Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Gary (AUDN)" <gary AT audn.net>]

p.s.
In my last post, my bits that say:

Greg: CC-BY-ND would not provide the artists enough protection.

Terry: I agree!

are responses from me to Greg and Terry, sorry if this was confusing, I was
a bit inconsistent.


-----Original Message-----
From: cc-licenses-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:cc-licenses-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Gary (AUDN)
Sent: 04 April 2006 10:20
To: 'Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts'
Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Creative commons for music

Yes some great comments here.

If I can answer/address a few points.

Rob said: "Musicians could release a closed version of the track as a promo
and an NC version of the track for online advertising/ remixing. I think. I
am not a lawyer, though."

The commercial bodies such as PRS/MCPS/PPL and USA versions I believe put a
clause which means these artists are not allowed to release the odd track
under another license such as a CC one. They are trying to monopolize the
market. 

Rob and Greg made the point that what is the difference between someone
"selling" the track via podcasts etc, and "selling" the track on a CD.

What I think is missing, is a license that allows the INDIRECT commercial
benefit of the tracks. Podcasts or internet radio which charge to listen or
download are obviously breaching this. Putting the music in a "free" Podcast
is not "distributing it" in this sense. In fact you could add a clause to
say the music must be "spoken over" with a credit if the artist was worried
about this. It is an entertainment medium, not a distribution medium.

This is mutual benefit. The artist essentially wants to make money from
their tracks, they want to have money to tour, advertise and buy new guitars
or simply to be able to leave their job and make an income from their art.
Even if the broadcaster makes money via advertising, this is not really
"making money from the track" - well even if it is, the money made is
payment for the exposure the artist is getting for the track.
The artist WOULD NOT release all of their tracks under this license. This is
key. The artist gets exposure, people want more, they visit the website and
buy the album.


The podcaster or internet radio person wants to make money too. How many
podcasts die out or internet stations are limited in bandwidth? The money is
needed so that more time and money can be spent on the venture. It's the
only way people can even dream of competing with the multi-million pound
corporations. 

I think what makes people angry is abusing the system, people making lots of
money off of someone elses creations. People are also angry about the big
corporations and how everything commercial is so bland.

Greg: CC-BY-ND would not provide the artists enough protection.

Terry: I agree!

This would be a license for "small businesses" - hey you could even put this
into the clause somehow. This is putting power back to the cottage
industries.

In a year or so time, we will have so many people making mediocre podcasts
from shoestring budgets that the public will get bored. The commercial
corporations will watch what is successful and steal the best ideas - but
steamroller the original guys with advertising and hype. Like they always
do.
(There are some excellent podcasts out there, but how long will they last
before they want to become commercial in some way. And why not, if it keeps
the podcast running).

Greg: If the license became so common place that most record labels were
using it on their music, I think that secondary sites, which could allow
downloads of the music for no direct costs and make their money on
advertising, and direct sales would drop

I would like to see the license common place, but NOT all tracks would be on
the license. This would stimulate sales of CDs/downloads. Hey it's like
having a trial version of software, "try before you buy".
Plus - musicians make money from loads of other sources, merchandise and
tours.

Greg: It'd be nice if everyone was on the same page as to what, exactly,
CC-NonCommercial meant before we went off and tried to create
Yet-Another-Incompatible-License-Option.

Couldn't agree more. It's too fuzzy. 
Websites like podsafeaudio.com are great, but as podcasts become more
commercial it makes a complete folly of the CC-NC license.

-----Original Message-----
From: cc-licenses-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:cc-licenses-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Greg London
Sent: 04 April 2006 03:50
To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Creative commons for music


> On the contrary, I'd say it's very different: There's a lot of
> difference between "indirect" profit from the free sharing
> of a work and "direct" profit by controlling the distribution
> of the work.

It'd be nice if everyone was on the same page as to what,
exactly, CC-NonCommercial meant before we went off and
tried to create Yet-Another-Incompatible-License-Option.
I can just imagine the CC-IN debate over the license
that would allow INdirect commercial use, but not direct
commercial use, and it makes my head hurt. Just thinking
about the NC definition makes my head hurt enough that
I've avoided further reading of CC's NC questionaire.

> In fact, I think there's probably a lot of people who wouldn't
> care about the indirect profit issue as long as they could
> retain a monopoly on selling CDs or whatever medium they
> chose (or on per-track download fees).

Except the person who originally brought up this idea
was talking about a "license for the record companies".
And when you look at it that way, the license doesn't scale.
If the license became so common place that most record
labels were using it on their music, I think that
secondary sites, which could allow downloads of the music for
no direct costs and make their money on advertising,
and direct sales would drop.

(1) Go to www.majorrecordlabel.com and pay 80 cents
for a download or
(2) Go to www.musicondemand.com and get the song at no cost.

as it is, I subscribed to Rhapsody almost a year ago,
for a flat fee of $8 a month, and I can listen to all
the music I want to hear there. I'm assuming that some
of my money is going back to the record company, and then
a small sliver of that is making its way to the artist.

But if Rhapsody could give the music away for free
while making money on various advertising angles,
I'm sure they'd figure a way to make the numbers add up,
maybe use Peer-To-Peer networking to share the bandwidth
and storage among the various users or some such thing.

The short of it being that if everyone licensed their
work to allow anyone to make indirect profit, then
I don't see direct profit having much of an income
potential.

If nothing else, fans could host their favorite music,
and then a decent search engine could find the music
for free rather than go to the Record Label page and
pay for it. Yes, people could buy the work as a way
of giving alms, but if that argument were to scale,
then you could simply license the work CC-BY, let folks
sell it, and then wait for your true fans to come to
your site and give you money to keep playing.

Greg

btw: everything I say here is wrong




> But clearly this is not the meaning of the current NC clause.
>
> Terry
>
> --
> Terry Hancock (hancock AT AnansiSpaceworks.com)
> Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com
>
>
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