Creative Commons usage

[stePH]

What exactly counts as "alteration" under the Creative Commons license?  I know that editing an Escape Pod or Podcastle story to cut out the intro and outro, or even to cut out a glitch or repeated line during the reading, is definitely crossing the line of what's permitted.  But what about making an audio CD?

I don't know what kind of license Dan Carlin releases his podcasts under, but I imagine it's something like CC -- I'm sure distribution is encouraged but selling or altering is not allowed.  What I want to do is make playable audio CDs of the Hardcore History podcast as a gift for my stepfather who doesn't have an MP3 player and is unlikely to get one.  No content will be altered but I plan to insert chapter breaks every three to five minutes for easy indexing. 

Does a CC license permit what I intend to do?

[wintermute]

Probably, yes. I'm not familiar enough with all the CC license combinations to say for sure that distribution would be allowed over all licenses, but I can't see any here that would forbid it.

But someone who knows better than I do ought to weigh in.

[sirana]

Lessig himself adressed this in a post about the different creative commons licences. He is talking about CC-ShareAlike here, but he makes it clear that just copying a song onto a CD is no derivative work. I underlined the important part.

For example, imagine you’re in a band and you’ve recorded a new song. You’re happy to have it spread around the Internet. But you’re not keen that Sony include it on a CD — at least without asking you first. If you release the song under a simple Attribution license there’s no reason Sony (or anyone else) couldn’t take your song and sell it. And I personally see nothing wrong with you wanting to reserve your commercial rights so that Sony has to ask you permission (and pay you) before they can profit from your music.

Möller suggests you can avoid this problem by copylefting the song, using, for example, a CC-ShareAlike term. As he argues, '[a]ny company trying to exploit your work will have to make their ‘added value’ available for free to everyone. Seen like this, the ‘risk’ of exploitation turns into a potentially powerful benefit.'

But this is not quite right. The ShareAlike requirement kicks in only if the adopter makes a “derivative work” out of the song. Merely adding it to a CD isn’t a derivative work. So that’s not a sufficient protection against this particular form of exploitation. And it is thus for this sort of case that the NC term is designed.

The whole thing is here .

So making a playable audio CD of a cc-noderivatives licenced podcast should be ok.

[sirana]

Couple of other things:

1) As far as I can see Dan Carlin doesn't licence his stuff Creative Commons, so the question whether the CC licences allows this is moot.
2) I missed the part where you said that you wanted to insert chapter breaks. I'm not sure if this would be allowed under CC-ND although I would argue it is.
3) You are probably allowed to do it because of Fair Use. It's a similar conversion to ripping your cds to mp3 which is accepted as Fair Use by a majority of Copyright scholars (although the RIAA challenges this understanding)
4) It's a free podcast, so I can't see why Dan Carlin would mind it if you got him another listener. Even if he minded I don't see how he could find out, so it doesn't really matter.

So all in all, if you want my oppinion, go ahead and burn the cd for your stepfather.

[stePH]

4) It's a free podcast, so I can't see why Dan Carlin would mind it if you got him another listener. Even if he minded I don't see how he could find out, so it doesn't really matter.

Point (4) was pretty much what I figured, everything else is just detail.  Thanks!

[wintermute]

3) You are probably allowed to do it because of Fair Use. It's a similar conversion to ripping your cds to mp3 which is accepted as Fair Use by a majority of Copyright scholars (although the RIAA challenges this understanding)

It's fair use if you back it up to another medium for your own use. It's not fair use if you make a copy for someone else.

If it's copyrighted, then making a copy for someone else is a breach. And, under the Berne Convention, there's an implicit copyright when a work is published, unless the author specifies a different license (such as CC or PD).

So far as I can tell from the website, it's technically illegal for you to make a copy for someone else, though without listening to see if there's a license specified in the audio I can't be sure. I agree with sirana that, given the podcast nature of it, it would be odd if the author considered such copying to be a bad thing.

But, if you want to be sure you're on the side of legality, you might consider buying the archive CDs he makes available.

[stePH]

So far as I can tell from the website, it's technically illegal for you to make a copy for someone else, though without listening to see if there's a license specified in the audio I can't be sure. I agree with sirana that, given the podcast nature of it, it would be odd if the author considered such copying to be a bad thing.

