SOURCE: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050521/media_nm/music_copyright_dc

By Susan Butler

NEW YORK (Billboard) - An innovative approach to sharing and licensing copyrighted material is spreading around the globe, gathering millions of creative works under its umbrella.

The movement, spearheaded by a nonprofit organization called Creative Commons, is little-known in the music industry.

Yet sponsoring groups in 31 countries have adopted the Creative Commons approach. Sponsors in nearly 40 more countries are said to be in the process of launching the project.

For the most part, the various Creative Commons licenses have been applied to academic material and blogs. In many instances, creators permit others to make use of their works without compensation. In other cases, new works are donated to the public domain.

As Creative Commons chairman and Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig travels the world encouraging international adoption of Creative Commons, the movement has begun to arouse concern in the music business. Some industry leaders say that the group's approach -- applauded by many -- is in effect a Trojan horse that could erode copyright protection or harm unwitting artists.

"My concern is that many who support Creative Commons also support a point of view that would take away people's choices about what to do with their own property," says David Israelite, president/CEO of the National Music Publishers' Assn. and former chairman of the Department of Justice's Intellectual Property Task Force.

Creative Commons dates back to 2001, when a number of figures from the academic world recognized that there was no mechanism in place to inform Internet users how to easily locate copyright owners. Nor was there a way for Web users to determine whether works posted on the Internet -- essays, articles, photographs, poetry, music -- could be used freely as public-domain works or in some ways without the copyright owner's permission.

The group began developing standard licenses that can be linked to works on the Internet, indicating that the copyright owners permit certain uses without compensation. In this way, other creators who want to use or build on the works can do so without tracking down the owners or hiring lawyers to do so, says Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer science professor Hal Abelson, a Creative Commons board member.

While authors were initially licensing blogs, scientific articles and educational materials over the Internet, the Creative Commons has more recently been encouraging the music community to support the project online and offline.

At least one widely circulated CD has been developed using Creative Commons licenses. Wired magazine approached artists to provide music under the Creative Commons licenses for a CD distributed with its November 2004 issue. Sixteen agreed, including David Byrne, Beastie Boys and Chuck D.

Hilary Rosen, former chairman/CEO of the Recording Industry Assn. of America, also has expressed support for the Creative Commons in speeches and in an article in Wired. (Lessig is a contributing editor to the magazine.)

Despite such displays of support, critics like the NMPA's Israelite believe Creative Commons intends to undermine copyright protection through its activities in courts and legislatures.

"Lessig and his followers advocate a shorter copyright term," says attorney Michael Sukin, a founding member of the International Assn. of Entertainment Lawyers.

The Creative Commons was founded on the ideas of Eric Eldred, an Internet publisher who filed a court challenge to federal legislation that extended U.S. copyright protection for an additional 20 years. Lessig argued the case for Eldred before the Supreme Court, which upheld the law.

"I think the biggest issue that Creative Commons really tries to point to is the fact that for the sake of a very small percentage of works that do have high value, we're locking up everything else so our intellectual soil becomes nutrient-poor," says Tim O'Reilly, who publishes technology books and supports the group.

While Lessig and other board members acknowledge that they support a shorter copyright term, they say Creative Commons is separate from their activities as individuals.

MIT's Abelson says his point of view comes from his science background. "If the term in 1920 was what it is today, we would just now be freeing up the work that discovered that there were atoms. I don't want to speak for artists, but for the progress of science it just scares me that you lock this stuff up for 100 years."

Abelson adds, "We're not like a lobbying organization. We've been trying pretty hard for Creative Commons not to get involved in that kind of stuff."

Yet Israelite and Sukin say that it is hard to separate the individuals from the organization.

This blurring was evident when RIAA and Motion Picture Assn. of America members, music publishers and songwriters argued the Grokster case before the Supreme Court, seeking to reverse the federal appellate decision that held peer-to-peer operators Grokster and StreamCast not liable for their users' infringements of copyrighted music.

Fifty-five amicus (friend of the court) briefs were filed, many by professors. Rather than filing a brief as a professor, Lessig submitted one on behalf of Creative Commons.

The brief, which proposed affirming the appellate decision against RIAA and MPAA members, described the Creative Commons as a group with an award-winning project endorsed by many, including ex-RIAA chief Rosen and former MPAA leader Jack Valenti. It also listed as supporters the artists whose music was on the Wired CD.

Although Rosen supports the Creative Commons approach to licensing, she tells Billboard that she was not aware her name was used in the brief.

"Neither Jack nor I endorsed the Creative Commons brief before the Supreme Court," she says. "Obviously I don't approve, obviously I don't think it's appropriate, and I certainly don't endorse their view in" the Grokster case.

Israelite says that often when people give away their own property under a Creative Commons license, "it is really an argument why others should be forced to give away their property."

Still, many industry experts praise the group for creating its licensing mechanism.

"If a creator wants to dedicate his work to the world or wants to allow others to use it with the promise to credit the author, there has been no mechanism in place to provide public notice," RIAA president Cary Sherman says. "The Commons approach would basically solve this problem."

Lessig says, "We thought it was critical to build standards that become interchangeable and understandable across jurisdictions."

On its Web site, Creative Commons offers six basic licenses, eight special licenses and a core licensing engine.

The basic license deals have various options for authors, including offering works for mere attribution (credit), restricting use to noncommercial purposes, permitting adaptations (derivative use) and requiring users to "share alike" if they make changes.

The special licenses cover music sampling, music sharing and contributing works to the public domain.

