I’ve been DJ, dedicated music collector and producing loops, now for over 15 years; but the real deal started in early 2008, when my studio was finally returned back into fully working production state.

I’ve started finishing my older productions and released them as lower quality 128kbit mp3’s with Creative Commons+ license through my website.

The idea, is pretty simple, those lower quality files can be shared with anyone, but whenever you needed cd-quality with added bonuses or money would be involved, I’d need my cut of the share in this.

This was made possible through Creative Commons using CC+ licensing, which allows you to license any work for commercial gain through the use of the normal Creative Commons official deed.

It can be considered the “direct link” between consumer and artist; making more for less money. In the future I’m even planning to offer my own platform to other artists which is already in test for some time by myself as we speak…

The direct link is often not the best and only link but it adds up to the total of the artist, while, there are also quite a few different types of music available on this planet.

1. The most known is the commercial music, known from radio and TV which gets pushed by only a few of the major labels in the top charts …
2. Indie music, not in the top charts but quite often with quality music , mostly even better than the real commercial top music…
3. Non-commercial music, experimental or not commercial enough, adored by music lovers.
4. The unreleased music, special releases and also bootlegs, with really quite some good stuff in it!

Indie bands are growing like mushrooms out of the ground because creating music is not that expensive as it used to be in the eighties. Electronic devices have gotten a lot smaller, sometimes easier but for sure more functional; personally, I prefer my old midi rig above a PC controlled patchbay!

Creative Commons could bridge the Artist-Consumer problem of finding less or non-commercial music on the net by getting quality in return by supporting the artist. Artists would then be able to, for example, send a CD of their latest productions, still in line with a license protecting their works.

This, of’course, could not be the major income of an artist; since it’s based on rather new ideas & technologies and that’s where mechanical rights and perhaps the more commercial music could come in mind.

“Any artist should be able next to his ideals, to create their own productions, even for commercial gain.. Right? .. ”

I’m not sure that’s really true in Belgium or in Europe!

Like any artist would do, I’ve joined the major Belgian author associations like Simim, Uradex and Imagia but I’ve failed of joining Sabam simply because of one thing: Trust!

It seems to be unable to register as an author and create free music. As soon as you join Sabam you’ve got to sign away all your rights for now and for the future; all your music will belong to them! When Sabam sees a song with your name in it, they will collect, even if the work is based on a Creative Commons license!

Their reasoning seems to be towards being unable to spot the differences, although, I’ve been proposing to add a CC+ tag to all of my CC productions but that wasn’t accepted. I’ve proposed if I could create my Creative Commons+ files under another nickname which I’d not register with Sabam but alas, that would be too good to be true…

“Whenever you join Sabam as author or composer, it will be for all music you’re author or co-author of. It’s not possible to collect for some songs through Sabam and collect through another. With Creative Commons licenses you’ve always got the risk Sabam will collect money anyways…”

Their own (translated) response is “Whenever you join Sabam as author or composer, it will be for all music you’re author or co-author of. It’s not possible to collect for some songs through Sabam and collect through another. With Creative Commons licenses you’ve always got the risk Sabam will collect money anyways…”

What kind of monopoly is this? Supported by the government ran through exclusivity contracts?

Isn’t Sabam created in purpose to support the common artist?

Not only this is a small problem, imagine the next one!

Once you’d need to publish any CD, a non-intervention statement needs to be signed by Sabam, allowing the CD manufacturer to start pressing that particular CD.

No non-intervention statement is no press! As cherry on top, you cannot demand a non-intervention when you are member of this agency which would allow them to collect royalties; even on a cd with only Creative Commons works. I’ve had to create a letter stating “I would not be joining in the near future”, this only because I wanted PERMISSION (in limited amounts) to release my own CD, which I’ve got 9 months later!

It’s one vicious circle because as soon as you want to earn on those Mechanical Rights; you’ve got to be member of them, loosing any artistic freedom to create music for other purposes than collecting money!

Our Dutch equivalent is currently pilot-testing a program with Creative Commons works; although anything released under the original artist name would be collected upon. This restricts the artist to only release music commercially -or- under a creative commons license but not both.

What if authors join forces combining their music giving away free CC samples for example? Belgium has not been touching this while CC is getting a full grown internet phenomenon.

This raises a few questions …

How could Sabam be even allowed such power to limit creativity at it’s best? Industrial lobbying at it’s best?

How could I ever create free art if they force me to copyright my works to their agency?

Where does that money go to from wrongly collected works?

How would you feel, You’ve got a killer voice and you’d like to sing a song free for the world, but Sabam would limit that because you are member?

Probably the same as how I feel now with this superficial legal limits opposed by Sabam!

I hope something gets done for the common artist!

I am feeling this is a tax to limit “creativity”, a word which sure isn’t licensed in their repertoire only!

Thank you for listening, tuning out!

[Please give your reactions here, this article will be forwarded towards the proper authorities ]

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