Cc-uk mailing list

["David M. Berry" <d.berry AT sussex.ac.uk>]

Ok. It gets worse.

If you download and listen to the track (and I thoroughly recommend  
that you do not) it is quite simply the most appallingly sung,  
arranged and produced waste of time and effort I can possibly  
imagine. It is really really bad. Unlistenably bad. Surely their are  
enough free culture people into writing good music not to produce a,  
and I quote, 'techno' version. Techno, to my understanding, does not  
usually signal crap (although I am not particularly a techno fan  
myself). It is certainly not an excuse to put rubbish like this out -  
that they then ask people to pay for!

This feels like a really bad office joke. It feels cliquey, sounds  
like it was recorded on someones office desktop computer in Microsoft  
Office OneNote 2003 and mixed in the lunch-break.  Somewhere, someone  
in CC should have looked at it and said no way.





On 22 Jun 2005, at 10:02, Tom Chance wrote:

> Ahoy,
>
> I have to chip in here... that is *disgusting*. What about all the  
> labels
> using CC? What about CCMixter and Remix Reading? There are  
> thousands of
> independent musicians out there that could have been contacted and  
> paid a
> small but fair sum to write some new music, and fully CC it!
>
> I can see how it might help make people aware of how crazy  
> copyright can be,
> but they could easily have commissioned a new piece and then said "We
> couldn't use happy birthday because of... it would have cost us x...".
>
> It also makes me think about using the label "free culture" for our  
> UK-based
> arm, given that they are correct in saying the "Free Culture movement"
> movement started in 2004, but it is obviously ridiculous to say a  
> movement
> concerned with free culture started then, or even in 1984 with the  
> GPL.
>
> What is the most constructive way for us to raise this with the CC  
> management?
>
> Tom
>
>
> On Wednesday 22 Jun 2005 09:54, David M. Berry wrote:
>
> > I am sure that many of us will have seen the recent celebration of a
> > one year old birthday for the 'free culture movement' by Creative
> > Commons. Putting aside the presumption that Free Culture 'started' in
> > 2004, no doubt following the publication of one of Lessig's books, I
> > have to admit that I find their way of celebrating grotesque and
> > backwards.
> >
> > Rather than get a songwriter to create a new song, which could then
> > be CC licensed and contribute to free culture. They have... no, you
> > won't believe it... licensed 'Happy Birthday' from the Harry Fox
> > agency which they have obtained a compulsory license for. Naturally
> > this means that they cannot give any rights to the downloaders as the
> > copyright is still owned and controlled by the copyright owners. And
> > who, you might ask, are the copyright owners? Luckily its those
> > extremely hard-up songwriters who struggle to make ends meet --- AOL
> > Time Warner (revenue in 2004 $42.8 billion, market cap £84 billion).
> > Good to see Creative Commons fighting the good fight.
> >
> > They are having to pay 8.5 cents a song download in order to pay for
> > the license which they then ask us to pay for. So let me just run
> > that past you again - to celebrate free culture, and the freedoms it
> > transfers to you - creative commons have licensed a closed
> > proprietary track which cannot be given any of the freedoms that they
> > purport to celebrate. But more than that they transfer all this
> > money, that people might assume to be going to a good cause (you can
> > even claim a tax rebate on the donation) is instead helping fill the
> > coffers of an already hugely wealthy, powerful and pro-copyright
> > multinational.
> >
> > Who on earth is making these really really stupid decisions? First
> > the extremely ethically suspect Bzzz agency ( http://
> > creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5424 ) and now this. You really have
> > to question the motivations of CC, does the management really
> > understand what free culture is all about.
> >
> > Nice call Creative Commons.
> >
> >
> > – David
> >
> >
> > ---
> > Happy Birthday, Free Culture Movement
> >
> >
> > http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/happybirthday/
> >
> >
> >
> > Just over a year ago, April 23, 2004, at Swarthmore College,
> > Swarthmore, PA, more than 100 students met to launch the Free Culture
> > Movement. These students had been organized by the Swarthmore
> > students who sued Diebold and won after Diebold sent a cease and
> > desist letter alleging violations of the Digital Millenium Copyright
> > Act to the Swathmore university administrator which then shut down
> > their website. A year later, there are nine chapters across the
> > country, and more brewing around the world.
> >
> > Creative Commons wanted to find an appropriate way to celebrate. So
> > we put together this version of "Happy Birthday," sung by, we might
> > say, some of the leaders of the free world (The EFF Staff, Mitch
> > Kapor, Dan Gillmor, Brian Behlendorf, Ian Clarke, Jimmy Wales,
> > Brewster Kahle, and Gigi Sohn). Of course, to do this, we had to
> > license the rights from Harry Fox (who represent Warner Chappell
> > Music, the copyright owner of the composition) — yes, "Happy
> > Birthday" is still under copyright — but the folks at Harry Fox were
> > willing to give us a pretty good deal. Unfortunately, that deal does
> > not transfer, so while you're free to download this version and play
> > it "for personal use", and free to engage in any "fair use" of the
> > song, the rights we have to give don't include much more than that.
> >
> > This is because clearing rights to use music, under our current
> > system of copyright is very complex. You need to clear every element
> > you use. So in this recording, Warner's owns the lyrics and the
> > composition and we have a limited license to use those & make them
> > available to you for your personal use. The loops and sounds are
> > owned by a loop distributor and licensed to us under a limited
> > license that means we can't make it available to you to remix. But we
> > own the rights in the recording in its entirety. We can — and we do —
> > license the rights to the recording under a Creative Commons
> > Attribution license. But because the nature of music is that the
> > recording, the lyrics and the music are inextricably linked, to be
> > able to exercise any of your rights in the recording under the
> > Creative Commons Attribution license other than for personal or fair
> > use, you will need to contact Harry Fox or Warner Chappell Music for
> > permission to use the lyrics and composition and PowerFX to use the
> > loops and sounds.
> >
> > Alas, them's the breaks for free culture for now. Maybe if the Free
> > Culture Movement is successful, things might become a bit less
> > complicated. But for the moment, all we can do is wish the students
> > of FCM good luck, and ask you to help us help them. We've set up a
> > donation box to raise money for the Free Culture Movement. So if you
> > download the song, and would like to help, here's where to donate.
> > All money collected will be used to support the Free Culture  
> > Movement.
> >
> > Our license from Harry Fox requires that we make the following
> > statement: song written by Mildred J. Hill & Patty S. Hill, publisher
> > is Warner Chappell Music.
> >
> > Donate and Download
> >
> > Our aim is to raise funds to help support the Free Culture Movement.
> > But the reality is that we've got to pay 8.5 cents for each download.
> > We've therefore set up a governor that restricts the downloads to
> > just a portion of the funds raised. Thus, if there are not enough
> > donations, you won't be able to download a song (unless you donate).
> > More donation and tax information is available.
> >
> >
> >
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>
> --
> Please send personal emails to tom@... not lists@...
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