Categories
Free Culture

The NonCommercial Fallacy Three

“I don’t mind other people using my work but if they make money off it I want my cut.”

Let’s say that Linkin Park sample your ShareAlike music. I can’t see their record label saying “sure, make the track ShareAlike, heck, the video and the album should be SA too!”. So they’ll come back to negotiate proprietary licencing.

But let’s imagine for a moment that hell freezes over and they do make the single ShareAlike. You can sell your own copies of that single with the angle that you are the “original author”, and given the ridiculous pricing on CD singles and downloads you can undercut the record label and still make a profit. Or do what Dido did with “Thank You” and push your track on the success of the track that sampled it.

Either way you get more exposure and more money, and do more harm to the major label model, than sticking NC on your work.

If you think Linkin Park’s track just succeeds because of the marketing, SA is a better way of critiquing or tapping into this. If you think their track succeeds because it’s better art than your track, why do you want to stop better art being produced with NC?

Technorati Tags: