General

Reasons to publish your music

Throughout my musical trajectory I have edited three studio discs and all of them under Creative Common license, also called CC or copyleft. Far from being a problem, it has always been a solution and the most logical option.

What is a Creative Commons license?

Basically a creative commons license allows your work to be distributed, copied, and reproduced freely, without paying for it. What benefit could the author or group derive from such an occurrence?

Speaking of music, and so that we understand each other, a song licensed in this way can be copied freely, can be reproduced, can even be modified and generate a new work from it. But you can’t sell it or give it a commercial use (but, hey!

Yes, you can make money with it, then we’ll see.) And whenever it is used, the original author must be cited and, in the same way, the works that use it or derive from it must have the same type of CC status.

Come on, if you create a video and want to use my song in it, the video will also have to be creative commons, and you’ll have to acknowledge my authorship in the credits.

But if what we are looking for are specific reasons to choose this type of license, if we want advantages and real example. there are a few.

Do you really think someone would pay for your music?

You should ask yourself this question. You may be about to edit your first musical reference. Your hordes of followers are not yet too numerous. If so, why do you think people will pay for your album? Most music consumers download the albums of the bands they love… it’s unlikely that they will decide to spend that money on you.

You will reach more people by offering it for free, so give them your music, and they will surely pay for your concert ticket, to which they will go thanks to knowing all the songs on the album that were downloaded for free.

It is also very common that people end up buying the original album after a memorable concert. Make sure yours is. And please give them a signature on the CD.

You want to force your fans to be criminals?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone attending your concert could have legally acquired your music? The musician and blogger Ignacio Escolar, activist and copyleft advocate, got great notoriety a few years ago thanks to his already famous post “Please pirate my songs”. Highly recommended reading.

International license, legal and secure.

That’s right, the Creative Commons is not something isolated that we have invented here, it works on an international level and gives you legal coverage that assures you will have to meet the specifications of your license at the same level as the usual copyright licenses.

Customized license.

This type of license does not mean no copyright, it allows us to decide what rights we grant to third parties. And that choice depends on us to adjust our license to what we need. In this way we can specify whether or not we require that the author of the work be named or whether we restrict commercial use of the work.

From here you can see what options you have when cooking your own copyleft, with different options.

Easy and cheap.

In fact, for free! If you’re self-editing your music, you won’t need to be told the expenses you’re going to face… Study, production, editing, mixing… Don’t worry because this won’t increase the number that’s keeping you awake.

In order for your works to be licensed under this format, in the case of music it will be enough to put the corresponding icons on your CD, or if you share it over the Internet, specify it on the web or add an HTML code that will generate the necessary image for you. From this link you can generate your license and your code.

You can still make money on your play.

There is often confusion at this point. Using Copyleft in no case means renouncing to obtain economic profit from your creation. If your music generates money, you will charge for it. The CC license of NonCommercial type, preserves the rights of commercialization of the work exclusively for the author.

So if someone wants to use a song of yours in a youtube video of their vacation will not have a problem. But if a filmmaker wants to use it in his film or any other commercial work, he will have to talk to you to reach an agreement.

Portals for your diffusion.

There are several websites, blogs and even large portals that distribute CC-type musical content. The clearest reference at this point is Jamendo. According to Wikipedia “Jamendo is a community created around free music, where artists can upload their music for free and their audience can download it in the same way”.

In my personal experience jamendo has been an incredible help for the diffusion of my projects, later I will tell you a success story with one of my bands. Also keep in mind that it is an international website and will allow you to access listeners from all over the world.