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You are not looking hard enough. There are many companies and bands out there selling/giving away non-DRM'd music. And some of it is even really good.

Magnatune
Creative Commmons Audio

Because of the license, the Software has gained Freedom from being exploited in a commercial sense. It is Free from the possibility of being exploited for personal gain of a company.

I think you're confusing the GPL with CC-NC. The GPL has nothing to do with commercial exploitation or "personal gain of a company". Even then, though, exploiting for commercial purposes or "personal gain of a company" is fine, so long as that exploitation involves use, not copying or distribution.

The problem is that (1) has always been limited by the FSF's unwillingness to translate the GPL into any other language.

The Creative Commons worked with the FSF and the Brazilian government and had it translated to Portuguese. Here's the press release.

Creative Commons have done good work along this line. They produce a CC-GPL which is the GPL + Human readable code + Metadata.

As of today in this country (Hungary), the relatives of a deceased musician who worked in the 50ies cannot put his work into public domain because that would violate law.

Does Hungarian copyright law also specifically prohibit using something similar to a Creative Commons license on musical works or sound recordings?

After pondering the whole copyright problem for many years this comment really caught my attention at first...and after a day of thought it REALLY makes sense!

This not only aligns itself with the analogy that was drawn in the first place (between real property and "intellectual property"). It also has the benefits of providing a revenue stream for enforcing copyright, prevent needless "hoarding" of IP, lessen the damage caused to the public domain by IP hoarding, and remove the need for a defined "period" of copyright. The eventual result would be a freeing of copyrighted works (least profitable going first) into the public domain as companies would have to evaluate the TCO /cost-benefit of their Intellectual Property holdings. This would free works into the public domain where others can create their derivative works that may (possibly) be profitable again - and dropped when THEY become unprofitable! This is a perfect balance between allowing the public use of culture (for example keeping personal archives of "stuff") and allowing holders of works to make a profit.

In order to achieve this the tax would have to be uniform (not pro-rated based on profit from IP but based on the amount of IP being held by the owner - just like real-estate). This of course leaves the question of how IP will be quantified (even though volume in bytes actually works quite well if you really think about it).

Additionally, copyright would have to revert to being an opt-in "service" (as it was before the late 1980's) rather than being the automatic for-profit assumption that it is now (see http://www.creativecommons.org/ for details).

I think this never occurred to me because I've never thought that 2 wrongs can make a right...but apparently I was wrong :- )

"It is a list of examples. I'd say installing software you bought blatantly falls within the realm of a "Fair Use". I'm sure virtually any judge will agree."

I'm quite sure that installing software counts as fair use--and section 117 allows you to alter your software, but only as far as the modifications allow you to install/use the software.

I haven't seen any other part of title 17 that contradicts 17 USC 106 (the owner of copyright under this title ... has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize ... [the preparation of] derivative works based upon the copyrighted work).

"Well, the GPL and similar licenses do not need to grant you that permission."

Hmm? The following parts of the GPL mention modification:

Preamble: We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software. ...

2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: ...

4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. ...

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. ...

The Creative Commons and MIT licenses also grant the licensee permission to modify/prepare derivative works--because otherwise that right is reserved to the copyright holder.

While I agree that EULAs are bullshit, and that the folks on debian-legal are, for the most part, overly paranoid, I believe they have stated in the past that they require a license to grant the right to prepare derivative works because otherwise, US copyright law reserves that right to the copyright holder.

I'm not sold on Open Source entertainment. I have my tastes, you have yours. I doubt that you'd appreciate my imposing my creative vision on your work, and I know that I would resist your attempts to impose upon mine. Collaboration in creativity leads to such wonderful dreck as sitcoms and "dramedys". Just say no.

What I suppose is interesting about this is that the final product will be open and available for others to use. Free from copyright, so to speak. It seems like a nice idea, much like Creative Commons, but it doesn't seem like some really huge step forward in any respect.

