Rattle wrote:
] ] On nin.com, Trent Reznor is offering a complete mix of a
] ] song from the forthcoming Nine Inch Nails album as a
] ] Garageband 2.0 file.
]
] I need to get Garageband upgraded.
]
] This is a very cool thing, in several ways. The license is
] very CC like.

Not really. CC license would allow you to commercialize the content as long as you gave proper citation. While I think it's a great idea to give to people the ability to 'play' with the material (it's a great educational tool), the idea that artists (particularly *this* artist) is restricting your ability to manipulate it for commercial purposes, smacks of the highest order of hypocracy.

Most of Pretty Hate Machine is sampled off of other artists materials. Yes, it was pre-sample law. Guess what? A lot of Broken is too, and that was after the law. The only thing that really changed was he and the engineers got better at munging the samples to be unrecognizable. The ratio for Downward Spiral is more on the original side, but it's still about 50% 'lifted'.

And don't tell me he couldn't do it. Venus Hum has been releasing the raw files for their materials for years. So has BT. They encourage people to manipulate the material and even utilize it for commercial purposes. Venus Hum even sponsored a contest where the best original song written from their sound material won.

Frankly, I rather like the era of freely sampled music. De La Soul. Beastie Boys (Pauls Boutique!). NIN. Deelite. KLF. Skinny Puppy. The whole damn 80's hip hop movement. On and on and on. There's some damn good albums from that era that could never be released in today's world. ALL art is derivative. This just makes it even more creative in my mind.

flynn23 wrote:
] Not really. CC license would allow you to commercialize the
] content as long as you gave proper citation. While I think
] it's a great idea to give to people the ability to 'play' with
] the material (it's a great educational tool), the idea that
] artists (particularly *this* artist) is restricting your
] ability to manipulate it for commercial purposes, smacks of
] the highest order of hypocracy.

Most of the CC licenses include a Non-Commercial use clause as well. Its one of the most common options on the CC licenses.

I think what NIN and Interscope is doing here is quite fair. They are reserving commercial usage of the track for themselves. Non-commercial usage is just fine with them. If you are making money, they are going to want a piece. Its their asset; they invested the money to have it created. You are using it.

What really matters, is if you do have a commercial usage for the material they have released, how are they going to handle it? Repackaging in different forms is also an issue. Are they just going to flat out say 'no'? Or are they going to have unreasonable terms? These are very valid questions.. However, if someone wants to reserve their right to profit from their works, that should be regarded as ok. Anything else is a form of extremism. Nothing about this closes the door to using it commercially, you just have to contact them. As it all stands right now, this is still an increase of the freedoms granted to the end user. No matter which way I look at it, its a step in the right direction.

Yes, it would have been nice if they used a CC license for this, so that the terms were formalized based upon a widely agreed framework. At this point, I'm just glad to see them experimenting with these types of usages and releases. The single is undergoing innovation.

It would also be nice if you could still sample anything you wanted to, and as much as you wanted to, a la the golden age you mentioned. Doing another Paul's Boutique style album would be a nightmare now due to having to clear all the samples. And yes, it has effected expression because people either can't or their labels will not go through that process. The only way this situation is going to improve is better clearing houses for clearing sample rights, and explicit licensing. The golden age is over. We are starting into something else right now. The asset holders are going to be on the conservative side.

From the perspective of culture, and not straight IP, this is an extremely good thing. The artist is inviting the listener into the process. That's something which has been mostly lost, not due to IP issues, but due to the changing styles of music and the technology used to create it. If we were still in the 60's, and a new Neil Young album came out, we would not have a problem sitting around with our guitars and harmonicas jamming on Heart of Gold. We'd have the tools that produced the sounds. That's not the easiest thing to do with a release from an artist like NIN. Given releases like this, that changes, again. Changes back actually..

We need to keep our eyeballs on the culture before the law. The law will be bent to fit the culture and the market that exists to support it. It _is_ just a matter of time, people coming up with the uses, and the need to exploit them. You would still have had an issue if you wanted to record and release the version of Heart of Gold your friends came up with. That has not changed. (Unless of course it was a parody, thanks to 2 Live Crew.)

