[microsound] Re: creative commons license

[tasty radish <tastyradish@xxxxxxxxx>]

>Hmm, it is not the diversity (or variety) of CC
licences that confuse 

to me, the whole approach of creative commons is
wacky-idealistic, born out of confusion.

instead of providing new-fangled cookie cutter texts,
an education campaign should have been developed, with
_some_ language given for different possible contexts.


For instance, as much as people would like it to be
all super-simple, the reality of copywrite licensing,
very often, is that there is no such thing as a
"boiler-plate" text.  

I also want to mention something that I think a lot of
people don't really get, which is that copywrite has
been useful to many individual artists.  Before the
days of copywrite protections artists' works were
routinely abused by what we now call "mainstream"
organizations. The history of photojournalism is a
primary case.  When Magnum Photos and a number of
other agenices were formed, they were done so
specifically because primary to their formation,
photos were routinely picked up by newspapers from
other newspapers or wires and used without credit and
without payment of any sort.  Magnum and other
agencies were also set up as cooperatives by the way. 


Copywrite is by no means perfect at all. And the way
that it is used today by music publishers is often
pure exploitation. 

And, this is why people like Ray Charles and others
fought to keep control of their work's copyright. 
Which means that he or another artist can do what he
wants with it, including making tracks, for instance,
available for free usage forever or for a limited
number of years, etc, etc. 


It is really a matter of people understanding how they
can control, thru the text of the language of their
copyright, possible uses.  

For instance, lets say that you were doing a piece as
a part of a microsound project (on the site) and you
wanted to make available the track to be further
developed by sound artists for further pieces in the
project, but weren't really sure that you wanted to
just let it be used for endless number of
projects/re-workings outside of the microsound
project.... You could state that the piece is
copyrighted by you and that the rights are available
for one year (or any number of years... its up to you)
to anyone doing a piece in the microsound project, to
be on the site specifically and for no other use. Any
further uses require your written consent. 

Basically, the uses and abuses of copyright are
wrapped up in the history of the development of
private property. This isn't something that can just
be simply dealt with. It has to negotiated and
specified. It is situational. 

Unfortunately, the real problem is that people are not
informed in how they can develop reasonable language
to deal with things.  

Lastly, I think people need to be savvy.  This too
should be a part of an education campaign so to speak.
For instance, it would be dangerous to
use/appropriate/sample any thing Disney has
copyrighted (particularly Mickey Mouse, as they go
after people on this pretty intensively), without
written consent. As well as U2, obviously
(negativeland).   

Should it be like this? Well, I think we would need to
ask should their be private property really! Not
something so super-easy to really finally once and for
all state, if you ask me.  Maybe we will get to a
world where this doesn't play, but it won't be with
cookie cutter templates, primarily. 

Anyhow, all this _doesn't_ mean that people shouldn't
feel free to mess with stuff. Just understand that you
may be taking risks, and weight them.  It's like this
sample crazy sound artist said, he respects copyright
and understands its uses and abuses, and he
appropriates without getting consent like a
motherf*ker.  So... 

contradictions of being an artist in capitalism.  they
can be negotiated to produce reasonable results. 

The key to writing good copyright language is time
limits and a sense of what the main aim is in letting
'others' have rights to the material. 

-andrew

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