Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>]

>> If the work qualifies in some way for a
>> "compulsory license", then someone could sell the
>> work and pay you money because the work is still
>> a normal copyrighted work, it's just got some
>> rights that have been licensed around. But it still
>> qualifies for a compulsory license.
>
>
> Whoa...I'm not too sure about this line of thinking.
> NC music *does* qualify for compulsory licensing, so
> isn't this like saying BMG can sell a Warner music
> track without permission just by paying the compulsory
> license fee, even though the copyright belongs to
> Warner?

A "compulsory license" has nothign to do with
Creative COmmons. It is a part of copyright law.
I believe it only applies to songs. The law basically
says that someone can perform a cover of a song
by paying some fixed amount of money or percentage
or something. And the original artist cannot refuse.

That's why it's called compulsory. Permission is
mandated by law for a fixed prices. The idea being
that no one can prevent someone from covering a song
as long as they get paid the standard amount, or
something to that effect.

This only applies to music, as far as I know.

It's been a while since I read into it, so I'm
a little fuzzy on exactly how the specifics work.

But the gist is that you can record a song
and someone can make a cover version of
it even if you don't want them to, by paying
the standard percentage. And you are legally
required to grant them a compulsory license
for the cover.

Compulsory licenses only apply to covers of songs.
They do not apply to samples. They do not apply
to books, or paintings, or anything else, as
far as I remember.

But for a song, even if it's licensed all rights
reserved, the law says you can't prohibit someone
from covering your song if they pay the money.