Hi there,

i have been registered at ccMixter for a relatively long time and have created and published a small number of remixes here. Over time, however, I have refrained from doing so - and the reason for this is the completely opaque legal situation regarding the use of the material published here and the complete lack of legally secure how-tos.

Let’s start:

1. I remixed the song “Sunrise” by “Shannon Hurley” when there was a contest here. At that time Shannon was not very popular. To me, a remix contest implies the consent of the original artist to have third parties edit and change his work. In the meantime, the stems have disappeared from the platform here and the remixes created fill storage space on some storages without ever reaching a wider public. Meanwhile Shannon is comparatively popular and it’s almost impossible for me as a hobby musician to keep track of which rights I need and from whom I get them if I want to publish my remix of her song - and it’s not about depriving her of royalties (you can configure split-pay).

2. I remixed two pellas of “Snowflake” (This Winter, Miracles) and acquired the extended licenses. I’ve been wanting to release the songs for a long time - however, I’m having a hard time with this as well. I’m happy to share the revenue with Snowflake, ccMixter and ArtisTech Medie - but I don’t know from the abstract license document if I’m allowed to publish the tracks on platforms like Spotify, YouTube & Co. and especially not how to publish them 100% legally secure (esp. which credits belong to whom - this is namely only clear regarding vocals and music - but not regarding producer & co.)

Wouldn’t it be a worthwhile goal to a) open a legally secure way for all members of ccMixter to license their material and b) publish legally secure instructions for at least the most important aggregators like TuneCore, DistroKid, RepostNetwork etc., so that these annoying takedowns become rarer and also “non-professionals” are enabled to publish their works and above all to give the participants a fair share in a possible success?

That must be possible. But no matter where you search and ask, you get only gibberish and reference to lawyers & Co. - yes my goodness: Why not a crowdfunding campaign to create such a How-To and the licensing conditions for ccMixter, which all must accept, so that a legally secure music of Stems and Pellas is possible…

Or does all this already exist and I’m just too stupid to find it?

Hi floatzero,

Thank you for the taking the time to reach out to us about the license issues you’re dealing with. I suspect that there are hundreds of people (if not more) with similar questions that don’t reach out, so we can’t help them.

I must preface this response by saying I’m not a lawyer, and nothing more than a ccMixter enthusiast (not an admin or any kind of authority), so what I say is mostly conjecture tempered with experience.

You’re asking some important fundamental questions about Creative Commons in general as it concerns streaming services that monetize user generated content. There is no quick answer to them, but it is essential to continue this discussion as it is crucial to understanding how to protect IP created with CC material. In other words, there’s a lot to talk about.

First, in my research of CC-BY licenses through the Creative Commons website, I found that the license someone claims for their work is still valid even if they delete it from the source — they can’t undo it once it’s distributed as long as it was a valid license to begin with. As far as Shannon Hurley’s “Sunrise” goes, I don’t know what the license was, but this can be determined from the metadata if an mp3 was downloaded directly, as opposed to in a zip. ccMixter adds all that info when it’s submitted but only in separated mp3s. If you follow the terms of the license, you can distribute them, and in some cases, make money off of them if the license gives you permission.

Second, the extended license (ccPlus) you’re talking about with Snowflake is separate from Creative Commons and ccMixter, and it all depends on what the extended license allows. Without knowing what you got to know for sure, it most likely means you can make money off of it without having to share royalties, and at least be able to distribute it. Snowflake herself is the person to ask since she owns ArtIsTech Media.

Third, it is most likely good you hesitated to publish your work, since you can register it with the Copyright Office - as long as you list the source material in the Exceptions part of the form, you will have even more protection when you want to make money off of it.

The big question, I think, has to do with take-downs since the whole point to ccMixter is to collaborate and take our work outside to at least get noticed. Fortunately, I haven’t run into take-downs myself (yet) but I have heard enough about them to be worried. It is important to note that when the tables are turned, they are the only way to protect you when it comes to Creative Commons material, because otherwise you have a ton of people saying the IP is theirs, even your stuff. I know this first-hand because I have been part of the team that researches where stuff is stolen from and how the licenses are disrespected to prepare a take-down on places like iTunes and Amazon.

The Achilles’ heel of Creative Commons is getting distribution sites not affiliated with CC to understand what licenses certain content has before issuing a take-down, as well as individuals who most likely don’t know the difference between CC-BY and CC-BY-NC. Like if I make a song with someone’s vocals that are CC-BY, and someone else uses those vocals, I can’t have their song taken down, but there are people that do that anyways. So if YouTube would just reach out to someone before giving them a take-down and find out where they got their vocals or backing track, then they could see it’s okay for more than one person to use it.

With regards to your goal, one possible solution I thought of is to have the option here of requesting a registration of original content with all of the streaming platforms before it gets distributed and remixed. It would require a moderator reviewing it and sourcing everything from the vocals to every last bit of sound so that they could say unequivocally that it’s legitimate before getting that next level of protection. If I’m not mistaken, there are soundbots on places like YouTube that compare archived material with submitted material to make it easier to spot infringement, so having something cleared in advance would stop that right away.

The most frustrating part, in my opinion, is that Creative Commons seemed to be a solution to the craziness of the music industry at the time, before YouTube and streaming came to town.

Thanks for taking the time to read my response. I hope you respond and keep this discussion going as it is vital that we all figure out how to protect our stuff before people give up en masse.

Kind regards,
Apoxode