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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."
Thats actually a good idea, with RIAA complaining that file sharing hurts the music industry by letting people get songs for free, this may promote people buying CDs again. (You hear 30 seconds of a song, you like it, you buy the CD, etc.)
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.
I thought all "artists" gave copyrights to the company for their works ... can the artists do such a thing because I doubt that RIAA would :-\
just my 2 bytes
I don't see any CD. Are we talking about the October or November issue?
Not all the songs allow sampling...
Sampling Plus: Songs under this license allow noncommercial sharing and commercial sampling, but advertising uses are restricted.
Noncommercial Sampling Plus: Songs under this license allow noncommerical sharing and
noncommercial sampling.
o_o
You missed april fools by 6 months.
So it sounds like a job for Bittorrent!
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
Music, photos and film/video footage gain value the more they're heard or seen; they can't be diluted or depleted like physical property. Ultimately artists who approve sharing and sampling of their work will sell more music. Free downloading has worked well for us, a historical film archive, and led to more business. See http://www.archive.org/movies/prelinger.php.
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!
Plus, they're listing theirs under the 'Noncommercial Sampling Plus: Songs under this license allow noncommerical sharing and noncommercial sampling' which is fine and good for them; I'd be curious to know how many songs they've 'bitten' over the years that never got attributed.
Paul's Boutique was an excellent example of how sampling should work, and how completely new works can be made from old - that was a fantastic record.
Then we've got P. Duddy to show how old works can be ruined by 'sampling' *entire songs*. Ugh.
It IS great to see that there is some attempt at a revamp of copyright, and this CD will only increase the exposure of CC. At least until the songs get on P2P and are all mixed up with ones that are not legal to share...
Funny, I don't see anything from Metallica on this CD.
The evolution of The Beastie Boys' consciousness is truly amazing, almost unbelievable. Their last album silently installed DRM code and now it is released under a Creative Commons Licence for everyone to share! Isn't it wonderful that there are people who really can listen to our community and adapt to the information era instead of trying to halt the progress like the RIAA? This CD will be a perfect Christmas gift for anyone who doesn't realize that not every rights are "reserved" and that copying and sharing is not inherently illegal. Anyone got a torrent link?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Is it possible to order only that one issue of Wired internationally instead of subscribing for 12 months? I would like to get few copies of that CD for Xmas gifts for my DJ friends for sampling but I don't want to buy like ten subscriptions for $700! :( Any way to get only this one issue to central Europe before Xmas? Thanks!
MPAA is Motion Picture Association of America, has nothing to do with music, I believe.
They don't have much to do with movies either. Just with suing people.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The nice thing is you can give Chuck D a call and ask him about it yourself. He hosts Unfiltered, a talk show on Air America Radio. I believe it airs every weekday and can be heard either on the radio in 30+ markets or via RealAudio or MS streaming.
Chuck D's been pretty vocal on the side of pro-music sharing, so I'd be interested in anyone who might ask him why he doesn't want to be sampled...
It's a simple acknowledgement that one size does not fit all.
In fact, by assembling a variety of licence options under one roof and explaining the options in a consistant and coherant way (and with comics), they go a long way to helping people really understand the issues.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I'm confused, what else are "Associations of America" supposed to do besides sue people?
Isn't that our national business?
No!
That would be reality shows!
But hush! That's all only until the hairdressers and telephone sanitizers take over.
It could be legal problems -- If they live by sampling, they'll have to get the rights to release the samples that they're using.. They may not have been able to get a release for anything more than non-commercial sampling.
As for the flip-flop, they may be experimenting to see which approach sells more records, or they may be trying to get back into the good books of all the fans they would have pissed off with a DRM'ed CD.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
i.e just like John Carmack and the Doom source (the music in that game's case), they
can't give you sampling rights because they licensed them themselves...
Sorry, but the commercial world, she's a bitch.
From the corporate perspective, the Hollywood studios are starting off from a stronger position than the music industry, though. CDs were always easy to copy analog, but most DVD players will MacroVision scramble (possibly multiplied with other copy proteciton systems) a program so that the everyday consumer cannot copy it. Yes, there are hacks for these protections and codecs for pulling off the Mpeg-2 video into a DVD+/-R-friendly format. But it's not as easy as making a tape off an album was.
But it can't last. With digital television and broader-band internet (e.g., WiMax) coming, something is going to have to give. Mandating chips into players and burners only can go so far. It cannot last forever against the democratic marketplace of Open Source and Creative Commons economics.
But it will take time, and pain. For music, it's proving to be not as painful as it might have been for the musicians, though the tassled-loafer boys living in Bel Air might be feeling the pinch. But with movies, a lot more people are involved in each project. And what this spells for the big movie, I don't know. (If the blockbusters go, no real loss, some would say.)
We are in a time of upheaval, and one of the biggest sectors of our economy -- entertainment -- is going to be pretty much unrecognizable to our soon-to-be-outdated perspective in just a few years.
media girl
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.
The Creative Commons organization always had multiple licenses with different terms; it never meant just one thing (so the complaint was never valid). But more importantly, this matches "free software" licensing and "open source" licensing which are also varied in what is allowed and what copyright powers are retained. You can't know that a program is "free software" or "open source" and know that everything you might want to do with the work is allowed (most licenses don't cover software patents, for instance); you can't be sure what is allowed downstream for derivatives from your derivative (some licenses don't have a copyleft, for instance).
