Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Eric Garner <ejgarner AT yahoo.com>]

--- "Kevin Phillips (home)" <tacet AT qmpublishing.com>
wrote:

> I have yet to fathom why an "NC" license would
> support a back door to Sound
> Exchange anyway, irrespective of the fact that it's
> (p) releated instead of
> (c) - I wonder how many musicians with NC licensed
> work are SE
> registered?.....so why would an option to make NC
> *really* NC and offer no
> means of commerciality be so inappropriate?  eg. IF
> I started a bedroom
> radio station or podcast tomorrow at my own cost for
> NC music (observing the
> no commercial support what so ever rules), currently
> I'd still have to pay
> (p) fees to SoundExchange to stay legal......if I'm
> understanding this
> correctly.  So, under the new CRB rulings I'd need
> to be a footballer or a
> movie star, just to be able to afford the (p) fees
> for my presumed "podsafe"
> music stream.

As I understand it, webcasts with no money streams are
free to play NC licensed music without paying because,
well, there's no money streams. As soon as you put up
a banner ad or any other means of making an income,
then SE could get involved if you're using NC music,
just as with standard-copyrighted music. You can get
around paying SE in this situation by setting up
direct licenses with any musicians who do use NC,
though this could be a great big pain for you.

It would have been nice to streamline the
process somewhat, which was one of Lessig's goals with
CC if I'm understanding things correctly. But even if
NC seems like the biggest sticking point, at least we
have the Internet to speed the process of setting up
direct licenses if that's what we have to do.
Gathering permissions from ten rightsholders in every
corner of the country for one show's worth of music
would have been prohibitively tedious even 20 years
ago. (But then again, who was webcasting 20 years ago
anyway?) This would still be tedious no doubt, but at
least it can be done. Better still would be to avoid
NC music for the show altogether. :/

So the solution isn't perfect, but it's manageable.
(However if anyone asks, my official stance now is
that warnings about using the NC license should be
stated more prominently up front, rather than handing
Jammin' Jenny her dunce cap after the fact and sending
her on her way.) Seems I already had half the answers
to my questions. Discussions here have filled in lots
of the remaining blanks though, so thanks everyone! :)

Eric