The complete open-sourcing of the toolset would be cool (Blender and a few others are already open).

Disney has a poor track record with regard to respecting the intellectual commons, even more so than other MPAA studios. If Disney buys Ubisoft, then advocates of the intellectual commons will have to buy Verticube instead of Lumines.

A great way to thwart the RIAA/FCC supression of Internet Radio stations via their little gimmick with forcing people to keep track of songs and pay double royalties for each one played would be to have a grass-roots movement of bands creating songs that have a Creative Commons Copyright... so the songs can be played for free by anyone, but if some Corporation wants to make money off the song, THEY are the ones who have to pay. This would also be a boost for street musicians who have no contracts with the big music industry.

Someone should set up an alternative contest to make a film about why sharing ideas is a good thing. Even if this turns out to be a hoax, this positive competition would be cool anyway.

£2000 is not that much, we can match that :) If someone is willing to do the org work, I'd be happy to put up the £2000 (donations might increase that sum and/or reduce my share). The project would need a good website and would need to have the same deadline as the MSFT competition (July 1st). Ideally the effort should tie in with the Creative Commons group UK and possibly Software Freedom Day.

OK, I've opened my big mouth now. Anyone else?

having a license that are splitted into sections?

this program follows "free use" and "free distribute" section of abc license

this way, there can be ONE license and everyone can taylor a license of their needs from sections of the license

This is the model that Creative Commons uses - see "parametric license" at the creativecommons wiki

Sort of. The creative commons web site has something along those lines at this link

Everyone is selfish. Everyone wants what's best for him, so if you let the public decide what they want, they decide what's best for them, not what's the most fair.

That is a very interesting point, but what do you define as "the most fair"?
You cannot have one single answer to that question, and as we live in a democracy, "the most fair" by definition is what the people want.
I do not always agree with that, you can have a great influence over the people with propaganda, but I think democracy is the best alternative we have, and that won't change very soon, i think.

I'm actually an utilitarian ("the greatest happiness principle", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism) and think that whatever has the greatest happiness as consequence is the right (and "the most fair") thing to do.
This is of course not possible in reality because one cannot forsee all consequences by doing something, but I'm not in any way bound to any "moral laws" if I think that something else would result in greater happiness. And that's also why I'm against copyright laws as they exist today, because I think we could achieve greater happiness without them. (I do not know though, if we'd be better off without copyright laws at all, or if they simply should be replaced with different ones. I'm very in favor of the creative commons licenses though, see http://creativecommons.org/)

There would be no incentive to create something new for a living, since you can't make a living off it. Sure, it would be a perfect ideal to have everything for free, but communism didn't work...

That's not true, at least not in the way you put it. First off, I'm *not* in favor communism, but of reforming copyright.
Also, there'd still be reason to create new art, etc ... See http://creativecommons.org/ for example.
Also, I do not think someone becomes a musician beacuse of earning money (if I'm not Brittney Spears...), but to create something.
Also, artists would still earn money by giving concerts.

Everyone is selfish. Everyone wants what's best for him, so if you let the public decide what they want, they decide what's best for them, not what's the most fair.

That is a very interesting point, but what do you define as "the most fair"?
You cannot have one single answer to that question, and as we live in a democracy, "the most fair" by definition is what the people want.
I do not always agree with that, you can have a great influence over the people with propaganda, but I think democracy is the best alternative we have, and that won't change very soon, i think.

I'm actually an utilitarian ("the greatest happiness principle", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism) and think that whatever has the greatest happiness as consequence is the right (and "the most fair") thing to do.
This is of course not possible in reality because one cannot forsee all consequences by doing something, but I'm not in any way bound to any "moral laws" if I think that something else would result in greater happiness. And that's also why I'm against copyright laws as they exist today, because I think we could achieve greater happiness without them. (I do not know though, if we'd be better off without copyright laws at all, or if they simply should be replaced with different ones. I'm very in favor of the creative commons licenses though, see http://creativecommons.org/)

There would be no incentive to create something new for a living, since you can't make a living off it. Sure, it would be a perfect ideal to have everything for free, but communism didn't work...

