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

[Joshua Csehak <jcsehak AT rootrecords.org>]

Well those reasons sure beat anything I can come up with ;)

Consider the point settled. I'll talk about the sampling license specifically 
from here forward.

How open are you guys to making an open-source option to the SL, making it 
not just for sampling, but also remixing?

J


Glenn Otis Brown wrote:

> I understand your point here, but a few things:
>
> (1) I can't let the sampling license change our overall architecture and 
> licensing strategy. We settled on that architecture and licensing strategy 
> a long time ago, through a months-long public review process. Letting this 
> three-month discussion on a special purpose license now change 
> fundamentally how that architecture works would wreak havoc and reinventing 
> the wheel as its rolling full speed already. (800,000 pages now link back 
> to our licenses.) Some things that come out of this licensing process might 
> be useful to include in other licenses, but I had never contemplated that 
> the anti-advertising clause would become a universal option. To me, it's 
> part of the definition of what bona fide sampling means. This isn't the 
> advertising discussion list, but the sampling one. To the extent that "what 
> is advertising" feeds into the question "what is true sampling?" i'm happy 
> to entertain it. But I can't let it change the structure we worked so hard 
> to put in place these last 12 months.
>
> (2) Our Technical Advisory Board, metadata advisors, and main coders prefer 
> to have this be a one-off license. They're the ones who have to build this 
> thing, and I happen to agree with them.
>
> You're not crazy at all, and everything you've said makes sense. I have to 
> take into account many factors here, and the two biggest are 1) what would 
> add the greatest benefit while -- crucially -- 2) causing the least amount 
> of disruption to our staff time, web site, current user base, current user 
> experience? I can't let this one innovation change everything that came 
> before it.
>
> G.
>
> On Tuesday, July 22, 2003, at 05:17 PM, Joshua Csehak wrote:
>
>      I understand your need for simplicity, and completely agree with it, 
> but having worked as a coder, the phrase "just one extra scenario" is a 
> huge red flag for me.
>
>      First, I imagine a prospective user wondering "How does the Sampling 
> License differ from just clicking "allow modifications of your work?" I'd 
> figure they'd assume that the sampling license only let people take small 
> bits of the work, while the latter let them change it as a whole. But it's 
> mostly just about making the derivatives commercially available, and it 
> theoretically has that whole "no ad" business. How do you convey that?
>
>      But more importantly, the current situation doesn't allow for some 
> very valid possibilities:
>
>      -what if I want to let people distribute my work, but not make 
> derivative works, and I also don't want people using it in ads? I mean, 
> right now, the Attribution NoDerivs (I'm guessing the most popular license) 
> doesn't prevent Bell Atlantic from using it as the soundtrack for their 
> next cell phone commercial (correct me if I'm wrong). This is a major 
> reason why I personally am not licensing my work under a CC license.
>
>      "So?" You say. Big deal. Some no-name doesn't want to use our licenses.
>
>      But what happens when someone like Bono has the same problem? I can't 
> imagine why any big-name artist would let advertisers use their song for 
> free, for any reason. Now you have to write another extra license, the 
> Attribution Derivs NoAd license.
>
>      Now let's say Bowie gets hip to the open-source movement and wants to 
> release his next single as open-source. Let's say he convinces the label to 
> let people use the source to make remixes (but not for profit), but they 
> won't let him make it legal for people to share his original song on p2p. 
> Now things start to get really complicated. Maybe you're much further along 
> into the project, and it's cost and/or time-prohibitive to restructure it, 
> so you add another specific license. And now you've got three extra 
> licenses out there.
>
>      Thing is, any time you address an exceptional scenario by making an 
> exception-specific rule, rather than making the original rules fit it, 
> you're asking for trouble later on. My solution may not be the most 
> elegant, or even the most logical, but I really think there must be some 
> way keep it consistent and scalable without having any extemporaneous 
> licenses floating around.
>
>      does that make sense, or am I crazy?
>      Josh
>
>      On Tuesday, July 22, 2003, at 07:29 PM, Glenn Otis Brown wrote:
>
>           my response all the way at the bottom. . . .
>
>                Hi Glenn,
>
>                The page would have to be a little more complicated. But one 
> of the reasons
>                I personally haven't released any of my work under a CC 
> license is the
>                advertising issue. I think more options might be a good 
> thing.
>
