There’s a nice piece in the Wall Street Journal’s E-Commerce Special “E-Commerce” Report about Creative Commons. The report describes three futures for copyright, with CC among the three. (The WSJ charges $350 for the privilege of linking to a web version of an article about your company, so rather than link, I’ll just describe the article (Does this really making you better off, WSJ?)).
The coolest part of the story is the first announcement of Creative Commons’ Sampling Licenses which will be launched in Brazil by Brazil’s culture minister, and cult figure, Gilberto Gil this December.
The Sampling Licenses say “sample my work if you want, even for commercial purposes, just don’t copy and sell my work without my permission.” It’s aim is to make explicit what whole genres of music presume — at least until you become famous. The idea was brought to us by Negativland and People Like Us.
Stay tuned for more about the release.
Gilberto Gil a “cult figure”? I think that’s a rather infelicitous choice of words for the Minister of Tropicalismo. Try this:
Gilberto Gil, the world-famous musician whose outspoken artistry led to his arrest and exile by the notorious Brazlilian dictatorship of the late sixties…
Or, if brevity is the point:
“Gilberto Gil, returned dissident and cultural icon”
Or evenn just:
“cultural icon”
But not “cult figure”. That sounds too much like he worked with the Beach Boys.
I’ve seen other sites charge for linking and I always assumed that was entirely unenforceable. I figured it was akin to saying “it will cost you five bucks to tell somebody about me”. The fact that you paid heed to this (and I assume you know a whole lot more about this than I do) leads me to believe that yet again Copyright law departed from common sense long ago.
Am I correct? Is that charge enforceable?
Christian, LL doesn’t mean just a link to the WSJ — anyone can put up that link but you have to be a paid WSJ subscriber to get content from it. He means a link to the aritcle as a web reprint, so that anyone could access the article without being a subscriber.
Many papers waive their fees for non-profits, but the WSJ often seems to me to be two papers — the very conservative one of their editorial pages (and presuambly their financial policy as well) and the very literate, entertaining and liberal one of the rest of the paper. There was an awful editorial the other day ridiculing librarians for taking up the freedom of expression cause (and being against the “patriot” act) … but don’t get me ranting …
Liane
I was also confused by what LL wrote about WSJ until I read it over. Perhaps a rephrasing would help? As much as I hate paying for content, it makes sense that if people have to pay to read articles on their site, others shouldn’t be allowed to report those articles on other sites for free.