As a self proclaimed digital-pirate-dj-cum-producer, and a plunderphonic innovator of the highest order, I tend to be pretty outspoken about Copyrights, Fair Use, Intellectual Property, and being paid what you’re worth. Sometimes when I open my big mouth, nothing happens. In the rare cases when my mouth can get things done, such as was the case in Indaba Music’s Berklee Contest - its a thing of beauty. Or something.
Now, don’t get me wrong - I don’t really take a lot of credit for this. The founder of the site, though defensive about the contest at the beginning of the conversation eventually admitted personal support for Creative Commons, the license that is used to “protect” the original content I release on this site. However, I’d like to think that with out my adamant ribbing Indaba would not have - retro-actively, as the contest was about to close - change the terms on their agreement to license the works created by the participants of the Berklee Music Contest as CC-BY-NC, instead of having an otherwise friendly contest be ruined by this bit of legalese:
… the Sponsor owns the Submission(s) …
Somewhere, Cory Doctorow is beaming.
In other news, besides Indaba being incredibly forward thinking for doing all the hard work to get the contest terms changed, but their social network looks like a great platform for collaborating with other musicians, through their sessions module. I’ve got my profile all set up now, and after Nophest will have some more time to spend on their site.
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