JAMENDO: SIMPLY A “CREATIVE COMMONS” IDEA

My visit yesterday to the online music platform “Jamendo” educated me on the prospects and benefits of licensing musical works under the Creative Commons (CC) License.

As musical works are protected under National Copyright Laws, licensing these works under the CC license allows owners of musical works to communicate to the using public which rights they wish to retain/reserve and which right they wish to waive (whether it be the right to copy or reproduce, the right to distribute, the right to adapt or create derivative works or the right to communicate to the public or share). The whole idea behind the CC model is to create a flexible system of copyright rules that minimizes the effect of an already existing regime of restrictive copyright protection.

The CC model provides a platform enabling a digitally creative (music) culture by facilitating the remixing and reusing of original creative works. This model strives to attain 3 goals: - (1) simplifying the process for creators to share their creations, (2) creating licenses that would be legally valid and enforceable in a law court and (3) using the internet as an avenue where creative people could easily access and share their works.

Though a quick search on the Jamendo platform turned up no results for Nigerian Artistes or Nigerian Album, there are 32,000 albums available, all the music is free to download and licensed under one of the 6 CC licenses:- (1) Attrition, which lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation., (2) Attrition Share Alike, which lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms, (3) Attrition No Derivatives, which allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you , (4) Attrition Non Commercial, This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms, (5) Attrition Non-Commercial Share Alike, this license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms and (6) Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives, often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

These licenses in effect authorizes the downloading, copying and sharing, as well as the modification and commercial use of the (musical) works licensed under the CC model.

A common motivation for artists licensing under this model was illustrated in a 2006 survey carried out by openbusiness.cc of some artistes in the UK on their perception of copyright, creativity and the CC model. Majority of the responses indicated a negative attitude towards the current copyright regime with some citing that CC licenses are “practical tools for remixing and adaptation”, and CC licenses are rooted in a “desire to exploit network effects” and “better market creative works”.

With the proliferation of new communications technologies especially the internet, me thinks that the Jamendo business model not only encourages (re)creativity but grants to an artiste additional exposure hence promoting both his music and career on a global scale.

Another offering from the Jamendo stable is the “Jamendo PRO”, this unique service licenses a repertoire of musical works at a minimal price to individuals and business for a variety of purposes. With this particular service acting as an online clearing portal where musical rights are cleared, the current role of Collective Management Organizations seems to be rendered redundant.

In all the Jamendo model seems to be the ideal option for artiste seeking worldwide recognition as this could lead to more performance engagements (generally musicians make the most of their income from performances). For musical works licensed under the CC on Jamendo’s platform, this builds on our digital culture by encouraging the sharing of creative ideas/works and the further creation of derivative works in the music arena. This no doubt contributes to our current music literature.

In the words of CC founder, Lawrence Lessing:
"Digital technologies, tied to the Internet, could produce a vastly more competitive and vibrant market for building and cultivating culture; that market could include a much wider and more diverse range of creators; those creators could produce and distribute a much more vibrant range of creativity; and depending upon a few important factors, those creators could earn more on average from this system than creators do today—all so long as the [creators] of our day don’t use the law to protect themselves against this competition"

PS: Did you know that British R & B artiste Jay Sean licensed the song “Tonight” with Jamendo under the Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license, translated, it means that you are only allowed to download but not to modify the original work, if you’re interested in remixing original musical works, visit Jamglue which contains a repertoire of some songs (including those from Nigerian artistes) licensed under CC’s Attrition but beware, some of the songs may not have been authorised by the original author!