Creative Commons To Create Tools To Help You Track Uses (And Misuses) Of Your Music

This week Creative Commons (CC) released their annual report and a paper addressing future priorities. One of their top priorities is to create tools that will allow those using Creative Commons licensing to see how their creations are being used by others. Such a tool, whether in the form of a "core platform or interactive framework," will be quite useful for musicians using Creative Commons including those who might wish to monitor misuse of CC-licensed content.

Creative Commons' 2012 Annual Report is a creative looking website that is a bit disorienting if you're looking for specific bits of information. Fortunately Janko Roettgers points out a key bit of news for musicians included in their special report "The Future of Creative Commons."

Under "Priority 2: Develop Innovative Products" (p. 13):

"Develop a core platform or interactive framework to engage users by showing how their content is being reused by others, and to motivate further contributions to the Commons. Via this product, collect data on reuse to demonstrate the vibrancy of the Commons."

And a related "Key Product Activity":

"Enhance the technological means for users to communicate around shared CC-licensed content, connecting authors and creators with remixers and reusers. A more deeply engaged and connected user community will demonstrate the power and usefulness of sharing and grow the Commons."

Currently musicians who use Creative Commons licensing depend on direct contact from those who've reused their music, web monitoring for mentions of their work and chance discovery of its use. As CC rightly notes, making it easier to figure out who's used your work opens up the potential for new connections being made and for related creative activites to expand.

Roettgers says Creative Commons decided "not to become a sharing platform" and took a more decentralized approach. It appears that they're rethinking that position to some degree while finding additional ways to avoid the phrase "social network."

Tracking Misuses of CC-Licensed Music

Though Creative Commons puts the development of such a platform or framework in the context of building community, it may also help reveal the widespread misuse of CC licensing. For example, it's quite normal to see commercial publishers reprint CC-licensed photos that are not freely available for commercial use. Such a tool would expose that fact and give artists at least some of the information they need to address such issues.

Bonus:

While putting this post together I came upon this profile of Chris Zabriskie that offers an excellent example of how one musician made CC licensing work for his career.

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.

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