Dear Lazyweb

[prog]

I figure at least a handful of y'all know a little something about the Creative Commons...

If a work is under the CC "no derivatives" clause, does that mean I can't use it as a TV show soundtrack? It's not clear to me whether the admonition means that I can't make a new piece of the same kind of media out of it - use it as a sample in my own composition, that is - or whether I can't redistribute it in any form at all other than the pure-audio shape I found it in.

Edit Aw nuts, The CC FAQ sez yes it is derivative.

Comments

[spatch]

Am sad to hear about the kibosh on the song you want, but am glad you found out without having to deal with any zealots.

[prog.livejournal.com]

It does limit my options, but there is actually plenty of CC-licensed music without the no-derivative clause on it, and I'm pleased and surprised to learn that one piece I've already made use of and wanted to use again is among them.

It's a double-edged bit of knowledge... I'm cut off from one pool of music, but I shall now sample from another with impunity.

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

IANAL but it seems to me that using it as a soundtrack is the whole point of the no-derivatives license. Your work isn't *based* on it, it simply uses it verbatim in the background. So long as you're not modifying the piece of music itself, I'm reasonably sure you can use it.

There's no substitute for contacting the musician though.

[prog.livejournal.com]

There is this, right from the CC FAQ: Under Creative Commons’ core licenses, synching music in timed-relation with a moving image is considered to be a derivative work. I'm assuming this means everything from a full-on music video to just having a piece of music fade in at some particular point in one's video and then fade out again later (which is what I do).

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure there's a distinction, just not sure exactly where the line is. Again, there's no substitute for confirming the intent of the license with the musician, but I'm almost completely sure that simply fading in and out does not count as derivative. You could replace the music with some other piece of music and it wouldn't directly affect the meaning of your video. Compare editing the footage to match beats etc.

Not being able to use CC-licensed material would kind of defeat the whole purpose of CC, which is why I suspect your use is legit. In fact I think it's the whole point of CC!

[prog.livejournal.com]

The way I'm reading the default intent of the CC NoDerivative clause something like "You can give this away to all your friends, or even host a copy yourself or burn it onto hard-media compilations or whatever. But whatever you do, you can't combine it with anything, or share only a piece of it, change it in any other way. It is what it is, and that's all that it is."

You are correct that contacting the artist is the best solution. It's also (potentially) wicked slow, and (at least for this project) I am impatient.

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

I get the feeling your reading of the intent is just as likely to be correct. Impatience certainly favours the public domain. :)

Where do you search for CC-licensed music? I've enjoyed your choices so far and, lacking any musical talent of my own, could use some free jazzy background music for my silly tech demos.

[prog.livejournal.com]

That would be the most excellent Yahoo! Creative Commons Search: http://search.yahoo.com/cc

Checking the "Find content I can modify, adapt, or build upon" checkbox will return only hits that don't specify the NoDerivatives clause in their licenses.

[keimel.livejournal.com]

But of course, that doesn't exclude 'fair use' - but then from how it sounds, you're using it distinctly for a music bed for some amount of time, not reviewing it or sampling a short amount of it, so fair-use doesn't matter in this case, right?

AFAIK, Fair-use covers all licenses for artistic material. Pointers appreciated if you believe this to be wrong. But you have a video to finish.... you can't be responding to every single no-good-nick-lazy-web-nothing-to-add-to-help-with-my-problem web surfer.

;)

[prog.livejournal.com]

IANAL but I do believe that you are correct on all counts, including that fair use doesn't apply to the project at hand.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Can you negotiate with the rights-holder? They might be willing to license it to you for, say, free, and if it's CC-registered they're probably even net-accessible.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Sure. I'm just impatient and want to finish this without waiting for people to get back to me about permission. I tend to assume that everyone I know is as bad as I am about writing back about stuff like this, and I find up-front CC licenses to be an excellent substitute for personal negotiation. (Which I am; I found some agreeably licensed stuff and am rendering everything now.)

Tangentially, I really ought to contact the various artists whose work I've been using in Jmac's Arcade and The Gameshelf anyway...