About OBSCURA |
Obscura by Har is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.ambientguitarist.com.
So, what does that all actually mean?
I know some folks might be a little confused as to why a buyable music album could still be also considered a Creative Commons release, since there's a misconception that CC automatically means "always available for free, never to be sold even by the original creator of the work".
I'll try to explain...please bear with me and read on. :-)
A lot of people in the commercial music industry have this idea that when someone buys an album, they don't actually own what they just bought - they're instead actually only leasing it somehow from the artist (or often, whoever actually owns the rights to the music - which is sometimes not the artist but their record label), and have no right to share it with anyone else from that point forward after they've purchased it.
As for myself - I don't agree with that idea.
If someone likes my music enough to actually purchase it, I appreciate that - and have no problem with them sharing the music with others after they've purchased it so that they might enjoy it as well (who might perhaps then even consider buying their own copy of the album from me too - so please consider letting them know where you originally bought the album...thanks!). And that person can feel free to share it freely as well. And so on.
But at the same time, I - as the musician who created it - want people to also understand that I am the person who created this music, owns the copyrights to it (FYI: Creative Commons works with copyright protection, not replace it), and therefore doesn't want someone else to try to take what I created...and then try to say that they created my music, trying to take the credit for something that isn't theirs. Or even worse: try to sell it as such and make money from something I'm willing to let people share freely.
So in a nutshell: I'm happy if you want to freely share my album after you were nice enough to buy it - but please give credit where due and don't try to say that you created it instead. I think that's pretty fair, don't you? :-)
The Creative Commons licensing above (which is also further explained here) is how I try to make my position on all this clearly understood. To try to make it even easier still to understand, I'll try to break it down a bit further for you:
- I'm totally fine with:
- you as the original buyer of the album sharing this music, to copy, distribute and transmit the work.
- the person you might share it with also sharing it with someone else (again: it would be appreciated if you let them know where you bought it so they might consider buying a copy as well). And so on.
- But only under the following conditions:
- Attribution - You must attribute this work to me (Har) and not try to say that you created it, say that you own the rights to the album itself, take my name off of it and then pass it around as yourself or someone else, etc.
- Noncommercial - You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
So in other words: you're not free to use this album and the music on it to make money for yourself, such as using the music in things like TV or radio ads, background music in commercial films, videos, or radio spots, as part of your own musical releases, etc.
However, if you are actually interested in licensing the music to do so, please feel free to contact me. - No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
So in other words: you're not free to use little bits and pieces of this music (or the whole thing) as a part of your own music, video or multimedia release, i.e. take sampled/looped parts of it to use in your own songs, to use as part of a compilation or remix without my permission, etc.
But again: if you are actually interested in licensing the music to do so, please feel free to contact me. - And that you also understand that any of the above conditions could possibly be waived if you first get permission from me, the copyright holder. So in other words, if you have some ideas that you'd like to see if I'm OK with - let's talk. :-)
I hope this helps make all this stuff clearer!
All the best,
--Har
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