| Full Commercial Potential
Sergio Messina
sept. 2008
One of the options of the now very popular Creative
Commons licenses is the Commercial/non commercial reuse
of one's copyrighted material, the others being Attribution/non
attribution (whether one's name is attached to all future
reuses), No derivatives (if one doesn't allow the sampling,
remix or partial use) and ShareAlike (if the CC license
applies also tho the resulting work).
The Commercial/non commercial issue is a very delicate
one, for a number of reasons. Let's imagine I take a picture (or
make some music, graphics, video, etc.) and put it online with
a Attribution/Derivatives/Non commercial license. This
means that whoever wants to use it has to include my credit as
source, is allowed to rework it inside his/her own thing, but
cannot make any commercial use of it. The definition of commercial
today is very hazy, and it will become more and more so in the
future. We all know that there are "free" (as in gratis)
things we can get, but that they aren't free: I watch the Daily
Show online and see 3 ads (not so bad, compared to the Tv version);
but no one thinks of the show as "non commercial". Myspace
is another good example: is all the music there non commercial?
It certainly is free, but its purposes are in many cases healthily
commercial: get gigs, find a distributions, etc. How about the
"free" Shakira desktop images I can download from her
website?
The main reason for denying commercial use I believe is psychological:
people think that Coca Cola would steal their music, or that some
smart ass designer would sell their beloved graphics to McDonalds.
Naturally I'd object to that too, but this isn't what the licence
should be about: of course I should get my money if Coke uses
one of my tunes in an ad (moreover, in Europe it has to get my
permission as author). But, I believe, not if someone uses 2 seconds
of my music in their own, or pastes some of my graphics in their
designs. It has happened, and in both instances I was quite happy.
For a very selfish reason: I do that all the time, we all do
it - and those who don't, soon will. Remember the Rip, Mix and
Burn claim from Apple? It was considered outrageous just a few
years ago, now it's obvious. We live in a remixing culture, and
some of the very best cultural artifacts of the present are made
from existing, past material. This is not just a fad, and it's
not going to go away. In our present culture, the Master (or original)
is often just a starting point, a reference, much as someone else's
musical score was for 18th century composers (or pictures for
painters). This is a major cultural pull, with very solid roots
(in media history, for example) and a great, bright future: home
video editing in broadcast quality is just happening, as the first
generation of web babies (those who cannot recall their first
Google search, as I don't remember my first car ride or phone
call) is turning 18.
I always liked the Lessig quote "The past is trying to prevent
the future from happening". The non commercial restriction
somehow smells like that to me. When you're a DJ, or just a music
lover, you rip, mix, burn, remix, post, exchange, resample, loop,
cut & paste with ardour, the same the Beatles had when they
did Love Me Do. I believe their products (the product
of our history and contemporary culture) should have the same
chances Lennon and McCartney's had.
This is why I've released most of my music with a slightly different
license from the standard CC ones: if you use it as it is, you'll
have to pay me. But if you make a derivative, then all I want
is attribution (and ShareAlike, of course), and you can use it
for commercial purposes. You should, in fact: the alternative
is that you just keep it for you and your family, while one golden
rule that governs this type of affairs is that what goes around,
comes around. The more around, the better.
Links:
Creative
Commons
Wikipedia:
Creative Commons
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