23 Feb
2008
23 Feb
'08
9:32 p.m.
On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 01:32:53AM +0100, Cesare Marilungo wrote:
Ken Restivo wrote:
Hmm, good point. I hadn't considered that movies, TV, commercials, ringtones, etc,
were ever going to go away, but maybe they will, or change into a form that's not
recognizable today.
On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 03:27:02PM +0100, Cesare
Marilungo wrote:
Still, I'm not convinced.
This would require big money people to keep existing and ruling. The only
way you can make some money would be to play with them. I hope something
different. Like voluntary support from appreciators, for instance.
Rob wrote:
The big money people (advertising agencies, movie studios, TV networks, ringtone sellers,
etc.) do not want to Share Alike. They're not about that; quite the opposite. They
usually demand tight control over anything they use in their work, and are willing to pay
for that.
In other words, if someone sells an SA work of mine, they're not going to make a LOT
of money off of it, at least not enough for it to have been worthwhile for me to have
prevented them doing so with NC. Have at it, spread the love! But the big corporations
who make huge money are going to be stopped short by the SA just as much as they would by
an NC.
So I look at SA as a filter that lets the small, community-oriented players in freely,
and keeps the big players out-- unless they want to negotiate a price with me which of
course I remain willing to do.
-ken
On Wednesday 20 February 2008 16:52, Cesare
Marilungo wrote:
> Those who already got the tracks from Opsound can probably use them
> commercially, and they can give away the track but the license is
> not transmitted with the tracks. So those who get the tracks from
> these people cannot use them for commercial purposes. Otherwise one
> wouldn't been able to license things with many different licenses.
> Am I wrong?
>
I'm no lawyer, but even in version 1.0 of the CC by-sa license, it says
in section 4a, "You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform,
or publicly digitally perform the Work only under the terms of this
License [...]". These terms apply to the people you gave it to, which I
guess would be Opsound.
So Opsound distributed it under the terms of cc-by-sa, because that was
the only way they could have done so, and then the people who downloaded
it from them were covered by the terms of cc-by-sa, due to section 4a,
when they distributed it further. They were granted the right "to
reproduce the Work" (section 3a) but only "under the terms of this
License" (4a). So when they in turn distribute the song to someone
else, it's still licensed under cc-by-sa, and so on.
It's hard to take back a work distributed using a copyleft license...
just ask SCO.
> http://danheller.blogspot.com/2008/01/gaming-creative-commons-for-p
> rofit.html
> Maybe the author is wrong, but my understanding is similar.
>
I think that he is wrong, and again, just ask SCO. Or the author of any
formerly free software project who changed the license to something less
free, only to discover they couldn't do a thing about the people
continuing to distribute (and modify) the last free version of their
work, usually eclipsing the "improved" proprietary fork.
However, this particular theory -- that you can win damages despite
previously having distributed the work under a free license with free
sublicensing, by forcing the defendant to demonstrate that he obtained
it under that license -- has never gotten as far as a courtroom as far
as I know. With source code it's easier because you usually have a
copyright notice at the top of every file referencing the GPL or
whatever. With photos you might have a watermark mentioning which CC
license applies to it. But with music, what do you have, an ID3v2 tag?
Usually not even that.
In the end, at least in the US, anyone can cost you a lot of money just
by bringing suit against you, whether they have grounds or not. What
makes the system work most of the time is that the expense cuts both
ways.
Back when I was younger and too broke to afford a lawyer, in the early
days of the web, I received a legal threat from someone who claimed
something on my web site infringed a copyright, one he himself didn't
even own. He was pretty explicit about his strategy being to cause me
expenses I couldn't afford, regardless of whether he had standing, and I
had to capitulate. Eventually I called his bluff, put the material back
online and told him to shove off, and he went away. It costs money to
pull that kind of crap as well, and I pity the copyright owner who tries
this strategy the first time he uses it against someone with more money
and time than he has.
Oh, wait. No I don't, because that would once again be SCO.
Rob
For the record. I asked for help on the creative commons mailing list. It
seems that I should not worry and that I can keep the by-nc-nd for these
tracks.
Moreover, I think that to be valid, the license should be specified at
least in the id3 tags, and/or it should come with the download. When you
download my albums from Jamendo, for instance, the license is specified
both in the id3 tags and in a text file included in the zip archive. At
Opsound the downloads pointed to the tracks hosted on my own server,
which had no licensing information.
Moreover, this takes into account old (and falling
apart) revenue models.
Preventing sharing doesn't make sense. And I incite it. Thus the 'music
sharing cc-license'. It's enough of a statement compared to almost all the
musician you know and care of. But I can't understand why I should not
impose some restrictions on using my own music. There's plenty of musicians
out there if you want to use some music for any kind of projects. Or you
can just come and ask. I, for one, have never said no. I just want to know.
It's a kind of control, I know. I'm not proud of using this word.
I don't see anything wrong with wanting control over your work and your career. A lot
of famous artists didn't have that, back in the days when the had no choice but to
sign their lives away to big record companies. I'm glad that there are so many more
options open today.
Btw, has somebody here seen the movie 'Instinct'?:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0128278/
It's about control, and freedom. I've seen it yesterday on tv with my wife.
Really good movie.
Of course I agree on copyleft and free (as in freedom) for software and
information (in the sense of knowledge) - these are tools. And in fact I
spend almost all my free time to help in spreading these and contribute in
any possible way. I would like to have more time, but this is another
story.
Anyway, music is something much more personal. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's
what I feel at the moment.
In the end, I make music because I love it. Not for money. If I just wanted
to make some money I would make a website with some content (like cc
license music, for instance) crawled automatically and put a ton of ads. It
would probably be much more rewarding than struggling with something you
care.
That's fine. I think we're in agreement, actually.
It's great that Creative Commons put together such a well-thought-out palette of
options to choose from; there's a license to suit all kinds of goals, tastes, and
preferences. It's very flexible.
-ken