Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

Nova Christopher wrote:
>  Well, I'm re-reading and getting more thoughts from others off-list,
>  so here's the two main points of the license again:

(This is from the CC "Sampling Plus" license, I take it?)

>  "You are free:
>
>  - To sample, mash-up, or otherwise creatively transform this work for
>  commercial or noncommercial purposes.

That's interesting.  Now I want to see CC's "Use cases for 'creatively
transforming' " paper (like the NC paper they did awhile back).

Sounds more free than NC at this point, though.  (Oh no! My
color codes are all wrong now! :-O)

>  - To perform, display, and distribute copies of this whole work for
>  noncommercial purposes (e.g., file-sharing or noncommercial
>  webcasting)."

Okay, that's basically saying the work is treated as NC when it
is distributed as a whole.

>  So basically, as long as the work is 'creatively transformed', it can
>  be used commercially. sampling, mashing-up and creatively
>  transforming is further defined:
>
>  "Your Derivative Work(s) must only make a partial use of the original
>  Work, or if You choose to use the original Work as a whole, You must
>  either use the Work as an insubstantial portion of Your Derivative
>  Work(s) or transform it into something substantially different from
>  the original Work. In the case of a musical Work and/or audio
>  recording, the mere synchronization ("synching") of the Work with a
>  moving image shall not be considered a transformation of the Work
>  into something substantially different."

Wow, that'll keep lawyers employed for some time.

Gosh, I should've gotten a law degree instead of studying all that
science and technology stuff. ;-)

But seriously, it does sound like you're okay for your use case.

>  I think I was misreading this whole license! It clearly states that
>  the creatively transformed derivative of the original Work can be
>  used commercially (or noncommerically) and then explains what
>  creative transformation entails.

Yeah, you should be in the clear for actual sampling.

>  --- Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com> wrote:
> > I'm sorry, I just haven't read the 'sampling' license, and I'm not
> > familiar with its terms. I know the By, SA, ND, and NC modules
> > fairly well.

Caveat: This is still true, except for the bit you quoted.

Here's what I'm wondering, though. What happens if you cut a song
track in half and swap the halves.  Then into quarters, and swap
those, etc.  How many swaps before you can use the work commercially?

What if I break out the lyrics, put a song jingle over it, and synch
it to a commercial?

Suppose I don't use any of the actual sound, but I extract the musical
score and re-render it (entire) on a different synth.  Legal?

Translate the lyrics and re-record?

Tape "I smooch the devil. Woo! Woo! Opus is the cool potato!" backwards
and mix it with the track?

The mind boggles at the possibilities.

Cheers,
Terry

--
Terry Hancock (hancock AT AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com