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Royalty Free Music > Public Domain Music > Creative Commons Licenses
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The Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to expand the available number of creative works, including music, available to the public so that they can both share them and allow them to evolve through interpretations and re-arrangements. The Creative Commons website allows artists and musicians to give some of their rights to the public to enable sharing, but also helps them maintain control over and ownership of their works. This is achieved through different licensing and contracting plans that can include Public Domain and open content licensing terms.
Royalty free music has provided another viable alternative for those looking to share music and use music without fear of copyright violation or other legal hassles. High quality libraries of royalty free music and free royalty free music offer the opportunity for professionals and artists in any field to inexpensively use music for any purpose, indefinitely without worrying about many complicated legal issues.
The CC has been instrumental in responding the many tricky issues the Internet and music file sharing has brought to Copyright Law and the Public Domain. The non-profit offers many free licenses that copyright holders and musicians can utilize as they release their works widely on the Internet. The CC website and the Creative Commons License provides a clear description of works covered that makes it easier for those looking for information about specific licensed works. The Creative Commons also offers a Founder's Copyright contract that models the effects of the Copyright Law set forth in the original U.S. Constitution.
All the initiatives of the CC, including the Creative Commons License are meant to counteract the strange effects of the progressively more strict information sharing culture that has cropped up along with the many recent technological advancements. The Creative Commons license joins the initiatives of royalty free music companies nd others trying to provide alternatives for artists, musicians and writers that wish to rebel against the expensive and all-pervasive practices of popular music companies and popular film companies, among other entities with a stronghold on creative industries.
The Open Public Licenses (OPL) and the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) were two licenses that sparked the creation of the Creative Commons Licenses. Originally the GFDL was intended for use with software and other technologies, and is different from the CC Licenses because it requires that the works licensed be dispersed in "transparent" form, and not via confidential format.
The first Creative Commons licenses were published and implemented on December 16, 2002. The Creative Commons licenses were written in order to work closely with the U.S. legal system, so the wording of many do not necessarily fit perfectly with the Copyright Law of other countries. The U.S. model, when used without amendment in other countries, is possibly flawed; although not apt to occur, using a Creative Commons license without considering local laws outside the U.S. might cause the license to be defunct. The iCommons, the international branch of the CC project, is in the midst of redesigning legal wording to specifically address the needs of other countries.
The Creative Commons has provided support and clarity for Public Domain and the complexity that has been introduced to Public Domain music with the advent of so many file sharing programs and other technologies.
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