That's not true, at least not in the way you put it. First off, I'm *not* in favor communism, but of reforming copyright.
Also, there'd still be reason to create new art, etc ... See http://creativecommons.org/ for example.
Also, I do not think someone becomes a musician beacuse of earning money (if I'm not Brittney Spears...), but to create something.
Also, artists would still earn money by giving concerts.

http://creativecommons.org/projects/founderscopyri ght/

This allows the artist the opportunity to choose what licence the work will be distributed in.

All licences are free for personal use. Restrictions can be added for commercial use, sampling and other derivatives.

I personally use Creative Commons for my releases.

Actually we do. We are not just consumers. We are citizens in a representative democracy. That means the laws that create copyright a particular way can and will change to meet the will of the majority.

Right. All my posts in this thread have been about why we shouldn't change these laws (other than shortening the duration of copyright, getting rid of the DMCA, etc). The laws currently state that you don't get to choose who to pay for a copy of a creative work, the copyright holder chooses. In the music industry, many artists choose to sell albums through a record label, so that's who you pay, or you don't get a lawful copy.

The record companies don't give a crap about the artists (when they say they do, I find it more offensive than kiddy porn), they care about maximizing profits.

Correct. They're venture capitalists. They're supposed to just care about the profit. It's their job.

If the record companies won't respond to market pressure (i.e. "people won't pay us, we'd better lower prices"), then we will decide *IF* we want to pay.

You can decide if you want to pay, but if you don't then you don't get a copy. We've decided as a society to give creators the sole right to make copies of their work. If you disagree with that, then you should try to get the laws changed. Admittedly, that would be pretty difficult, especially since lobbyists bribe legislators. My point is that the notion of intellectual property should exist, because it leads to more works being created.

The record companies have twisted copyright beyond all comprehension. So the consumer has decided who he will pay. Nobody.

Good. Protesting against unjust laws is the way to get them changed. What you don't seem to understand is that protesting involves sacrifice. That means you live without the works put out by the record companies and support artists who agree with you.

You will fall.

I find it odd that many people in this thread are referring to the record companies in the second person. You should probably check out my posting history or Google my email address.

Just how profitable are these "traditional ip-backed models" when everyone is copying the "ip" on the net for nothing, despite it being illegal with draconian punishments to do so?

People take infringe on copyright precisely because they don't see any repercussions for their actions. Furthermore, if people disregard intellectual property laws, of course those business models won't be profitable. My whole point was that society benefits from IP laws existing and people following them, although the laws aren't perfect and need to be changed.

Society cares about the creator immensely, the creator is effectively a brand name.

I think you misunderstand what I was saying here. We made intellectual property laws to ensure that more works would be created, not to ensure the livelihood of creators. That's just a side effect.

A work-for-hire mechanism can be at least as lucrative as the current system.

If that was true, then more people would use that system. Intellectual property law doesn't prevent people from using that model. The reason artists don't use that model is because traditional models are more lucrative.

If the creator is good, he will be able to command increasingly higher fees for each new creation - not because people are necessarily willing to pay more, but because the better his stuff, the larger the pool of people who have experienced it and liked it enough to pay for the next work will be.

Works take an initial investment to put out. This initial investment allows for the artist to focus on their work instead of working on the side, resulting in better work. Also, the work itself costs money to put together. Record labels act as venture capitalists in the music industry by funding artists.

Moreover, the model you suggest takes the focus off of the work and onto the creator. This is backwards. Like I said before, I don't care about the creator and neither does society. I want to pay for a creative work, not pay someone to create something. By paying for the work itself after it's created, I can make sure the work is good before I buy it by listening to it in a store, or listening to a preview on iTunes. In the model you suggest, I would have to function as a venture capitalist. I don't want to do that, and neither do most people. We don't get a return on investment other than the work itself, so there is very little incentive for consumers to take that risk.

