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Wired Releases Creative Commons Sampling CD
An anonymous reader writes "In this month's issue of Wired Magazine, there is an included CD featuring songs from The Beastie Boys, David Byrne, among others. The unique thing about the CD is that all of the tracks are released under Creative Commons Licences, making them legal to share."
These songs are licensed under the Creative Commons license-- which means not only are you free to share these songs, but you're free to tinker with them. Extract samples, make new mixes, whatever. In stark contrast to the norm.
This isn't just about "good free music" (though it looks like it is that). It's about artists and labels "getting it" about what creates a culture of creativity and walking the walk.
Seeing this makes me happy.
RD
Most of these songs are licensed for commercial sampling, but a handful aren't.
Chuck D and the Beastie Boys, two bands who have built their careers on sampling (like most of the artists on the CD) won't let you sample their work commercially. (The other band that doesn't is "My Morning Jacket", but I don't know who they are.)
Bizarre.
You mean "a" Creative Commons licence. There are a variety of them, and what you are permitted to do varies between them.
For example some of the tracks on the disc are only samplable (?) for noncommercial purposes which is probably a restriction that doesn't fit with some peoples ideas of "freedom".
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I don't see any CD. Are we talking about the October or November issue?
RTFA
Clip magazine, November issue (get the CD free with your copy, on newsstands now!) end clip
The truth shall set you free!
Of course, that only covers the rights to the recording. You'll also need permission from whoever is the copyright holder, which usually means the songwriter's publisher, rather than the songwriter.
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
The file sharing client Morpheus supports Creative Commons, and properly tagged mp3s are recognized in search results in the client. Creative Commons will soon begin tagging all their mp3 files in the Copyright id3 tag. On Morpheus, you can even search 'cc:sampling' and 'cc:sharing', and you'll find and be able to download all properly tagged Creative Commons content.
Your signatures belong to me.
Ok. I sample a chunk off a record (say, the bassline from Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax). I get permission from ZTT to use that sample, but not to distribute it apart from my record. This effectively means I can't give people permission to sample my record, in case they sample the bit off Relax. It's a viral licensing scheme, effectively, where "closed" samples "infect" otherwise open content.
"Vorbii" is not the correct plural of "Vorbis". You see, Vorbis is not a second declension masculine noun as is often assumed, but rather a rare 4th declension neutre. In extant literature it was only used in its singular form -- obviously in the glory days of Rome Vorbis could not have been associated with a popular digital music format, and rather described the feeling that one has when one hears a pleasant sound. Understandably, this noun was uncountable and as such was never seen in the plural.
Therefore, when constructing the plural for this noun, you should use the widely accepted English plural, namely, "Vorbises".
Just wanted to clear that up. Vorbii is a pet peeve of mine.
Who sanctioned this CD? Most artists when they're signed to a label aren't allowed to perform for anyone else without the label's permission. That's why on every Garbage CD it says "Shirley Manson appears courtesy of..." - She's licensed to Garbage by her record label (or something like that).
So this means that all of these artists are appearing here with the permission of the record labels, though there may be a few exceptions.
An artist like the Beastie Boys can negotiate a favorable record contract with a smaller label. David Bowie does this. He sold the future royalties to all of his songs (it's amazing that he had them in the first place), and now only works with smaller record labels that are happy to have him because he's gauranteed sales, and in exchange they give him complete creative control. It's just a small step to negotiating ownership of your music as well.
An artist like Zap Mama (an excellent group, by the way) may, by virtue of being small, be able to negotiate a favorable contract because they may be able to generate income from things like touring, giving lessons and workshops and so forth, so having a record contract is just a matter of distribution more than promotion... I'm not saying this is the case for Zap Mama, they're actually fairly big, especially outside of the United States, but *perhaps* they could do this kind of thing.
But.... odds are it didn't happen this way. Odds are the record company *owns* the rights to all of these songs, and *the record company* decided to release these songs under creative commons. As ar as they're concerned, the artists may not even have needed to be asked do this.
The question then becomes - why would they do something like this? Are they being foward thinking? Didn't Apple just come out with an ipod pre-loaded with U2 songs? Could it be that the record labels are finally attempting new channels of distribution and figuring out new ways of making money in the digital age?
Another poster praised the Beasty Boys for their ability to change, and surely the Beasty Boys had *some* input into what went on their CD, and some input over the release of their songs under Creative Commons. What I want to know is - how much? And how much was the label.
Interestingly, one of the songs is from Gilberto Gil, not only a well known artist but also the Minister of Culture in a government which has a positive attitude to Open Source software.
All the sampling licenses allow for sampling.
Some don't allow commercial sampling.
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