[linux-audio-user] [ot] Is DJ-ing commercial use of music tracks?

Mark Constable markc at renta.net
Sat Jan 24 23:54:00 EST 2004


On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 01:38 pm, linux-audio-user at k--b.org wrote:
> I agree with you, Mark.  I'd love to see more detail about what exactly
> "commercial uses" are.  I am in a taiko group and am hoping to release my
> (eventually) recorded songs under a CC license.  I certainly don't want to 
> use a license that would stop somebody from DJing my music,

Same here. I would be honoured if others replayed my music.

> but I don't 
> know how I feel about some company using it in their TV advertising or
> publishing it themselves and selling the CD.

I think the issue here is false representation as the author
of the music. For me, "my music" being used in someone elses TV
ad falls into extra exposure, same as being played on radio/TV
without getting royalties, as long as the authorship is attributed
to me and whoever co-worked the piece. Someone selling my music
directly as their own is not on.

I specifically do not want any royalties for performance of my
material as long as there is a pool of common material out there
that I can reuse without paying royalties for... otherwise we
fall back into the laywer-food trap.

> Are those all of the same "commercial" nature? 

Not to me but a lawyer or record company exec might try to define
the lot as commercial usage to maximise any profitability.

> I'm a bit shady on the term, "performance" as well.  
> Is there a difference between playing a recording of a piece, and
> re-performing the piece live with instruments (perhaps making a score of
> the track and reading that while playing on one's own instrument)?

Good point. There probably needs to be some kind of distinction
between traditional humanly played and recorded instruments versus
computer generated digital music. Playing a MIDI file on another
computer is a long way from rehearsing a score from another song.
Both may have required painstaking effort to create but one of
them does not require a great deal of expertise to reproduce.

> Thank you all for the discussion, this is an exciting topic.

It's not exactly "how do I get ALSA to work with a 2.6 kernel" but
it will become more of an issue as CC-like music gets produced with
linux (or any, but more likely on linux) based systems.

Perhaps we could come up with a "yet another" LAU/LAD license :)
Heh, it would be better to contact the Creative Commons folks and 
see if there is a general need to expand their 3 broad licenses
to a 4th option that has more detail about possible commercial 
reusage.

Personally, I am considering a GPL (Fitehouse maybe) license to
encourage and ensure that reuse of my material "forces" any
changes and adaptions back into the common pool... even if it's
reused in someone elses commercial context, that's Ok, as long
as they pass on the "source" of their changes and do not falsely
represent themselves as the original author.

--markc



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