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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] Need clarification: What is "commercial"?

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Eric Garner <ejgarner AT yahoo.com>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Need clarification: What is "commercial"?
  • Date: Sat, 5 May 2007 04:49:30 -0700 (PDT)


--- Greg London <email AT greglondon.com> wrote:

>
> >> 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.


Now I understand. Thanks for clarifying that.
So only the cover version of a CC-licensed song
qualifies for full copyright protection, correct? At
first I was thinking that the original artist's CC
licensing intentions (and ability to re-use his own
work for that matter!) would be compromised if the
cover version were fully copyrighted. Seems that's not
the case though, since a licensor who fully copyrights
his work would theoretically have even more to lose
than someone who CC-licenses away some of his rights.
What a litigious state we'd be in then, if people were
swiping copyrights away from musicians simply by
making cover songs!





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