Work-for-hire models are less profitable than traditional models in most cases. They will not replace traditional models unless we force them to by taking away intellectual property rights. If we do that, we'll be forcing the industry to use a less profitable model, therefore less creative works will be produced. That's the whole reason IP law exists.

For example, with roughly a billion people on the net, if only 0.1% think that Joe Cool's next album is worth $1 to them, that's $1,000,000 direct to Joe Cool. That's the kind of money only the super of the super-stars see on any regular basis.

This occurs very infrequently, if at all. If this model was as profitable as you say, they would choose this model instead. Essentially, this is the model that artists use before they get record deals. They get money for concerts and merchandise they sell to people who want to see them put out another work. However, once they get a record deal, they usually take it. Why? It's more profitable.

Creative works would still be produced without intellectual property rights, but there would be less of them. Instead, let artists choose to reliquish their intellectual property rights, and support the ones who do with your money. That doesn't mean it's okay to ignore the intellectual property rights we've given creators as a society. The "get a new business model" argument is crap unless you want to see less creative works produced. The typical response to this is "Well, most of the stuff out there is crap!" So... don't download it?

So, I have the right to re-distribute the work non-commercially with attribution with a share alike clause (those I give the work to are entitled to the same rights I have).

This is essentially a Creative Commons license.

Does the Netherlands permit derivative works as well (without copyright-holder consent)?

That's a good point - consumer electronics companies benefit from IP jsut as much as the copyright cartel. That's why they are ambivalent, at best.

I've been seeing the "market" for DRM-free content exploding recently. Our Media, dead-simple free blogs, and Wikimedia, Creative Commons is becoming downright trendy, and the library of share-alike content grows daily.

Currently, device makers are riding on the coattails of open (or at least unclosed) standards (mp3) in order to sell their DRM-encumbered alternatives (iTunes). No manufacturer is seriously going release a device that can only play closed-format content (Look at Sony)

As demand for unemcumbered content solidifies, demand for non-DRMed formats and players will likewise solidify. There's no way the market will buy a device that requires DRM, so long as there is enough popular content out there that doesn't need it.

So the solution is this: produce and release as much quality share-alike content as fast you possibly can.

Two points
1:) are you sugesting Britney spears or metalica(since "and justice")have a single good song on these albums ;)
2:) meet the http://creativecommons.org/ , The Creative commons is your FSF for the Arts

Then you should read a bit up about the Creative Commons: by-nc-nd

Would not one (or more) of the Creative Commons licenses possibly work? Such as Share Alike + Noncommercial?

How about Creative Commons?

basically the buisness model is,
1)put out your songs in (cc) licencing with your choice of rights
2)Make it availble through your website by torrent (not much server fees)
3)Advertise your site and licensing method (in your local-bands website etc.)
4)Ask for donations
5)As your popularity grows due to heavy usage of ,good songs which anyone can share, you are asked to give performances, where you pass out free cds (for a donation ofcourse)
6)Profit

P.S to the readers when I was reading the article it was at 270 comments, so if this idea was given before, I apologize for the added garbage.

basically the buisness model is,
1)put out your songs in (cc) licencing with your choice of rights
2)Make it availble through your website by torrent (not much server fees)
3)Advertise your site and licensing method (in your local-bands website etc.)
4)Ask for donations
5)As your popularity grows due to heavy usage of ,good songs which anyone can share, you are asked to give performances, where you pass out free cds (for a donation ofcourse)
6)Profit

P.S to the readers when I was reading the article it was at 270 comments, so if this idea was given before, I apologize for the added garbage.

Copyrights are fine when used properly. It's when giant corporations own them and the artists ignorantly sign their rights away b/c they feel it's their only option that it becomes a problem. But yes... make sure you decide what kind of copy rights you would like to retain and then have it posted on your site along with your music downloads. It's just as valid as any other printed media. I'd suggest looking through your options at the creative commons first too.

