Slashdot Mirror
Creative Commons In the News
An anonymous reader writes "MSNBC is running an article on a new licensing scheme being used to bring civility to the world of copyright." From the article: "Interest in Creative Commons licenses comes as artists, authors and traditional media companies begin to warm to the idea of the Internet as friend instead of foe, and race to capitalize on technologies such as file-sharing and digital copying." At the same time, mpesce writes "Boing Boing is
reporting that the Australian equivalent of the Screen Actors Guild, the MEAA, has forbidden its members to work in Creative Commons productions. 'The MEAA Board decided that it could grant none of the dispensations sought
by MOD Films, on the grounds that these would be inappropriate.'"
They do have a Public Domain dedication. Even better.
i don't think you understand what the liability is in the public domain copyright notice: it is that if the work of art is not in the the public domain, the person publishing it can be held accountable. It's not liability if something breaks, but rather if you don't have rights over it in the first place.
Well, yeah. They are essentially a union and unions by nature are anti-competetive. Their purpose for existance is create solidarity among the workforce so that they are not competing against one another. They can use this force for good such as coping with imbalences in the market - thousands upon thousands of immigrants who could not speak english, and all competing for the tiny number of jobs they were actually capable of doing. But they can also use the force to strong-arm the market however they want, and most of the time now-a-days, the create more imbalance than they fix.
There is an email form to register your disgust.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Either way I have to wonder just how far they can go at curtailing a members outside activities.
They can fine members. Expel them from the union if they refuse to pay. And if they're not in the union they won't be able to get union work.
It's not a case of "we forbid you". More "We collectively agree that we will not" on the grounds that overall it does more harm than good.
the Australian equivalent of the Screen Actors Guild, the MEAA, has forbidden its members to work in Creative Commons productions. 'The MEAA Board decided that it could grant none of the dispensations sought by MOD Films, on the grounds that these would be inappropriate.'
I'm sure I don't have the correct terminology, but in the USA independent productions (i.e. very little, if any pay) can get exemptions from SAG which allow union actors to officially work on the project - I guess there are still some minium standards they require of the production like workmans comp.
Furthermore, union actors often work on non-union projects under a pseudonym and to the best of my knowlege. no SAG member has ever been forced out of the union for working in a non-union project.
Then there are those who are working for refugees, but don't set up websites about it.
There are hosts of similar sites, set up by those working to do good (unlike our government) on the issues of Aborigines, invading other countries and being a good global citizen.
Australia is a diverse community, about which generalisations cannot be made. I agree Australia's image is tarnished, but I also point out that a lack of shine does not sit well with many Australians.
"I'd like to get this story from a source that's not named "Boing Boing" and doesn't use words like "sez" in their articles. Even Fox News would be a better source of information. Maybe."
This seems to get brought up pretty much any time boingboing is mentioned on slashdot. boingboing.net is a blog run by Cory Doctorow, a science-fiction author, journalist, and activist. He's active in the EFF and the Creative Commons movement. He tends to get covered by slashdot a lot.
Wanted: One witty yet thought provoking
The boingboing.net article was gleaned from apc.au ITC Rights Monitor which took their info from the Modfilms.com homepage, which also has the press release in .pdf format.
Yes, that was one of my Web sites. However, since my interaction with you is getting lumped into a discussion of plagarism, I would mention that I do not plagarize -- everything I put up there is extensively cited and credited. The reason I didn't change my license for you was simply that other people were more easy-going, so there was no need to pursue your writing.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Its more reasonable than it seems. Actors own a right to publicity, the commercial use of their image, which is only granted in part to the production company for certain conduct related to the sale of the film. They negotiate this reservation of rights with the production companies, who then do not overreach with individual actor agreements on the point. Thus, folks who want to use a commercial film clip outside the scope need to negotiate with the actors to do so. This provides some residual rights for all actors in the film.
The problem is that the standard provision gets in the way of the CC license. There is no obvious or practical solution here. The actors are asked to donate their right to publicity, which is simply outside the scope of the deal. The reason this provision is collectively negotiated serves largely to benefit the union members, but it does limit the scope of flexibility actors in the union have to give broader rights. And it does this by design.
Now, I'm a US lawyer, so I may just be guessing what is going on down under. But that would be the problem if the issue came up here.