NL Copyleft

[Sam_Zen]

This is for the Dutch community here.

So far, I've published more than 30 songs in the Download-section or elsewhere in the forum. All are, and next ones will be, registered at :
http://www.openxound.org - an alternative database of works, outside the taxes of the Industrial Musical Complex.
But with defined licenses (permissions). While giving up the possibility of getting some royalties through the channels of the established organisations.

[Snu]

sounds interesting... too bad no english version :\

[rewbs]

The Creative Commons might be a more international alternative.

[Sam_Zen]

2 rewbs
Creative Commons is one of the options in the Licence department of the registration.

2 Snu
I guess it's quite possible to adjust the concept a bit to make it valid in other countries. But this has to deal with local laws, and they differ a bit per country. Plus the official orgs involved. In Holland it's called Buma/Stemra, in the States it's the RIAA, if I'm not wrong.

But your remark made me think. Maybe at least a translation of the goals and issues of this project would be useful.

I've created this Open Xound Project because I didn't like the way these orgs operated. Almost all the royalties go to the top 40 stars, but, even worse, they refuse to check if the money they receive is related to a member in their database. They get millions a year of which they have no right whatsoever to cash.
So I studied for month about this in the constitution and relevant laws, asked advice of lawyers specialised in copyright, gathered facts, etc., and then came up with this project. With the help of my brother who sponsors the domain, and a friend who can deal with PHP and Mysql, the website was realized.

The core point here : Authors only get through the registration, after declaring, that they are not a member of the official organisations. As soon as the author is in the OX-database, it's enough legal proof to deny those orgs from
cashing their levy if a work of the author is published, played back or performed in a public space.

So, if a radiostation would broadcast some of my works, they can prove with their playlist, that they cannot be forced to pay for those minutes. Every OX-registered track gets a unique number which then can be included in the playlist.
This is getting even more urgent, because there are European plans to make people pay extra for anything that handles mp3-files.

[maleek]

Sounds like a good project. Please keep in touch as how it evolves. Creative commons is something I personally support. Compyleft, CC, Kopmi (swedish liscence of free information), etc, is all something that breaks the record industry hegemony of how we musicians define our music. And something I hope will spread to show alternatives to the same old copyright.

[Sam_Zen]

Right on, Maleek. And I will keep in touch about this.
Still quite some work to do. I have to write a manual for the registering and editing, search-functions, etc.

Along the path, I discovered another thing : This has nothing to to with copyright at all. These orgs claim to 'protect your copyright' but that's not the case. And not relevant, because a violation of copyright is already in the law, valid for everyone. These orgs are busy given the right to demand cash for the use of the works of one of their artists-members, that's their job.
And the way they distribute that money afterwards ... well...