Don't be stupid. If a label offers you a contract take it. If your career goes anywhere, you can renegotiate a better contract after the terms of the first have been completed.

I agree, don't be stupid. But that's all I agree with.

90% of signed bands never release a second album, because their label dumps them first. Meanwhile, just about all bands make negative money from their first contract. This is important, if you sign with a label, you will end up in debt, you will also end up not owning your own work made while on contract. Standard label contracts are really that abusive. They get away with it, because prior to the internet, they were the only game in town.

You know why Prince changed his name for a few years to that weird multisexual symbol? Because his label owned his name. We got to hear all those jokes about it, when it was really a creative way to escape a hideously abusive recording contract.

Don't be stupid, don't sign with a major label. You never win the lottery, you ain't going to win the label lottery either.

If you are good, you don't need the labels anymore (and chances are they don't want you because "good" does not usually equal "easily packaged up as sex symbols for young teenagers").

Make your own way.

Release your current work to the net with a Creative Commons license. Promote your live performances, sell doodads.

If you are good, you'll gain a following after a while (years probably - so don't quit those day jobs just yet). With a substantial fanbase you can start working on commission. Here's how in a nutshell:

1) Set up an escrow account that people can deposit money in via paypal, credit cards and electronic checks.

2) Name your asking price for the release of a new recording - a whole album or just a track or somewhere in between.

3) Make sure your fanbase knows about your offer, publicisize it every which way you can.

4) When enough people have pre-ordered your new music (via the escrow account) to reach your asking price, release the new performance with a Creative Commons license, and take your money.

If you continue to make good music, each time you release a new track to the public, it becomes advertising for your next commission. If you get popular enough, say just 1 million fans (out of the possible 1 billion or so people on the net), you can really start raking in the bucks on the commissions - ask for a cool $1M to release your next album and all it takes is just 10% of your fans to pay $10 and you are now a very well paid artist. Your fans are happy because unlike with RIAA music, they really will own the music they buy from you, no guilt, shame or jail time for sharing copies with all of their friends and strangers too.

Everybody wins, except the RIAA and their old guard distributors, and nobody will shed a tear for them.

They [ISPs] are actively advertising to their customers to use P2P. Couldn't the music biz interpret this too as aiding file-sharing and destroying their business model? Perhaps [ISPs using such advertising] need to be shutdown?

No, because there is plenty of music available for legitimate sharing and downloading with the blessing of its copyright holders. (An example: Magnatune).

It is therefore a very legitimate feature for ISPs to advertise - and this is becoming more and more so as sharing-friendly licensing initiatives like Creative Commons take root.

Oh, and the music biz has no intrinsic right for their preferred business model to be protected. They have to compete on a fair playing field like everyone else - including artists using a sharing-friendly business model. Protecting copyright is not the same as protected one specific business model among the many built upon copyright.

-- Jamie

That is one way of looking at it. You seem to want to give them credit for decency that I doubt exists. I suggest an alternative explanation exists. Instead of pointing out that they are doing what they accuse us of, I ask if they make up these accusations because their value system accepts this behaviour. I think this is the battlefield that counts. Do they believe it is appropriate to misuse the work of others? The Creative Commons License that Groklaw applies to it's material requires attribution. SCO is using copies without that attribution!

The content isn't copyrighted, but the formatting is copyrighted under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0.

What does that mean, that the formatting is copyrighted? See this thread, on Groklaw. There are also court cases where the contents of a phone directory were considered public information, but their compilation, formatting, etc., were considered copyrighted. (I'm feeling to lazy to look it up at the moment.)

Still, does this really rise to the level of a Federal Case? Is it worth it to file suit, or even send a C & D letter?

At any rate, PJ has made it abundantly clear that she has no intention of pursing this legally. She just finds it very funny, as do I. The people crying for litigation are missing the point.