>                It would have to look something like this ("o" is a radio 
> button, "[]" is a
>                checkbox):
>
>                Do you want to let people distribute and/or broadcast your 
> work?
>                o no
>                o yes, however they wish
>                o yes, but
>                [] only if they credit me
>                [] not for profit
>                [] not in advertisments
>
>                Do you want to let people make and distribute and/or 
> broadcast modified
>                copies of your work?
>                o no
>                o yes, however they wish
>                o yes, but
>                [] only if they credit me
>                [] not for profit
>                [] not in advertisments
>
>                And then if we decided to make all the options available, 
> it'd look
>                something like this:
>
>                Do you want to let people distribute and/or broadcast your 
> work?
>                o no
>                o yes, however they wish
>                o yes, but
>                [] only if they credit me
>                [] not for profit
>                [] not in advertisments
>                [] not alongside any other media
>                [] only for educational purposes
>                [] only in underdeveloped countries
>
>                Do you want to let people make and distribute and/or 
> broadcast modified
>                copies of your work?
>                o no
>                o yes, however they wish
>                o yes, but
>                [] only if they credit me
>                [] not for profit
>                [] not in advertisments
>                [] not alongside any other media
>                [] only for educational purposes
>                [] only in underdeveloped countries
>                [] only if they provide the source material (like I do)
>
>                Do you think that's too complicatied?
>
>                (again, I'm skirting the share-alike issue, but mostly 
> because there may be
>                good reason to make it mandatory in all licenses. But at 
> worst it could
>                simply be another check box in the derivative category)
>
>                Josh
>
>                Do you think that's too complicatied?
>
>           With all due respect, I think it is.
>
>           Here's what mine version would look like:
>
>           The choose license page would be the same:
>
>           Do you want to:
>
>           Require attribution? (more info )
>           Yes
>           No
>
>           Allow commercial uses of your work? (more info )
>           Yes
>           No
>
>           Allow modifications of your work? (more info )
>           Yes
>           Yes, as long as others share alike ( more info )
>           No
>
>           But along the right margin, or somewhere prominent, there would
>           be a big button that said SAMPLING LICENSE.
>
>           When you click on that, you get a little information about
>           the sampling license, plus a single question:
>
>           Require attribution? (more info )
>           Yes
>           No
>
>           On Tuesday, July 22, 2003, at 03:58 PM, Joshua Csehak wrote:
>
>                Glenn Otis Brown wrote:
>
>                     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
>
>                          _______________________________________________
>                          cc-sampling mailing list
>                          cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org
>                          
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-sampling
>
>                     
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                     --------------------
>                     Glenn Otis Brown
>                     glenn AT creativecommons.org
>                     Executive Director
>                     t +1.650.723.7572
>                     (cc) creativecommons f
>                     +1.650.723.8440
>
>                --
>                root# records
>                Open Source Music
>                www.rootrecords.org
>
>           
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>           Glenn Otis Brown glenn AT creativecommons.org
>           Executive Director t +1.650.723.7572
>           (cc) creativecommons f +1.650.723.8440
>
>           _______________________________________________
>           cc-sampling mailing list
>           cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org
>           http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-sampling
>
>      ----------------------------
>      Root# Records
>      Open Source Music
>      www.rootrecords.org
>      _______________________________________________
>      cc-sampling mailing list
>      cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org
>      http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-sampling
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Glenn Otis Brown glenn AT creativecommons.org
> Executive Director t +1.650.723.7572
> (cc) creativecommons f +1.650.723.8440

--
root# records
Open Source Music
www.rootrecords.org