Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Saturday 05 May 2007 07:49 am, Eric Garner wrote:
> --- 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!

Right, if you use the statutory license to cover a song, you get a copyright 
on your cover version and have to pay license fees to the original copyright 
holder for the use of their copyrighted material.

You don't come into posession of their copyrights by paying these license 
fees.

all the best,

drew
-- 
(da idea man)