No mention of any copyright or license is mentioned in the audio.  I guess silence implies consent. 

But, if you want to be sure you're on the side of legality, you might consider buying the archive CDs he makes available.

The archive CDs are not an option; those are just more mp3s which I would still have to convert to CD audio.  I'm considering it though, since it appears to be the only way to get shows #1 through #9 of Hardcore History.  Currently I'm just going to make discs of shows #10 to the latest (hopefully DC will finish the third, final part of the Punic wars series before my stepfather's birthday in early December).

[wintermute]

So far as I can tell from the website, it's technically illegal for you to make a copy for someone else, though without listening to see if there's a license specified in the audio I can't be sure. I agree with sirana that, given the podcast nature of it, it would be odd if the author considered such copying to be a bad thing.

No mention of any copyright or license is mentioned in the audio.  I guess silence implies consent. 

You guess poorly. Silence implies standard copyright laws, which make copying for distribution technically illegal. Having said that, given the nature of the production and the fact that it's being distributed for free, I highly doubt that the author has any intention of enforcing copyright. Unless, of course, you sell copies of it, or use it a voiceover for a porn movie, or something. Copying to audio CD to give away should be safe enough, though it appears to be technically a breach of copyright.

If you want to go the extra mile to make sure you're not doing anything unethical / illegal, you could always email the author and ask him for permission to distribute. That way, there'd be no opportunity for misunderstanding.

But, if you want to be sure you're on the side of legality, you might consider buying the archive CDs he makes available.

The archive CDs are not an option; those are just more mp3s which I would still have to convert to CD audio.  I'm considering it though, since it appears to be the only way to get shows #1 through #9 of Hardcore History.  Currently I'm just going to make discs of shows #10 to the latest (hopefully DC will finish the third, final part of the Punic wars series before my stepfather's birthday in early December).

Well, they're an option, just a slightly more inconvenient one. If you buy a CD, convert it to CD Audio and pass on both copies (or destroy the original, or anything else to ensure they're not both used by different people at the same time*), then you can, again, be sure of being on the correct side of copyright law.

*As you already have a licensed copy of the MP3's, this is a somewhat pointless step, and could probably be safely ignored. My only point here is to spell out the steps necessary to be absolutely sure you're not infringing on the author's copyright. If Mr Carlin had specified a license that his work was available under, it would be a lot simpler.

[sirana]

Well, they're an option, just a slightly more inconvenient one. If you buy a CD, convert it to CD Audio and pass on both copies (or destroy the original, or anything else to ensure they're not both used by different people at the same time*), then you can, again, be sure of being on the correct side of copyright law.

The easier version of that would be to download the mp3s, burn them to the audio cd, give the audio cd to your stepfather and delete the mp3s. Then you can download the mp3s again, so both you and your stepfather have the audio. This should be legal under current copyright law. Of course this is all theoretical bullshit devoid of any practical significance, but so is the current copyright regime ;-)

[sirana]

or use it a voiceover for a porn movie

now that gives me an idea...

[stePH]

This is all getting needlessly complicated.  I'm just going to run with point #4 from sirana's post above.

[slic]

stePH - I agree with you, and I would just point out this other part from above:

"As he argues, '[a]ny company trying to exploit your work will have to make their ‘added value’ available for free to everyone. Seen like this, the ‘risk’ of exploitation turns into a potentially powerful benefit.'"
You aren't selling it to anyone, and you are not alterting the content (no editing, no cutting, etc), you are simply providing added value by inserting chapter breaks.

[goatkeeper]

Why go through the trouble of making a forum thread and asking around from people who aren't sure when you could easily contact him directly?
Podcasters love hearing from fans, it would be a great excuse just to tell him you really like what he's doing and want to share it.
 

[stePH]

Why go through the trouble of making a forum thread and asking around from people who aren't sure when you could easily contact him directly?
Podcasters love hearing from fans, it would be a great excuse just to tell him you really like what he's doing and want to share it.
 

Mr. Carlin has already admitted in a recent podcast that it's just about all he can do anymore to even read all the emails he gets; any hope of answering more than a few of them went out the window a long time ago.  I could email him just to say I love his show, but getting an answer on this subject is unlikely.

[goatkeeper]

reading emails is easy, replying is the hard part.  Legal questions about content usage should get priority. 

