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Commons Misunderstandings: ASCAP on Creative Commons

By Lessig

ASCAP's essay, "Common Understanding: 10 Things Every Music Creator Should Know About Creative Commons Licensing" nicely highlights some important considerations that any musician should review before using a CC license. Unfortunately, however, it also continues some common misunderstandings about Creative Commons. I've reprinted, and responded, to these in the extended entry below. But before the details, there is one important fact of agreement to keep in view, and one important disagreement: We certainly agree with ASCAP that "music creators should fully understand the terms to which they are agreeing and the implications down the line." That applies to CC licenses as much as to a recording contract. And we're as keen as anyone to make sure that understanding is there. But it is not the case that CC asserts that "artists should give up all or some of their rights" -- if by that ASCAP means either that we believe giving up "all or some of their rights" always benefits an author or artists, or that, benefit notwithstanding, an artist should sacrifice his or her rights for the common good. Neither is correct. We know that sometimes, freer access helps. We provide tools to make it easier for artists to enable freer access. We also believe that when making creative work freely available doesn't hurt, and sometimes helps, the culture is benefited by choosing freedom rather than licensing lawyers. And finally, we believe that some forms of creative work -- e.g., the work of scientists, or governments -- should be freely available. But that normative claim is far from the work we do with the authors or artists that ASCAP deals with. Our business with respect to them is not to exhort them to charity. Artists and authors have it bad enough without a bunch of nerdy lawyer-types trying to pile on more guilt. Now to the end of correcting some misunderstandings, the corrections of what ASCAP has said:

Full post as published by Lessig Blog on December 31, 2007 (boomark / email).