Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Monday 30 May 2005 07:11 pm, Rob Myers wrote:
> 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.

They may, in the meantime, they can also experiment and see what they can 
accomplish with just free tools. I think it would surprise us. They could 
also help the Free Software developers design and build the tools they need 
as professionals. 
>
> >> 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.

Indeed, CC or some other Free license is where it is at for me. I like the 
GPL 
for code and CC BY-SA for the rest right now. BY-SA is not all that I want in 
a license, but it will do while I look for something better.

That said, I think I have seen some CC music that is based on sounds from 
sample CDs.

http://www.sounduser.com/faq.html

I am not sure you can release music made from these sorts of sample CDs under 
a BY-SA license.

Does anyone have any further thoughts on this matter?
>
> >> 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.

A minimum of a mono (or stereo where needed) wav file for each recorded track 
would go a long way. Ogg versions could be available for initial fooling 
around. If you get somewhere, then download the wavs. If you have midi, abc, 
or some other source type files, release them as well.

It is not hard to think how the original author can release a gret resource, 
the difficult thing is to figure out a way to word things such that 
downstream abusers don't have too easy a time fiding loopholes.
> Trent could provide the original sources on a p2p network and an
> easily editable lo-res version from his site, for example.
>
> - Rob.

all the best,

drew
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