Development of the Creative Commons Sampling license (or license option)

[Glenn Otis Brown <glenn AT creativecommons.org>]

Joshua,

Some great points here.

In response, I'll say that one of top priorities is to keep our  
licensor interface, found here <http://creativecommons.org/license/> as  
simple and easy to use as possible.

Under the vision you describe below, what would that page look like?

My idea is to leave that great page exactly as is, and to offer the  
Sampling license (with an attribution option) as a one-off specialty  
license.

Thanks,

Glenn


On Tuesday, July 22, 2003, at 03:26  PM, Joshua Csehak wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I just read all the archives on the sampling list. Let me first say  
> that I'm very excited about being part of this discussion. I think  
> creating a standard licensing scheme is a huge step toward  
> consolidating artists in the open-* (star being techno-speak for  
> "whatever") movements and eventually bringing to light problems with  
> current copyright law and maybe someday getting it changed. Who knows,  
> if we create a widely-used standard, and enough big-name artists adopt  
> it, maybe one day sampling will be considered "fair use."
>
> I hope I'm not jumping in too late here, but I had an overriding  
> concern since just about page one. Chris brought it up eariler:
>
> >[CG]  I see.  Hm, do you think you might need, or it might be better
> >to have, separate licenses instead of alternate versions of this
> >language?  It could get really confusing to conditionalize the same
> >language to handle both kinds of attribution requirements, especially
> >if there are various options for the SL.
>
> Yes yes yes, a thousand times yes.
>
> You guys have started a really great thing, covering all (or most of)  
> the bases not by having a bazillion licenses, but by offering license  
> terms a la carte. Why mess with a good thing? Creating a whole new  
> license is confusing to me, and I've spent a lot of time thinking  
> about all this stuff. We absolutely have to make the licensing scheme  
> as easy as possible to understand by someone with all the mental  
> capacity of say, Ozzy Osborne.
>
> What confuses me (or what will confuse me, if the SL is added to the  
> list): why is there a "no-derivatives" option, and a "derivatives"  
> (SL) option? Does that mean that the attribution-only license allows  
> for making of derivative works? No, of course not. So why the overlap?  
> Is there a way to work everything so there's no overlap, but a  
> consistent and easy-to-understand licensing scheme that not only  
> allows for every situation we can think of now, but also is modular,  
> to allow for future situations? I think there is.
>
> Someone (I think Glenn) said:
> >Right now, if you
> >wanted to allow any commercial use of your work, including derivatives
> >and verbatim copies, you could simply use any of our current licenses
> >that 1) don't specify "noncommercial" and 2) allow derivative works.  
> The
> >whole point of this license is refining that noncommerical provision  
> to
> >allow commercial transformations but not commercial verbatim copying.
>
> Aha. So why not, instead of creating a whole new SL, just say that?  
> Doesn't sampling fall under the category of a derivative work? Is  
> there any reason why you'd want to allow sampling but not another type  
> of derivative work?
>
> My suggestion:
>
> The way I see it, there are two types of freedoms you might want to  
> grant:
>
> Distribution- anyone can distribute/broadcast verbatim copies.
> Derivative- anyone can make/distribute/broadcast derivative works.
>
> and there are certain types of restrictions you might want to impose  
> on those freedoms (perhaps called modifiers or options):
>
> Attribution- any copies of the work must include credit to the  
> original author.*
> Non-commercial- you can't profit off of it.
> No Ad- the work cannot be used in an advertisment.
> No Sync- the work cannot be synchronised with another media (just a  
> thought).**
> Education- these rights are allowed only for educational purposes***
> Under-developed Countries- these rights are allowed only in  
> under-developed countries
> Open-Source- you must make the source material available (only an  
> option for derivative works)**
>
> * This includes credit to the parent author(s), if the work in  
> question is itself a derivative work.
> ** Doesn't educational use fall under "fair use" anyway? I'm pretty  
> sure it does, but only for snippets, not entire works.
> *** More on this later
>
> So for instance, Alice might release her song "Yeah Baby," under a  
> "Distribution (attribution, non-commercial, no-ad) & Derivative  
> (attribution, no-ad)" license. This would mean that people could share  
> her song for free over KaZaa but not sell copies of it, other people  
> could sample the song and sell their new song, and an ad company would  
> have to get her permission if they wanted to use her song or any song  
> that samples her song in a commercial. Alternatively, if she doesn't  
> care if people use a derivative song in an ad (just not her original  
> song), she could remove the "no-ad" modifier from the Derivative  
> freedom.
>
> I really think these options cover every concern that's been brought  
> up so far. I'd be very interested though, to hear if I'm missing  
> something, or my logic simply isn't sound. One thing it doesn't cover  
> is if you want to make it so people could say, use the work in an ad  
> in an under-developed country, but not in the US. Or if you want to  
> make it so people only have to attribute you if they're profiting off  
> of your work, but not if they're just giving it away. But I think if  
> you want to get that picky, you can write your own damn license.
>
> One thing to think about - I can't think of any reason why you'd want  
> to have more restrictions for the derivative works than for verbatim  
> copies. But I think it's best to keep the options open.
>
> Yes, the list is incomplete and poorly defined, and it's a bit of a  
> radical change, but I think restructuring it like this is the only way  
> to make everyone's concerns fit into a consistent and  
> easy-to-understand licensing scheme. I also don't think any work would  
> be lost by adopting this structure (or something like it), since most  
> concerns that have been brought up would fall under the Derivative  
> freedom or the No Ad modifier.
>
> You might notice I left out the "share and share alike" option.  
> Defining what rights 3rd parties are allowed to license their  
> derivative works under is a tricky mess, as is evident in the archive.  
> My thoughts on that whole mess, and on how to best define the  
> advertising option (for instance, does propaganda count as  
> advertising?), and even how to define a derivative work (for instance,  
> does a music video qualify as a derivative of the original song?),  
> will follow in another email.
>
> best,
> Joshua Csehak
>
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Glenn Otis Brown                                       
glenn AT creativecommons.org
Executive Director                                                       
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