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Current mood:  pleased
I'm pleased if not a bit humbled by all the attention my interview with Creative Commons' Eric Steuer has received this past week. (If you haven't already read or heard it, click here.) I'm pleased because it's bringing attention to an organization whose work I champion. Creative Commons just makes sense.
I chose to release Halfway, pleased under a CC license for a number of reasons. One of those is because it truly recognizes the way people consume music. If I had released the album under an "All Rights Reserved" copyright, and you decided to do a remix of a song for fun, or lent the CD to your friend to make a copy, or performed a song at your school concert, you might well be in violation of the copyright.
That's just silly. As I said in the interview, we as artists want to share our music. We want it to be heard, by as many people as possible.
Second, an "all rights reserved" copyright just doesn't take into account the way people behave - we all "share" music with our friends, or play it at school events - and is therefore impossible to enforce.
Third, I'm thrilled if people like my music enough to share it with their friends or perform it for others. Do I want to suppress that by making you ask me for permission every time? No, I don't. Do I want to deal with a multitude of requests such as "is it okay if I use your song as the backing track for my school video project?" No, I don't. It's fine. Do it.
Creative Commons makes it very easy to release my work under a "Some Rights Reserved" Creative Commons license. The one I chose (and there are several) says: do with my music what you will, as long as you give me credit, as long as whatever you do is released under the same terms, and as long as you're not receiving income for it. It's all in very plain English, no lawyers involved.
The rights that I've reserved, then, largely have to do with commercial exploitation: Television or film soundtracks; paid performances; commercials; sampling; etc. Basically, you don't have the right use my music in a way that generates revenue for you without my permission and without my participating in that revenue.
One misconception I should like to clear up about Creative Commons is that all music released under a CC license is free. Some is, to be sure, but not all. Some artists choose to release their music for free and concentrate on other revenue streams (such as live performances) for their income, others (like myself) do not. I invested a great deal in the recording and release of Halfway pleased, and charging for it is a way for me to recoup those expenses and to have the funds to invest in making more music.
That being said, I think I've been as democratic as possible in the way I charge for it. You can buy a track at a time from digital services like iTunes, AmazonMP3 or thesixtyone. You can buy the entire album digitally, or on CD. And you don't even have to buy it to listen to it, since it streams for free on my website. If you're a registered member of my site, you can download a track for free. That's all pretty fair, don't you think?
Last, Creative Commons isn't just for music. It's for video, for text (all Wikipedia entries are now CC licensed), for photos (CC is an option on Flickr, for example). It's not just for the English language; licenses are available in a number of languages and for a number of countries.
Some of you have asked how you can help spread the word about Creative Commons. I myself found out about it through a colleague, so the best way to spread the word is... to spread the word. If you have friends who make art, make sure they know about it. The website is www.creativecommons.org, and you can follow them on Twitter @creativecommons.
That's it for now. I'm enjoying the last week of summer with the girls before they head back to school next week. Hoping to do some more solo shows in and around Los Angeles in the next few months, and of course I'll let you know as soon as those dates are confirmed.
Papa S.
EZEZEZ
7:34 PM
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