Yes, but isn't GPL the most free copyleft license one can possibly write?

Nope, the QingPL is (ShareAlike 1.0 is a close second though).

In other words, if you remove a single restriction from it, would it still be copyleft?

No, if you removed the restriction that you can't distribute binaries without distributing source, it'd still be a copyleft.

Maybe it is time for artists to rethink their position as well. I've heard one very successful group say that the majority of their income is from live shows--particularly from the merchandise they sell at the concerts. We also know from numerous reports that artists barely make anything at all off of album sales which usually has to go back to the label to pay off the recording debt. If this is the case then distributing music via P2P or through something like Magnatune under a Creative Commons type license would be helpful, not hurtful to the artist.

They could get their music out there to the masses quite easily. Perform live. Sell T-shirts, CDs, etc. and make money where it's really there to be made.

Artists need to consider their best interests before chaining themselves to a major label...

Who's going to front the money to produce your music? Who's going to pay for the studio time? Not everyone has a DAW in their house, let alone the acoustical environment necessary for quality production.

I am a huge proponent of leveling the media playing field with appropriate use of P2P technologies, business models like Magnatune and tools such as the Creative Commons Licensing. Still, recording ain't cheap.

There is absolutely no point in postponing the introduction of GPL/3. There must be a migration, and there will be a period of overlap.

It may be interesting to know that Nutch has been used for this purpose for a while now:
http://search.creativecommons.org/index.jsp. It may also be interesting to know that Yahoo! Labs hosts a Nutch demo search engine with a few hundred million indexed web pages.

btw, I'm a musician too, and I support filesharing. and don't call me moron.

The point is, the rules just changed. Its not interesting what you or I could do with BT or DC++ or whatever. what I'm saying is that the technology allows EVERYONE to do it. and when BT is gone, something will replace it, ad infinitum, forever so that there is going to be a sizeable percentage of people that for the rest of time are going to "steal" your music. either you can reconcile yourself with that and make a living the old fashioned way by gigging, self-promotion (which is gruelling hard work) and actually being talented or you can whine about it. the rest of us will be working to do something about it.

Think of the last 50 years of the record industry as the dotcom boom stretched out over several decades.

yes, I have several sticks of PC133, but why the hell would anybody want them?

This is the most classic display of public 'Disobeyance of Authority'. DVD-jon is like an evangelist or something. iTunes, I dont believe is the target, nor were the MPAA when he cracked DeCSS. Its more of classic CIVIL DISOBEDIANCE. I mean, something has to be done here. I'm not talking in the near future, but the slightly more distant. People have to stand up against the copyright enforcers. I mean, that's what we're here for right? We love linux, We love not getting told what to do constantly because we are smart enough to think for ourselves.

DRM and iTunes or Microsofts or anybody's is becoming a ****ing nuisance. Digital technology just enables people to do this stuff. Its the way things are, and there will come a time when we are really going to have to confront intellectual property and its owners instead of just pissing around and wondering if Apple Legal are going to send him a letter tommorrow or not.

He can get away with it, so he's doing it. To force their hand. To force all of our hands eventually. I mean, checkout what Lessig is doing. Checkout the Creative Commons and what it really means. We have to be free to do this stuff eventually.
Or else the world is going to fall into contradiction.

which I spose it is, .. or isn't in any given period of time....

read this site:

http://www.downhillbattle.org/itunes

I won't claim I speak for everyone on Slashdot, but for me personally it would be different if a program I wrote and released under the GPL was, say, misused by a person within his circle of friends or re-sold globally by a corporation.

We can take a slightly better example - I have a bunch of photos on www.freenaturepictures.com that are released under a CC license. I'd probably be slightly miffed if someone removed the watermark and used a photo on their website without giving credit, but I'd be pretty mad if someone removed the watermark and re-sold the pictures as their own creations. To me, there is a clear difference between those two scenarios, even though both actions would be violations of the license.

