Probably one of the most confusing things in the music business is the organization “Creative Commons” and how it applies to royalty free music. To understand what role they play and just how creative commons works, you first need to have a basic understanding of copyright law as it applies to music.
Basic copyright is a different animal than it was 40 years ago. But we’ll get to why shortly. For now, let’s just start off with a layman’s “definition” of musical copyright.
In short, John Doe writes the song “This Is My Song” and copyrights it. Essentially that copyright says that no person may write another song that significantly sounds like “This Is My Song” and no person may use that song for any purpose without paying a royalty fee to the creator of the song.
I can create a music CD and record my own version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” written by Paul Simon. But every sale I make from that song requires me to pay a royalty to Paul Simon. If I don’t, I am in violation of copyright. Naturally, I better not write and record a song that sounds like “Bridge Over Troubled Water” unless I want to get sued.
In short, copyright protects the person who wrote the song.
In the days before the Internet, this was fairly easy to do. There was no such thing as digital music, at least not in the sense that we think of it today. Sure, you could record songs off the radio or other records with a cassette player (something a lot of people did) and, if you wanted to illegally make some money, create copies of those cassettes and sell them, but the cost of doing such a thing cut down on how much some of these activities took place.
Today, it’s a different animal. The Internet makes it so that any song can be instantly downloaded and duplicated in a matter of seconds. Digital copies can be made instantly and distributed by digital download so fast it would make your head spin.
In short, enforcing copyright today is more difficult than ever.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not knocking the Internet. It has allowed me to make a living from the comfort of my own home. But this beast we created has a dark downside that a lot of people are burying their heads in the sand about.
I myself am the victim or music theft on a daily basis. A Firefox plugin makes it a piece of cake for anybody to download any of my royalty free songs without having to pay for them. Considering these songs go for all of a couple of bucks, I think that’s pretty sad. But that’s another topic for another day.
Point is, because copyright is so hard to enforce today, Creative Commons is an alternative in attempt to make the Internet a place where the free exchange of musical ideas becomes the norm. It’s not meant to take the place of copyright but work alongside with it.
So what exactly is Creative Commons and how does it work?
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization. They were founded in 2001 and are headquartered in Mountain View, California in the US.
Their main goal is to build a collection of creative works that the public can share. They have actually released several copyright licenses which are collectively known as creative commons licenses.
These licenses all grant “basic” copyright rights such as the right to distribute the work for non-commercial purposes and without modification.
In addition to the above, the other rights depend on the version of the license being granted. There are four different conditions.
1) Attribution – May copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works ONLY if they give the original author credit in the manner designated by the rights themselves.
2) Share-alike – May distribute derivative works ONLY if the license is identical to the license for the original work. In other words, if the original work says XYZ then the share-alike work must also say XYZ.
3) Non-commercial – May copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and make derivative works only for non-commercial purposes. That means you can’t make money from the work you’re using. Later in this article I’ll explain how this affects royalty free music.
4) No Derivative Works – May copy, distribute, display and perform only identical works. No derivative works allowed. Identical means identical. You take the work as it is and copy, distribute, display or perform the work as it is. I will also explain how this affects royalty free music.
Creative commons licenses work at both ends. They work on the end of the original creator of the work, if he so chooses, and they work on the end of the person using the work either if the original creator requires it or the licensee needs it to protect their use of it. This is where things can get extremely complicated. While I can’t possibly go over all examples, I will cover a couple.
Let’s say the original creator of the work gets a creative commons license for non-commercial use. How does this affect a person licensing this music royalty free? If their original intention was to purchase the music for say an opening to a club act to be played each evening, while the work itself might not be making them any money on its own, because the club act is earning them an income (assuming it is) they can’t use this work for the club opening as that would be considered commercial use. Any time the issue of money being collected for something comes in, that’s commercial use. That’s one example where a creative commons license on the side of the original creator will limit the uses for their music by potential licensees.
Let’s say the original creator of the music does not copyright the music at all and just sells it royalty free as is but the licensee wants to protect the music they have licensed so they get a creative commons license that says for non-commercial use so that nobody can make a profit off the work. That’s an example where the licensee requires a creative commons license on their end even though the original creator did not.
Needless to say, this can get quite complicated the more people get involved in the process over a certain work.
None of my works have any restrictions on them whatsoever. They are not copyrighted and have no creative commons licenses associated with them. In other words, you pay a one time fee and can use them royalty free for whatever purpose you like, including making money.
Anyway, there you have it. That’s creative commons in a nutshell and in very basic English. If you want to learn more about creative commons licenses, go to their web site at https://creativecommons.org/ and see what they’re about for yourself.
I think their cause is a noble one in an attempt to change some very antiquated copyright laws because of how difficult they are to enforce today thanks to the Internet and technology in general.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim