Most artists when they use a Creative Commons license create a non-commercial one. Most music artists also don’t understand that in most countries all public performance is considered to be commercial by the laws in that country. No laws exist anywhere within a country that says this is non-commercial and this is commercial, that i know of yet. Yet tell me if there is one?
The result is that a grey zone has appeared around the Creative Commons Non-Commercial license, that makes it less likely for the artists art to be used in a lot of ways, if they use this license.
My view is that the artists is being given bad information about the effects of the license on music art via Creative Commons, via way of possible manipulation by some of the business models around the license.
Business models like Magnitune, Beatpick and Jamendo work on an understanding that most artists are going to use a Creative Commons license that does not allow Commercial use. What does Jamendo do, well they create agreements that are going to give 50 percent of commercial use to the artists and 50 percent to Jamendo.
What Jamendo seem to forget is that the rights organizations offer a much better rate for use of the artists tune than than Jamendo have in place, only the rights organizations don’t do any promotion for the art. Jamendo sent out a letter to their artists saying that unless they faxed a document to to say that their tunes were not with a rights organization, they would not be able to participate in the jamba royalty share program. An artist that is getting nothing from a rights organization and nothing from the sale of tunes through the net and unable to get a live performance, does have access to a fax machine.
The royalty share program started off being a split in advertising revenue from the site through google banners. The project then swung into many other avenues and Jamendo have incorporated many other different licenses into their system. What i can’t figure out is this, why want free-culture just develop a non-profit to help the artists publish as a community. What upsets me more, to go on about it, is that Jamendo Magnitune and Beatpick are involved in many of the launches of CC through-out Europe of the Creative Commons license.
Jamendo is part owned by the company that started up skype. Jamendo, Beatpick or Magnitune have little to do with free-culture from my view, or less and less as time goes on. It seems to be about bottom line revenues and the CC license is used to make what is happening look fair. Because of revenue streams that have been created from royalty share program, information becomes a threat to their business models. Information like, artist’s in Europe can use a CC license and join ASCAP. Artists with ASCAP can license what they create freely, join ASCAP if you want to make your tunes free.
Also, its only in the last couple of months that i have come to understand that for a contract to be executed, a contract has to do a round turn. What does this mean? well it means that the CEO of a company (or some representative) has to sign a contract with the artist. This means that the company is best to send 2 contracts to the artist and the artist send 2 back and then the artist be sent one from the company, for reference and to complete the agreement. Its especially important from the point of view of the company that is working with beatpick that this happens. The internet works in a different way, as the artist is able to login and remove art from a site like myspace or jamendo. Yet beatpick is dealing with licensing music to large films and TV.
My guess is that if beat-pick sent contracts in the mail, that the artists would be more likely to show the contract to a lawyer. Most lawyers would point out the implications to artists associated with the non-commercial use and the realities of future publishing opportunities for those works and all the works of the artist. This may not bother some, yet others might move in another direction. Having a situation where the artist prints out one contract and sends/fax’s it in, means that its less likely that much is going to go wrong from the point of view of beatpick. Artists like myself that only send in one copy of a contract are artists that have not done many contracts.
Over the last couple of months i’ve figured how it works a little little more. Owning a part of copyright is like owning a house or anything, you can’t own something without having a structured agreement that says so. Having the right to license rights that are part of a copyright means that the company needs structured contract and those contracts need to do a round turn.
Both Jamendo, Magnitune & Beatpick’s business models are based on more and more artists using the non-commercial licenses. The business model i suggest to artists is based on artists making recordings, finding that there is no market value for the work, and then making that recording available free under a creative commons license, to the global commons that allows commercial use. I made my works available to the global commons, yet then the works found a value, i never anticipated this.
Its interesting that the system is structured in such a way that when any music is used in a commercial context a royalty is paid anyway, so an artists with ASCAP is able to collect for the use of a song and also have the song licensed to the global commons freely. Yet this seems only possible for ASCAP & BMI members, its good information for any artists outside the US to know that they can join ASCAP. It was partly accidental that i found this out, in effect this means when art is used in a commercial context with the creative commons license, that a royalty can be collected. Attribution is something the rights organizations are not set up to police.
The implications of the non-commercial license are complex in many way, as are the commercial ones, yet the commercial one seems straight forward to the user and its important that artists art does get a chance to be a part of the market place. If that was the intention of the artist. An un-known artist putting a non-commercial license on their songs, could potentially prevent the art from being picked up by a publisher. The NC license is a license best described as a license for artists that don’t want their songs used in a corporate context, that’s the way i see it.
Anyway, i’m writing this in my blog, cause when i told beatpick that i no-longer wanted to be with them. The CEO of beatpick wrote this to me at the end of his email.
“contract will be terminated and any activities regarding your career will be stopped.”
I’m not sure if this is because the CEO of Beatpick has a bad understand of English, or if he believes he is a living extension of the god-father (or is). If I’m suddenly deleted from the planet through any means whosoever in the near future, someone read this blog. I did not understand when i signed with this fair-play music label on the internet that my whole career would be controlled by beatpick, these guys don’t even do live gigs.
As artists can license their author rights and sound recordings as they choose and be with a rights organization in the US, the creative commons license seems more relivant to music artists outside the US. I hope more business models evolve that are more upfront about the reality of the license. The licenses are great, yet i reckon the artists need good information about what license is going to work for them.
