Cc-uk mailing list

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

I am not a lawyer, all the lawyers seem to be on holiday, this is not 
legal advice. :-)

On 23 Dec 2004, at 14:49, Dr Tim Brookes wrote:

> I'm confused about how, as a member of PRS, MCPS and PPL, I can issue 
> any of my work under a CC licence.  In joining each of these 
> collection agencies I have assigned the relevant performance and 
> mechanical rights for all of my works to that agency.  I therefore no 
> longer have any rights left to assign under a CC licence.  It seems to 
> me that I can only issue CC licences if eg. PRS changes the terms of 
> my member agreement either such that the only rights I have assigned 
> are those relating to commercial usage, or such that the rights are 
> not assigned but instead are non-exclusively licensed.  My only other 
> alternative would be to terminate my membership of all collection 
> agencies.  Have I got this correct?

I think CC are talking to the rights agencies at the moment, certainly 
this issue has been raised onlist.

If you are considering licensing your work NonCommercial, you should be 
fine. Noncommercial-NoDerivs explicitly reserves your performing, 
recording and collecting rights.

The most recently posted CC-UK-EW draft of the noncommercial license 
states:

"All rights not expressly granted by the Licensor are hereby reserved, 
including but not limited to the exclusive right to collect, whether 
individually or via a Licensing Body, i.e. Collecting Society, (e.g. 
ALCS, MCPS, PRS, PPL, VPL) royalties for any use of the Work for any 
reason which generates a profit. "

> Since it wouldn't result in any financial gain for the BBC, would the 
> broadcast of my works on BBC radio be classed as commercial use?

Since the BBC is a public-service non-profit organisation I think it 
would be OK. As long as the program wasn't an obvious plug for 
anything. :-)

>  If not, then issuing works under a CC licence could lose me 
> significant royalty income which I'd quite like to keep hold of.

Quite. I don't think this will be a problem with the right CC license, 
though.

- Rob.

--
http://www.robmyers.org/ - A decade of art under a Creative Commons 
license.
http://www.robmyers.org/weblog/ - Art, aesthetics & free culture weblog.