Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Liz Berg <lizb AT wfmu.org>]

> > As I understand from Terry's advice, we should license the right to
> > distribute the work (we're actually not compensating the artists in any
> > way, just providing a curated platform for distro), making by-nc or
> > by-nc-nd conditions for the agreement. Sounds like a great plan that will
> > cover all bases.

> Is there any reason to limit the choices to  by-nc and by-nc-nd? Wouldn't
> BY-SA and plain BY also work for your purposes? Or am I missing something?

We will definitely accept works licensed under any other CC scheme, as 
well as public domain material (however, unlike many other CC music 
sites, ours will be curated). We are only limiting the choices we will 
offer specific artists that we approach to obtain permissions.

Like I said before, WFMU is going to be approaching bands/artists who may 
have never heard of CC before. Although some of these folks are bedroom 
artists with day jobs, etc, many of the bands we plan to approach are 
actually working musicians who make money from touring and CD sales. In 
educating these bands about CC, I think that a big point of security for 
them is the fact that the by-nc license allows music fans to access their 
songs (good exposure), but prevents say, a car company from using the song 
in a TV commercial and the band getting nothing.

If an artist who is knowledgeable about CC wishes to ditch the nc caveat 
on their own accord, great. But I believe that WFMU asking this of a band 
who doesn't know much about CC in the first place would result in either 
the band turning us down outright, or being angry later when they hear 
their song in a car commercial. We want to offer a situation that will be 
most appealing to an artist who might be skeptical about CC.