Cc-uk mailing list

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, I am not CC.

On Wednesday, October 20, 2004, at 08:02PM, <lnu01eg AT reading.ac.uk> wrote:

>1)We are not sure if we should be using the CC-UK licenses or the US 
>(or generic) CC licenses for work uploaded onto the web site. This 
>is because all work will be hosted on ibiblio which is based in 
>America. Most work will be uploaded from Reading, UK, and it seems 
>silly to be using the US licenses, however we will if it is 
>necessary. 

The UK ones. The CC-UK license allows you to use any other equivalent 
CC/iCommons license anyway (or did a couple of drafts ago).

>2)Who is liable if a user uploads a piece of coyrighted work (which 
>isnt his own copyright) and puts it under a creative commons license 
>on Remix Reading? e.g. If someone uploads a Michael Jackson track 
>and claims it to be their own under a CC license. Please bear in 
>mind that ibibilo are hosting the website in America. What would 
>happen if a record company approached us and said that there was 
>some of their copyrighted material on our website? 

As per the answer given at Lessig's talk at UCL you'd (or your host would) 
get a DMCA takedown notice and would have to pull the material. This is the 
"safe harbor" provision of the DMCA IIRC, and I'm sure there will be articles 
online about how it affects community sites and ISPs.

I'm also sure Ibiblio will have had this happen before, and they must have a 
policy in place to handle it. I don't know who you'd ask at iBiblio, though. 
See how archive.org handle this as well.

>3)In the future we are planning on pressing CDs of music uploaded 
>onto Remix Reading. What would happen if a record company approached 
>us and said that one or more of the tracks that were on a cd were 
>infringing on their copyright?  

You'd have to pull the CD and possibly pay damages. Plead poverty.

Do get CD contributors to sign a declaration that they made the work and have 
the rights to it and any work they've used in it along with a list of that 
work. Keep that on file and use it if it turns out they lied to you.

>4)In the future we are also planning on having gigs/art exhibitions 
>etc with work uploaded on Remix Reading. We  will have to charge 
>people entrance fees for the gigs etc to at least cover our costs 
>for hiring the venue and publicity (Potentially, if we make any 
>money,  we could also put it back into the Remix Reading project). 
>For us to do this, do we have to insist that people allow their work 
>to be used for commercial use if we want to perform it? 

If you're charging for entrance, yes, AFAIK.

>I can 
>imagine trying to secure the rights to a work that is based on ten 
>levels of remixes to be a huge headache.

Not as long as all the work is CC. You need the rights to work to CC it in 
the first place. If someone doesn't have the rights already, or is using NC 
work in a commercial CC work (for example), they are breaking copyright 
anyway and so you just don't have to use their work.

> Or will it be okay for us 
>to display/perform works which are under a non-commercial license as 
>long as the profits are only used to cover our costs? 

No. You're using the work to make money.

>Or maybe we 
>could distribute any profits made to all the artists involved? 

No. " " " 

If you want the best license for nervous musicians, that's the 
recombo/sampling license, which allows NC use and allows sampling as long as 
you don't take too much of the original work. :-)

>5)Adult and offensive material ? we dont think there will be a 
>problem with adult material being uploaded onto the website ? but it 
>could potentially happen. Should we be providing disclaimers for 
>adult material, and how would we decide where to draw the line? What 
>should we be doing about the potentiality of illegal adult material 
>like child pornography being uploaded onto the site? 

Just stick a disclaimer on the site and be ready to take stuff down quickly. 
Possibly put a "parental advisory" logo on the music section of the site.

See how ISPs and community sites handle this. They don't get shut down, they 
pull the content when notified. You may need to put some legal sleight of 
hand into your site t's & c's to do this but I'm sure it's doable.

- Rob.