Copyright Perspectives in a Web 2.0 Context

Brisbane.
The final session here at the CCi conference is billed as a copyright perspectives panel in the context of user-led content creation on Web 2.0. The panel begins with Oli Wilson from New Zealand indie band Knives at Noon and Otago University. Knives at Noon released its EP online under a Creative Commons 3.0 (BY-NC-SA) licence, free to share and remix for non-commercial purposes. The band was somewhat unhappy with the content of the EP itself, but wanted this creative material not to be wasted - they hoped that it would take on a life of its own by releasing it online as a ProTools source file (roughly following Linus Torvalds's logic in releasing the initial Linux kernel). Release in this format also allowed users to access the individual components of their tracks, not just the mixed end product - and it suited the band's creative philosophy.

Oli distinguishes here between sampling (taking a sample from a different recording and incorporating it into one's own music) and remixing (adapting and rearranging an entire composition while maintaining the essence of its compositional qualities. This distinction is anything but straightforward, however. He now plays us a few examples of reused material from the EP to highlight the sliding scale between sampling and remixing. Determining how much of the original composition is retained in a new version is difficult, and hard to capture from a legal perspective.

Creative Commons clearly communicates what can and cannot be done with original content; it maintains the 'dream' of becoming famous through music. It encourages sharing and collaboration, fulfills a demand for material for derivative uses, and can open up potential markets; it encourages the exploration of the full creative potential of the Net for music production, thereby encouraging new hybrid music styles, approaches, and subcultures. Older traditions of making derivative works are legitimised in the process, and online music is linked with other modes of music consumption.

There remains a lack of understanding of CC outside of the Creative Commons environment; for example, MTV New Zealand attempted to use the band's material for commercial purposes under a mistaken understanding that any CC licence would allow this use. What exactly is non-commercial in this context; what if someone wants to release a derivative track commercially? The Share Alike clause is very difficult to enforce, even when dealing with like-minded independent bands. Also, record labels are very unaware of CC licencing, and it is very difficult to collect APRA royalties for any radio play of this music.

The next speaker is Ben Atkinson, who also points to 'the dream' of musicians. What happens to this licencing approach once you do get rich and famous - does the musician's attitude remain the same? When talking about copyright, people talk largely about their frustrations with copyright, but there is an iceberg of regulation under the surface that determines what is legal or illegal.

Property relations determine what happens in society, Ben suggests, and any real revolution in history is a revolution of property - he points to the English reformation, the aftermath of World War I, and the introduction of intellectual property as examples. If the property framework does not change, society continues relatively unchanged even if a revolution results in a change at the top of government (as it did in the French revolution).

To change regulation, you need to look very closely at the logic underpinning that regulation - and property owners understand that logic best, giving them a clear advantage in change negotiations.

Next up is Chun Yan Wang (I hope I got the name right), discussing copyright in China. Chinese copyright law was enacted in 1990, and amended in 2001. With it, China shifted from a traditional Chinese approach of sharing intellectual creativity towards a well-rounded intellectual property regime. This was especially important in the context of the rapid growth of Internet usage in the country; China now has the largest population of Internet users in the world. The government has responded to this growth with its National IP Strategy Principles (June 2008), which emphasises IP protection while paying attention to the importance of knowledge sharing. It further amends IP laws.

In a sense, then, China comes to the idea of Creative Commons from the opposite direction than the United States - from a history of sharing which is gradually being more regulated, rather than from a history of strict copyright protection which is being made more flexible through the addition of Creative Commons. In applying a CC licence, in other words, Chinese content creators are not so much giving up some existing ownership rights as asserting a set of rights. Indeed, traditionally Chinese intellectuals and creators continue to subscribe to a sense of 'art for art's sake', and feel almost ashamed to exploit the commercial value of their works at all. Chinese audiences also took it for granted that works were free to be used, reused, and cited.

Many Chinese Web services have now embraced Creative Commons licences; in 2007, for example, there was a first CC photography contest which generated some 10,000 entries and had some 1,000,000 million online voters. Interestingly, by the way, the Chinese version of Creative Commons is officially known in the country as Knowledge Sharing.

That's it - the end of a great conference!

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