iTunes and Creative Commons - wot if?
Standing there in the shower reflecting on the days passing I was struck with an interesting thought - what if Apple iTunes (along with EMI and everyone else doing DRM free MP3s now) released everything under Creative Commons?
The initial license strategy that comes to mind is the by-nc-nd license:
- Attribution - The artist should be recognized, as well as the label and online store - credit where credit is due.
- Noncommercial - I'm assuming iTunes users are consumers - we could probably skip this thou.
- No Derivative Works - this would limit the user from transcoding the MP3 into another format (OGG for instance) or stripping out any meta data such as the iTunes user information.
The only addition/alteration to this I thought being used would be some form of limited redistribution clause - solely to allow you to sync the MP3 to your various MP3 players or devices (AppleTV, iPod, XBox 360 etc.) but not other peoples.
Whilst the creative commons licensed music is usually freely redistributed, there's nothing in the license, or the organization that requires it. I'm just wondering what the public response would have been if Apple came out initially (or subsequently) licensing these songs under limited commons. I can certainly imagine the outcry from people wishing to strip the encoded iTunes user data against the non-derivitives clause.
I'm not sure what pros there would be for such a license usage beyond having a well known, easy to understand license, and from a basic users perspective I can't see any major problems giving the limited redistribution would allow me to play the music on any device I owned (and thats pretty much all I really care about) but I'm sure other people could come up with some cons for me.