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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: drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.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 08:16:17 -0400

On Friday 04 May 2007 07:25 pm, Eric Garner wrote:
> --- Greg London <email AT greglondon.com> wrote:
>
> ***SNIP***
>
> > So, if you create a work and license it CC-NC,
> > then no one can sell it without your permission.
>
> Okay, this is the basic principle of NC that everyone
> "gets'.
>
> > 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? What did I miss? The non-commercial part of
> "Non-Commercial" is pretty straightforward.

You can't sell someone else's recording under the statutory license. You can
make your own recording of your own performance of the song and sell that.
There are a set of rules you have to follow and set persong/per minute type
fees you have to pay to take advantage of this license. The copyright holder
cannot say no. It is the law.

Every once in a while, they go back and lobby to get the set amounts raised
if
I understand properly.
>
> > Even if you license the work CC-NC-ND-BY, if a
> > compulsory license law can be applied to the work,
> > the person can ignore the NC-ND-BY, pay you a
> > compulsory license fee, and get whatever rights
> > they get from that piece of law. And they can sell
> > the work, and not license the new work CC-NC or
> > anything.
>
> Standard copyright becomes enforceable once the
> licensing terms are broken; it's right in the legal
> code.

You would not be breaking the licensing terms you would be operating under a
different license. A license which the law says the copyright holder must
grant you.

> Since CC licensing seems to lean more toward
> direct licensing (at least per my conversation with
> SoundExchange a while back), I believe the CC terms
> supersede the compulsory license. ("IANAL" goes here
> ;) ) So if someone tried what you propose and the
> licensor wasn't pleased about it, there would seem to
> be a pretty good case against them unless I'm wrong.

I think you are wrong. The law forces you to grant the other license to them
if they notify you they are using it.

> I
> doubt I am, though, since what you're saying
> essentially is that NC is completely undermine-able.

Yes it is, and os is BY-SA. For music. (Non-dramatic music.)

> If that were the case, how could a business model with
> a money stream based in part on direct-licensing of NC
> music hold muster?

Because you negotiate a better rate or better terms than the statutory
license. And if you don't want to, you get the money from the statutory
license.
>
> > You need to think of CC licenses as "in addition to"
> > whatever compulsory license laws might apply to the
> > work, if any. Just like you can license the work
> > publicly under CC-NC-ND-BY and sell someone a
> > license
> > to do whatever they want with the work in parallel,
> > the same can be done with a compulsory license.
>
> In summary, I think this is only partially true.
> Please fill in the blanks for me. :)

It doesn't apply to non-music or dramatic music. It does apply to
non-dramatic
music.

Don't buy the correctness of any of this until you hear from your lawyer
though. I'm not one.

Does anyone on the list know if countries other than the US have similar laws?
>
> Eric

all the best,

drew

--
(da idea man)




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