If I was gonna nab his stuff personally, I'd feel better if I had at least tried to contract him about it.

[stePH]

This is all getting needlessly complicated.  I'm just going to run with point #4 from sirana's post above.

What he said.

[Raving_Lunatic]

I don't think anyone would sue over the issue. As far as I know, copyrighted material that you paid for cannot be shared with anyone else, but providing Dan gives his podcasts for free, your grandfather could easily download them on his own computer (providing he has internet access) and burn them onto a CD without paying a penny. What you plan to do seems exactly the same to me.

[eytanz]

I don't think anyone would sue over the issue. As far as I know, copyrighted material that you paid for cannot be shared with anyone else, but providing Dan gives his podcasts for free, your grandfather could easily download them on his own computer (providing he has internet access) and burn them onto a CD without paying a penny. What you plan to do seems exactly the same to me.

Whether or not something was free has no bearing on copyright. Equating "free" with "it's ok to redistribute it" without checking that explicit permission was given is very bad - it's the fear of that sort of thing that leads people to charge for things they would otherwise prefer to give free.

[Nt 2 B TKN INTRNLY]

So it's ok to distribute Escape Pod, because that's in the CC lisense, but it's not ok to distribute the free Verizon football I got at a Michigan game? Wow. What has the world come to...

[stePH]

I don't think anyone would sue over the issue. As far as I know, copyrighted material that you paid for cannot be shared with anyone else, but providing Dan gives his podcasts for free, your grandfather could easily download them on his own computer (providing he has internet access) and burn them onto a CD without paying a penny. What you plan to do seems exactly the same to me.

Whether or not something was free has no bearing on copyright. Equating "free" with "it's ok to redistribute it" without checking that explicit permission was given is very bad - it's the fear of that sort of thing that leads people to charge for things they would otherwise prefer to give free.

For the record, I've joined the forums over at dancarlin.com, and posted the question.  Dan's assistant Ben has given the blessing as follows:

Please feel free to copy and give these to your step father. We are trying to spread the "Common Sense" (and hardcore history).

[sirana]

So it's ok to distribute Escape Pod, because that's in the CC lisense, but it's not ok to distribute the free Verizon football I got at a Michigan game? Wow. What has the world come to...

Giving away the football is not distribution in the same sense, because if you give it to somebody you don't have it anymore (whereas you still keep the digital file if you copy it). You can legally give the football away (or sell it) if you want to.

[eytanz]

I don't think anyone would sue over the issue. As far as I know, copyrighted material that you paid for cannot be shared with anyone else, but providing Dan gives his podcasts for free, your grandfather could easily download them on his own computer (providing he has internet access) and burn them onto a CD without paying a penny. What you plan to do seems exactly the same to me.

Whether or not something was free has no bearing on copyright. Equating "free" with "it's ok to redistribute it" without checking that explicit permission was given is very bad - it's the fear of that sort of thing that leads people to charge for things they would otherwise prefer to give free.

For the record, I've joined the forums over at dancarlin.com, and posted the question.  Dan's assistant Ben has given the blessing as follows:

Please feel free to copy and give these to your step father. We are trying to spread the "Common Sense" (and hardcore history).

Great! That answers the question, then

[eytanz]

So it's ok to distribute Escape Pod, because that's in the CC lisense, but it's not ok to distribute the free Verizon football I got at a Michigan game? Wow. What has the world come to...

I'm assuming you are referring to a physical football, rather than some sort of Verizon football software. There are different rules for physical objects and intellectual property. But note that in either case, being free doesn't matter - you are allowed to give away a (physical) football regardless of whether it was free.

Note that Universal Music last year sued people who were giving away free promotional CDs. Their argument in that case is that it's ok to distribute music CDs *if* you paid for them (as resale is protected by law), but *not* if they were free (as regifting isn't). I think they lost the particular case, but it's just one example of how common sense is not always applied. And if you are sued by a large corporation, you're screwed regardless of whether the law is on your side or not, as they can just keep throwing appeals at you until you can no longer afford lawyers.

[wintermute]

The important thing to remember is that copyright is the right to make a copy. You can sell / give away a copyrighted product freely, but you cannot make a copy of it, and sell that, or give it away.

If you were to make new Verizon footballs and give them away, you could get into trouble.