In the digital age, artists are obliged to know which are the best legal tools for the distribution of their music. Thus, we will try here to shed light on this concept. Creative commons music is undoubtedly one of the best options for musical distribution. But…
What is Creative Commons music?
Creative Commons music or Copyleft music is music that has been licensed by its authors under a Creative Commons License, thus allowing some uses and restricting others. Creative Commons Licenses allow authors to modify the classic “All rights reserved” of Copyright, to “Some rights reserved” of Copyleft. In this way, the user can work in a safe way, while the music has a better online distribution of their works.
Do not forget that free distribution, always linked to Creative Commons licenses, does not mean free. As an example, in some forms of Musical License the author reserves the rights of commercial use, whereby the user cannot make commercial use of that work unless he reaches an economic agreement with the author of the work.
Types of Creative Common Licenses
Creative Commons Licenses have been created both to facilitate the distribution of works and to facilitate the use of the contents of works. We will show here, briefly, the types of CC (Creative Commons) licenses that exist:
Creative Commons licenses consist of four condition modules:
- Attribution (BY), requires reference to the original author. You are required to mention the author if you wish to use their work.
- Share Alike (SA), allows creating works derived from the original, as long as the resulting work is shared under the same license.
- Non-Commercial (NC), requires the assurance that the work will not be used for commercial purposes.
- No Derivative Works (ND), does not allow you to modify the work in any way, you must respect it and not edit it under any circumstances.
These modules are combined to give rise to the six types of Creative Commons licenses, under which you can register your music or other types of work. You will choose one of these six licenses:
- Attribution (CC BY).
- Attribution Share Alike (CC BY-SA).
- Attribution No Derivatives (CC BY-ND).
- Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC).
- Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (CC BY-NC-SA).
- Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)
Here is a summary chart where we have placed the licenses in a gradient from lower to higher based on permissiveness in their use:
How to register music with CC?
In many intellectual property registration projects you can license your music with creative commons. One of them is Safe Creative, one of our Partners.
If you wish to obtain your License, you can directly use the Creative Commons website and choose the License that best suits your music:
https://creativecommons.org/choose/
We hope to have helped you with the information provided on Creative Commons music or Copyleft music. If you wish, at Free Music Projects, we are always available and happy to help you out whenever you need.