > itself can
> > be pricey:
> >    Pro Tools: $350
> >    Fruityloops: $150
> >    Reason: $500
> > And that's not counting any needed hardware.  I have a friend who  
> > makes
> > dance music and he has thousands of dollars of gear.  Even if he  
> > gave me
> > his source material and all the software, it wouldn't be worth much
> > unless I had the same gear he has.
>
> I am not into the windows/mac side of things, but the Free Software  
> world is
> getting some nice tools together:[...]
>
> Free just seems to make sense in so many areas.

Yes, free formats complement free culture. A free song in a  
proprietary format is not truly free, whether it is DRM encumbered or  
not. But that said, professionals may use particular tools that are  
not replaceable by free equivalents yet, and I personally believe  
that providing professional-quality editable work is important. So  
freedom of cultural work *for cultural professionals* may be an  
ongoing project.

> > 3) If the source material isn't owned by the creator, it isn't  
> > clear if
> > they are even allowed to distribute it.  For example, if the original
> > samples in a song are from a stock sound library, I don't think the
> > composer would be allowed to distribute them.  The GPL handles  
> > this by
> > saying all the included sources must also be licensed under the  
> > GPL, but
> > I don't know if that makes sense for music.
>
> This is a valid issue, but it can prevent the release of the  
> musiciaans work
> under some of the existing CC licenses as well from what I gather.

For me, if something isn't CC licensed you don't touch it. Fair use/ 
fair dealing is too vague and is shrinking. YMMV, but it will take a  
lot of money to defend unclear rights. CC is better IMHO.

> > It seems like the only way around #1 and #2 is to release sources  
> > in a
> > format far removed from what the composer actually used, which  
> > certainly
> > lessens their usefulness.

Working towards full-strength open formats is therefore vitally  
important for free music. Whether it is more important to make  
editable music sources:
a) available but possibly low quality
or:
b) high quality but possibly only accessible to professionals with  
expensive facilities
is an issue in the meantime. Possibly both can be done until then.  
Trent could provide the original sources on a p2p network and an  
easily editable lo-res version from his site, for example.

- Rob.