Rattle wrote:

] I think what NIN and Interscope is doing here is quite fair.
] They are reserving commercial usage of the track for
] themselves. Non-commercial usage is just fine with them. If
] you are making money, they are going to want a piece. Its
] their asset; they invested the money to have it created. You
] are using it.
]
] What really matters, is if you do have a commercial usage for
] the material they have released, how are they going to handle
] it? Repackaging in different forms is also an issue. Are
] they just going to flat out say 'no'? Or are they going to
] have unreasonable terms? These are very valid questions..
] However, if someone wants to reserve their right to profit
] from their works, that should be regarded as ok. Anything
] else is a form of extremism. Nothing about this closes the
] door to using it commercially, you just have to contact them.
] As it all stands right now, this is still an increase of the
] freedoms granted to the end user. No matter which way I look
] at it, its a step in the right direction.

I guess this is the heart of the matter right here. True that NIN invested in creating the piece and has a right to attempt to make a return on that investment (notice that I didn't say DESERVES to make a return, it's a free market!). But this gets to the ridiculousness of intellectual property. How can you copyright a sound? A drum hit? Or a guitar sound? I can understand that you can copyright a melody (since it's the arrangement of sounds in a particular order, producing a comprehensive product), but this is still in the grey area to some degree, as there is a finite set of combinations.

It's like saying that you can copyright hydrogen since it makes up a large portion of Kool-Aid. The idea that you can protect a specific set of sound waves (or pixels, or whatever) from being reused, repurposed, or manipulated is absurd. The whole notion smack of greed, not creativity, expression, or the concept of sharing for the benefit of all participants.

And this is what's turning this country into a legal mind field when it comes to ideas, innovation, and creativity. What counts is EXECUTION. If you truly believe in the free market system that capitalism is founded on, then you should also believe that ideas themselves are worthless. The only value is in the execution, and that the market determines not only which ideas live and die, but which execution supports the idea best. If content was closer to freely exchanged, then you'd have a larger funnel for ideas and concepts, more experimentation (particularly work built on the shoulders of others work) and hence, a larger 'gene pool' of potential to which the strongest concepts would get the strongest execution and development. And reap the largest rewards.

Imagine a world where radical thinking and innovation is promoted instead of stiffled because of IP laws barring you from experimenting, using previous work, or even developing something that's even been conceived previously. In all of human history, has there ever been a successful innovation or creative endeavor that was nurtured in a vacuum? Why are we going down this road? What positive effect can it possibly have?

flynn23 wrote:
] Not really. CC license would allow you to commercialize the
] content as long as you gave proper citation.

Not to detract from your point, but I want to correct this as its a common misunderstanding. CC is not a specific license. It does not allow or disallow particular things. CC is a structured way of reserving some rights, rather then reserving all of them. The NIN license could be expressed as a CC license. So could more liberal licenses.

The CC people need to be more careful as many people think CC is the same thing as public domain. I constantly run into folks who are convinced enough about this to argue about it. (Of course, I also run into people who think they can put all rights reserved AND a gnu license on the same file, but thats another story entirely.)

Decius wrote:
] flynn23 wrote:
] ] Not really. CC license would allow you to commercialize the
] ] content as long as you gave proper citation.
]
] Not to detract from your point, but I want to correct this as
] its a common misunderstanding. CC is not a specific license.
] It does not allow or disallow particular things. CC is a
] structured way of reserving some rights, rather then reserving
] all of them. The NIN license could be expressed as a CC
] license. So could more liberal licenses.
]
] The CC people need to be more careful as many people think CC
] is the same thing as public domain. I constantly run into
] folks who are convinced enough about this to argue about it.
] (Of course, I also run into people who think they can put all
] rights reserved AND a gnu license on the same file, but thats
] another story entirely.)

You're right. I should've said "CC license *could* allow you to commercialize content as long as you gave proper citation."

I also agree that CC needs to do a better job of explaining their possibilities. One of the things that really makes it great is it's complete flexibility. Unfortunetly, like most things that are flexible and adaptive, it is complex and hard for most people to understand. CC can not only be used for very liberal IP protections, but also as a replacement for current IP protections without necessarily tieing yourself into the sinking ship.