COPYCENSE

"This issue of Wired magazine  includes a copy of The Wired CD, a collection of 16 songs produced under the Creative Commons License. The licenses come from Creative Commons, the innovative nonprofit founded by Wired columnist and Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig.

"The songs on this CD use one of two Creative Commons licenses.  The Noncommercial Sampling Plus license permits noncommercial file-sharing and noncommercial sampling. That means, first, that you can swap the songs on a peer-to-peer network (just don’t sell them). And second, that you can sample from them, mash them up, use them to make something fresh – and then share that work, too (though again, you can’t sell it). The Beastie Boys, Chuck D, and My Morning Jacket opted for the Noncommercial Sampling Plus license.

"The other 13 artists on the CD went a step further and released their songs under the more expansive Sampling Plus license. Like the noncommercial version, it allows file-sharing. But it also allows commercial use of samples – meaning you can insert a slice of these songs into your own composition and then try to sell the new track. The only restrictions: Use in advertisements is not permitted, and the new work must be ‘highly transformative’ of the original (translation: A flagrant rip-off like ‘Ice Ice Baby’ doesn’t cut it)."

"More details on the licenses and their permissions are available at creativecommons.org/wired."

Thomas Goetz. Sample the Future. Wired. Nov. 2004.

See also:
Eric Steuer. The Remix Masters. Wired. Nov. 2004.

Hilary Rosen. How I Learned to Love Larry. Wired. Nov. 2004.

Julian Dibbell. We Pledge Allegiance to the Penguin. Wired. Nov. 2004.

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