How is this new set of CC licenses new? I can't answer that for everyone, but only one thing changes for me: I host "Digital Citizen" on alternate Wednesdays from 8-10p on my local community radio station (WEFT 90.1 FM). On my show, I air only things which can be copied and distributed (at least verbatim). CC-licensed music and talks make up a good deal of my show (in the language of CC licenses, I make a "Collective" work).
The Sampling license doesn't allow the entire work to be copied and distributed. But the other sampling licenses (Sampling Plus, and Non-Commercial Sampling Plus) do allow the entire work to be copied and distributed. So, for the first time, knowing that a work is a CC-licensed work is not enough to merit inclusion in my show. I have to make sure a CC-licensed work is not licensed to me under the Sampling license.
This isn't a big deal, but it is a change.
Digital Citizen
Well, before the phonograph, musicians had to *gasp* PERFORM to make money. Then came a sort of golden age, where you could theoretically make a few records, then sit on your ass and watch the money roll in.
Now it seems like that golden age is coming to an end, forcing artists who can't perform live out of business. A good development, IMHO.
Meep.
Metallica are selling FLACs of their live concerts here. In their FAQ they acknowledge that they know they aren't DRM protected and can be shared.
The main problem with this is Slashdot itself. When I discovered this at least six months ago I thought this was pretty major news as Metallica were one of the main, vocal opponents of DRM free music, which of course means it easily can be distributed via P2P file sharing. Do you think my Slashdot submission was noticed ? I don't ever remember seeing it.
Maybe Slashdot has secretly been taken over by RIAA, and don't want Metallica's change of heart to be known about by anti-DRM proponents.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
... that would be biodiesel. Brew it yourself from waste cooking fat. If you live in a warm enough country (Scotland is warm enough for 9 months of the year) you can just filter it and pour it straight in.
"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.
It means Wired is only one lawsuit away from RIAA
Hang on a second.
What they have done is either legal, or it is not.
If they are subject to a lawsuit as a result of something legal, provided they are willing to fight it out (and trust me, they will be) the RIAA will be the loser.
Being the defendant in a lawsuit is not necessarily a problem. Being the loser is.
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
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.
It'll be a cold day in hell when I buy Wired.
Bad timing for you then. Reports are that hell froze over last year when Apple released iTunes for Windows.
Too bad the CD wasn't available then. Maybe with all this weird weather we're having, who knows?
There are artists who are simply more comfortable and productive in the studio work than in live performance. But a techie forum like Slashdot seems a strange place to argue that live performance is not the only legitimate form of music.
Do you *REALLY* think that the Beastie Boys have the power to tell their record label what to do? Those tricky T&C of contracts tend make the band release the album in accordance with what the label wants. Hence why there was DRM on their album.
And, yes Paul's Boutique is an amazing work - the best mix tape ever made!
...they were right about you...
When I listed my material there CC vaulted to the top of my referrer list in just a couple weeks.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I guess I *will* have to download it.
Did anyone else's CD survive packaging and transport?
Additionally, it's great to see a CD with the copyright notice, "Some Rights Reserved."
I find it rather ironic that with the "legal to share!" hyperbole you have to buy a friggin magazine to get it!?
:o)
Where are the download links on the site, Wired!? sheesh
I know, I know "It's a business, they need to make money", yadda yadda - but one of the biggest points of opening intellectual property in music is that the Internet makes so much more sense as a distribution medium, rather than shipping CDs.
OK.. I'm done bitching
No, they're not. Wired has permission from the artists and the record labels to be distributing their songs: even if some people in the RIAA think this might be a bad precedent, they can't do anything about it, because they simply have no legal case. This goes beyond a question of fair use vs. copyright infringement: it's been done with permission and it's legal, end of story.
like they know what type of license it is, They know one thing: $$$
The RIAA might be greedy, but they're not morons, and I'm sure they know copyright law like the backs of their hands. They know that they have no case and that a judge would probably throw out any attempt at a lawsuit.
By the way, what would be in it for them? I'm not sure if these labels are RIAA members, but if so, the RIAA would be acting against the decisions of their own members. If not, the RIAA has no business intervening.
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.
In all the lawsuits that the RIAA has filed so far, there's been some logical basis for their case - and it's usually something like "People our using our stuff without our permission; make them stop." There's some logic in that: the RIAA makes its profit off of intellectual property that people are getting off KaZaa for free. There would be no such logic in the case that you're describing.
/. crowd tend to think. The RIAA is constantly looking out for their bottom line at the expense of "free information," but I don't think that they're as fanatically against free content as you think. I'm sure they don't love the idea (they're selling the stuff; free content can make bought content less desirable), but you don't see anybody suing, say, purevolume or music.download.com because they have no case and because, in many cases, the labels providing free content are members of the RIAA.
I don't believe that RIAA is as fanatical as the
The logic RIAA's arguments have of course been slanted towards their point of view, and "knowing better" is probably defined as "being able to profit and not get in trouble," but there is some logic there, and it would say that a lawsuit wouldn't benefit the RIAA or its members.
I say this, by the way, not as some nutty corporate sympathizer but as someone who's starting a little indie record label that's giving out music for free. There are certainly a lot of problems with the music industry, but you paint labels as totally evil corporate suits. They're certainly interested in the bottom line, but that doesn't make them out-and-out jerks.
By the way, IndyMediaWatch guy, INAL, but if you're the plantiff in a lawsuit and you lose, I don't think that's really a problem - it's not like you'll be fined; it's just that the defendant wouldn't be punished or anything. You have a problem when you lose and you're the defendant.
I produce electronic music and write little games. Have a look.