Each license comes in three versions, which Lessig describes as the human-readable form in language understandable to lay persons; the lawyer-readable license in language for courts to enforce in each jurisdiction; and the machine-readable form that embeds information for Internet search engines.

Critics of Creative Commons say that offering these licenses to artists without encouraging them to get legal advice or explaining risks is dangerous.

Andy Fraser hates to think what his fate might have been had Creative Commons existed when he was a young artist.

Fraser entered the business in 1968 at age 15, when he became the bass player/co-songwriter for British rock/blues band Free. Two years later, while in the dressing room after a bad gig, he started bopping around telling his bandmates, "It's all right now." After about 10 minutes a song was born, with co-writer/singer Paul Rodgers contributing lyrics.

"All Right Now," released on Free's third album, "Fire and Water," became one of the most-performed songs in performinbg rights organization Broadcast Music Inc.'s repertoire of about 4.5 million works. The song has been played nearly 3 million times -- the equivalent of repeatedly playing it for more than 28 years.

While Fraser has written more than 150 songs, continuing royalties from radio and TV use of two compositions -- "All Right Now" and "Every Kinda People" (first recorded by Robert Palmer) -- generate most of his income. Had he given up his rights to those early hits, he would not have the resources to cover his treatment for AIDS.

Such a decision might have been tragic. Fraser says he has been kept alive by medication, radiation therapy and experimental medical treatments -- largely paid for with his song royalties.

"No one should let artists give up their rights," he says.

Reuters/Billboard

MESSAGE FOR Andy Fraser!

I hate to do this to ya since you are sick, but you are going to have a smaller royalty check from now on. Electric Gypsy will NO LONGER cover "All Right Now" or any other of your tunes at our gigs. ASCAP will now have one less band to report performing your music at the clubs until you change your position.

(However, I have a sneaky suspicion that Mr. Fraser's words were taken out of context and deliberately mis-construed for this pro-industry/anti-consumer/artist piece of sh*t article.)

George has some interesting things to say on all this over at azoz.com

With mega media people locking up copyright at every turn, something like creative commons was needed. I am sure that some of the copyright lawyers won't like the idea that they won't be needed in order for average Joe to understand what each level means but again, something that is needed.

No matter what the alphabet soup of organizations want you to believe, it is average Joe that will produce far more of items that are default copyrighted than will the industry. Certainly they made a mess of things and we will suffer technology wise from what is already been done in the support of lengthening copyright and patents.

The previous article that mentions that if copyright lengths were yesteryear what they are today; the atom discovery would just now be making headlines is a good example. Color photos would still be locked up by the same lengths and I would imagine we would still be seeing black and white photos and tv wouldn't be invented yet. What is wrong with this picture? Simply, without forethought of what they were doing in respect to the future of this country, legislature has put the future on hold in this country. While it is on hold here, it won't be in such places as China.

A sad comment on how to run a railroad...

I wrote a program for my company 15 years ago. Shouldn't I be compensated for eternity? Like most people, I have to create something new to keep making money (and to stay employed). Fraser, you are clueless and a real twit. You and your ilk who expect PERMANENT entitlement (which you call 'rights') for something you created over 30 years ago are nothing but a bunch of crybabies and are arresting development for anything new and creative.

Anyone up for another lame Hummer commercial with "All Right Now" in the background? How about the same song for Spacely's Sprockets in 2105? That's creativity at work...

I love Creative Commons. I use CC licenses for all of my websites and all works under my control.

only SOME RIGHTS RESERVED.....

International Assn. of Entertainment Lawyers.

sounds like a fun bunch.

Now wouldn't this be fun:

Lobby Congress to establish Creative Commons as the standard, and be required to attach to any digital work. It might require the addition of an all rights reserved or no permissions liscence for those control freaks who don't ever want anything done with their material (however if searches give you the option to rank by permissions they could consistently find themselves at the bottom of the list).

..."Some industry leaders say that the group's approach -- applauded by many -- is in effect a Trojan horse that could erode copyright protection or harm unwitting artists.

"My concern is that many who support Creative Commons also support a point of view that would take away people's choices about what to do with their own property," says David Israelite, president/CEO of the National Music Publishers' Assn. and former chairman of the Department of Justice's Intellectual Property Task Force."

That is absolutely galling.
And later

"Critics of Creative Commons say that offering these licenses to artists without encouraging them to get legal advice or explaining risks is dangerous."

Like the use of those undated scraps of paper RIAA "talent" scouts have young artists sign, which force the worst contracts possible on them, unseen.

Ms. Butler doesn't mention the outright lies Valenti and Rosen personally told Congress about filesharing, but oh, poor them, Lessig mentioned them in an Amicus breif.

I pity Fraser. All the money he got for these bastards, and it's HIS royalties paying for his illness.

It's interesting that all of these comments are so reactionary...even hostile. Seems to contradict the free flow of ideas I thought was behind sites like this.

Now Independentm... is going to make a creative decision (not to play a song live) because he doesnt want that writer to make money?

I don't get it.

I thought this site was about creators who wanted to have control over their works. Isnt the point of Creative Commons to allow artists to dispose of their works as they choose? or does that only apply if the artists buys into everything espoused by Creative Commons founders?

If anyone here knew Susan Butler or Michael Sukin, they would know they have devoted much of their time to helping artists and writers (yes, and made money). To lump them in with "anti-consumer/artist" people is simply ignorant.

Any artist can give away their own work as they choose - why insist that you have the right to decide for others?

Perhaps I am just not getting it - is it that every thing Lessig does is right & just and everyone else is a bunch of corporate liars? (oh I guess that's because Lessig publishes his books for free and shuns publicity...)