CopyLeft / Creative Commons licenses

[Afro Droid]

My friend Neil Leyton is involved with this new way of coyprighting/licensing music:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 2004

Neil Leyton, label manager of Toronto-based indie Fading Ways Music, is delighted to announce that all 2004 Fading Ways CD releases will be sold under CopyLeft / Creative Commons licenses, legally returning to the buyer the options of sharing, copying and artistically exploring their purchased Fading Ways CD title. Fading Ways Music is the first

internationally-distributed label to adopt Creative Commons CopyLeft

licensing for its new physical CD releases.

With over 30 released titles distributed in 15 countries by over a dozen

artists, Fading Ways is Canada's most vibrant young label. Leyton explains: "Put simply, CopyLeft and the Creative Commons licenses means that if a fan copies a CD to give to a friend, they are not breaking the law. Even if they upload an MP3 and share it with other web users they are not breaking the law as long as due credit is given and they are not making any money out of distributing the artists' work."

Established in 1998, Fading Ways Music is built on values of ethical

treatment of artists, their music, and those who buy it. Representing 19 of Canada's brightest music makers whose genres span everything from acoustic pop to punk rock, Fading Ways Music is making history in an industry where the traditional values copyright was based on are being unwittingly made obsolete by the actions of the RIAA. The Fading Ways philosophy is simple: Offer the consumer a high quality release, and encourage the buyer to share it with whomever they choose. "Fading Ways will also provide an optional PayPal donations system for fans to contribute funds directly to their favourite artists should they be uploading or copying their music," says Leyton. "Our goal here is two-fold: to counter the RIAA-induced notion that downloading is somehow wrong; and to provide the fans with a voluntary system by which they can congratulate and genuinely reward the artists work." Old notions of copyright are changing. Fading Ways Music is at the forefront of a new era of quality releases and consumer freedom. The two first Fading Ways releases to be sold under the Creative Commons license will be two new artist debuts: Red Orkestra's "After the Wars" and Jim Clements' "Kill Devil Hills".

For more information on Fading Ways Music's CopyLeft licensing:

www.fadingwaysmusic.com/mission.html

Cooments?

[Cloud]

I think it's very interesting, because the amount of money that they'll lose by doing this is likely to be very little anyway, so it's a nice little PR stunt.

It's also a way to get round any problems with getting the CD's out - by telling people that they can do what they like with the music, people will support them and likely try and get hold of the CD's anyway. I doubt they lose very much money by people downloading/copying anyway.

If the moumentum continues, I'd like to see a confederation of independent record labels all joining up and releasing things under this, simply because their voice would more likely get heard that way than by a record label 'going alone' so to speak.

I wouldn't be surprised if they end up proving that allowing people to copy is beneficial rather than detrimental.

[Guest Craig]

Originally posted by Cloud:

I think it's very interesting, because the amount of money that they'll lose by doing this is likely to be very little anyway, so it's a nice little PR stunt.

It's not really a PR 'stunt' now is it?

Copyleft (outside of music, and in computer software) has been kicking about for a good few years in the form of the General Public License..which states that you can do anything with the source code of a piece of software released under the GPL...as long as any software using the GPL'd code is also distributed with the GPL.

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

This is a great step for any label to recognise this as a distribution method/lisencing method.

Good on Mr Leyton.

[Cloud]

Originally posted by CraigDDG:

It's not really a PR 'stunt' now is it?

Not in the 'traditional' sense, but it's still a damned good way of raising positive PR without costing very much - look at the amount of attention they're going to get whenever the issue arises now? At the end of the day, they're likely to make more money this way, and anything that benefits them and the consumers is a win-win situation really.

This is a great step for any label to recognise this as a distribution method/lisencing method.

I agree entirely, it's about time that someone who has some degree of influence realised this.

As for the GPL, it's probably one of the most important things in the computer industry, imo. I've lost count of the amount of stuff that i've used that's covered by it, and that's testament to just how good an agreement it is.