A terrestrial ecoregion map of the Earth is available from the National Geographic Society and WWF - United States as their "terrestrial ecoregion map" showing the 8 terrestrial ecozones. According to WWF-US this is "a project which involves describing, mapping and photographically representing 867 Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World. These ecoregions are divided based upon geography, climate, soils, and vegetation... technical descriptions, species lists, educational excerpts, and photographic depictions of each ecoregion... for educational purposes only."

Understanding most environmental security problems requires some base map. Unfortunately these maps are not available generally in digital map form, which is one reason a digital ecoregion map standard is required.

There is a digital map petition urging the publishers to make the material available electronically under Creative-Commons by-nc-sa. This helps those interested in helping preserve the 238 Global 200 priority ecoregions and complements WWF's own plans: "Every school in the United States will be sent 10 ecoregion maps and teachers guides to get students interested in visiting the web page. Each ecoregion page will include educational descriptions highlighting important biodiversity features of the ecoregion and a summary of the conservation situation. The technical descriptions detail the biology and status of each ecoregion. There also will be one or more photographs depicting the natural habitat of each ecoregion. It has been a Herculean task to gather photographs of natural habitats of the world. We could not have accomplished as much as we have without your willingness to contribute your images." - David M. Olson, Ph.D., Director, Conservation Science Program, World Wildlife Fund US, email: david.olson wwfus org.

Current the WWF-US seeks only "a) the right to publish the photographs on the World Wide Web as part of the Wild World educational web site created by WWF in association with National Geographic Society, underwritten by Ford Motor Company; b) The right to crop and otherwise alter and edit the photographs, as WWF deems appropriate, to fit space or to enhance the function or effectiveness of use of the photographs."

This comment is licensed under CC-by-nc-sa 2.0 - see http://www.livingplatform.ca/tiki-index.php?page=e coregion+map.

"Our web stats indicate that 97-98% of you choose Attribution, so we decided to drop Attribution as a choice from our license menu -- it's now standard."

It's freedom for you to make your own choice about wether you wish to have your icons included in the distribution [...]

Actually, it's a power when you deciding whether others can distribute copies of your digital work; that's licensing, telling others what they are allowed to do with the covered work. It would be a freedom if you were deciding for yourself whether to incorporate the work in something of yours. It's ironic that you bring up RMS later on in your post, because he reminds us that the difference between power and freedom hinges on who's affected -- "Freedom is being able to make decisions that affect mainly you. Power is being able to make decisions that affect others more than you. If we confuse power with freedom, we will fail to uphold real freedom.". This means that licensing anything is a power. Freedom means making a decision whose outcome chiefly affects you.

I think the CC is the best step forward for licensing in general. Three clicks and you have a human readable license- both clear and concise and in standard legalese. RMS might have founded GNU and the FSF but Lessig perfected it.

I think that CC does us all a great service as well, but I think that the FSF and CC's work are complimentary and they serve different ends. RMS and Lessig aren't working on licensing the same kinds of works, for example -- RMS' licenses are for computer software and documentation, the Creative Commons licenses are not intended for licensing computer software.

Any one can use this free of charge for anything, forever.

What's so hard about that?

They do have a Public Domain dedication. Even better.

Filesharing music increases CD sales, it is an organ of publicity just like radio.

Copying things for personal use is "Fair Dealing".
UK Copright Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_ United_Kingdom
Copyright was designed to encourage art.
But It is being abused to clamp down on music, by illegalising the Mashup and Mix and destroying Sample Based Music with exhorbitant Liscense Fees.

For many examples of why Copyright Cartels destroy Creativity read "Freedom of Expression" for Free http://kembrew.com/books/ - an excellent read that shows how Intellectual Property Laws are harming Progress and the Value it Creates.

Clamping down on the distribution of culture within a society will cause the well to dry up.
Do the Major Labels nuture talent? Do they provide music Eduation? No they steal Britain's Greatest Resource, tie it up with legal, and milk it dry, giving nothing back.

