John Buckman - Use of Creative Commons Licensing

Use of Creative Commons Licensing

Buckman's use of Creative Commons licensing on the Magnatune site is thought to be, in part, a response to the Recording Industry Association of America's growing record of litigiousness toward Internet music sites and individual consumers. Believing such lawsuits to represent an outmoded response to the relatively new medium of digital music and to have a detrimental effect on the cultural landscape as a whole, Buckman employs Creative Commons licensing to support an explicitly customer friendly and pro-Internet stance. This stance includes providing full album previews online (versus snippets) to web site visitors—something that Creative Commons licensing facilitates without subjecting visitors to a set of complex terms and conditions. The full album previews also assist independent recording artists with gaining exposure for their work in a crowded marketplace. This strategy has been adopted by other independent record labels including the New York City based label Team Love. Creative Commons licensing also facilitates Magnatune policies such as allowing customers to share three copies of their purchases at no charge, and giving podcasters free access to the entire Magnatune catalog. Buckman has also taken a vocal position against DRM.

The complete data feed at BookMooch is under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 license. This represents an unusual amount of transparency, as the feed includes the entire database, with all books and user data intact, except for a few fields not displayed for privacy reasons.