The Major Labels act as a Monopolistic Cartel, fixing CD prices, forcing artists into low paying contracts where they have no control over what they make and what it is used for.

Suing people is just a money grab, it has netted the American RIAA $1,000,000 so far and now the greed is spreading.

Sharing things is morally and ethically good, it enriches society and in this case increases the size of the music market.
Want to Protect your Intellectual Property from Unliscenced Commercial Exploitation and Want it to be Used by Other Artists - Use A Creative Commons Liscense.
http://creativecommons.org/

The Majors are set against it because they do not wish to relinquish control, their bloated business practices wouldn't survive one minute in a free market.

Here is a translation of a recent French case where the judge saw sense and let the Guy off.
http://www.audionautes.net/blog/index.php?2005/03/ 11/23-movies-downloading-judged-legal-in-france

Peer to peer is the intended architecture of the Internet, Client Server is a hangover from when Bandwidth and storage was expensive - if these fools have their way the internet will break.

The European Union Copyright Directive (EU DCMA) has removed many of our "fair dealing" rights by the backdoor of DRM.

The UK Phony Society's recent press release eagerly parroted by the press are all spin how can they possibly sue 8 year old children for downloading things - They Can't They Are Lying and Bullying People into Coughing Up money they may have used to see bands or buy music.

Cinepaint or one of the other specialist video editing apps would be the obvious implementation place for me.

Or perhaps Krita, since they seem to be taking an active interest in advanced techniques such as natural media and painting tools algorithms etc.

Regardless of where it appears though, it would be great to see an open source tool with this feature. All of those old Open Content videos on creativecommons.org etc. would suddenly look a lot more appealing to non-geeks if we could colorise them :)

Answers.com is violating the license in which some content (particularly photographs) are included in the wikipedia. For instance, the I gave a license to the following image Lemonade to the Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons share alike license. It is used in the article Lemonade.

This image is reproduced in answers.com: lemonade without any mention of the author (me). That is against the license I placed on the image. It is linked from the article Lemonade.

Pearlman is on to something. Though, his plan will effectively create a monopoly, a single system for distribution of music. He even proposes that the major music labels should be bought by computer manufacturers.

I believe I have a better plan. It is a simple add-on to the Creative Commons NC-license which says something like: "You may use this commercially if you pay X % in royalties to the copyright holder trough the Open Music Service". The Open Music Service collects royalties worldwide and gives it to the copyright owners.

The goal is that anyone may start their own online music store and sell music at whatever price they seem like (royalties always beeing in percentages). A completly free market for music distribution in which the artists gets paid. Likewise, artists would simply have to make a contract with the Open Music Service and "click" you are distributed world wide.

Q: Why would people pay for music they may download for free? (AKA "competing with free")
A: Because it is more convient to go to a site dedicated to music you like and pay 5 cents for a download than to search trough the p2p networks. The dedicated site may even help you find new music you like, something the p2p networks can't do on their own.

I also believe this to be more realistic than Pearlmans suggestion as you don't need the major labels to start with. Just get the self-distributing artists and some indie labels to sign on (they would definetly get more income with this system) and you have an established alternative.

That's the barebones. As I've been working on this idea for over a year, there is of course more.
Actually, I've been meaning to start a company based on the idea, but haven't gotten very far. If you want to get involved, please drop me a line.

For what it is worth, you are specifically talking about the "right of attribution" which is a part of copyright law, but is mostly seperate from the stuff that the copyright cartel abuses. But there is a question of derived works, at what point does a derived work become original enough that the right of attribution to the original creator becomes silly? Just something to think about.

You might consider releasing your own creations under a creative commons license that preserves the right attribution.

If you want to follow the example of Bram who only downloads legal stuff, you can test your brand new BT 4.0 client with the excellent Wired CD, in Ogg Vorbis :

Wired CD .torrent