DANISH COLLECTING SOCIETY KODA TEAMS UP WITH CC DENMARK
Copenhagen, Denmark — January 30 2008
Creative Commons Denmark is pleased to announce that KODA is now offering noncommercial Creative Commons licensing to its members – making it the second country worldwide to do so. A similar pilot project was initiated in 2007 by Buma/Stemra in the Netherlands. Both show that collective rights management and Creative Commons licenses can be combined to the benefit of creators: “Creators can rely on the strength of collective rights management for commercial uses of their works, while taking noncommercial online distribution into their own hands by using Creative Commons licenses”, says Paul Keller of Creative Commons Netherlands.
“This important development highlights two of Creative Commons’ most significant strengths: worldwide presence through local projects, in this case CC Denmark, and the ability to bridge divides in the copyright debate with pragmatic and voluntary tools,” adds Mike Linksvayer, Vice President of Creative Commons.
More flexibility and freedom for musicians
KODA’s adoption of Creative Commons licensing marks a breakthrough for Danish composers and lyricists wanting to explore new ways of making their work available online while at the same time collecting commercial royalties through KODA.
“KODA is an important part of the music infrastructure, and we feel obliged to let artists decide how they want their rights administered. KODA must be a tolerant organization, and allow for experimentation and new ways of doing things”, says Assistant Managing Director at KODA, Martin Gormsen.
“In the past, allowing your fans to share your music meant waving goodbye to an important revenue stream for the artist. We are happy to be able to offer the best of both worlds now” says Christian Villum of Urlyd, a new Danish label that encourages fans to copy and share their music.
Facts about the KODA / Creative Commons pilot
KODA members must sign an agreement with KODA in which they indicate which works they wish to license. Not all Creative Commons licenses can be implemented for this pilot; since KODA manages all commercial rights for their members, only Creative Commons licenses with the “noncommercial” condition can be used.
Creative Commons Denmark has issued a set of guidelines to clarify what constitutes “noncommercial use”.
The most important provisions are:
• The use is only noncommercial if used by a private individual or certain non-profit associations / institutions.
• The music cannot endorse, sponsor, advertise or in other ways promote third party products or services.
• No money or similar value can be exchanged as remuneration for the music.
Read more at http://creativecommons.dk/koda/ (in Danish).
About KODA
KODA (Danish Authors’ Society) is a non-profit rights management society with approximately 32,000 members: composers, songwriters, lyricists and music publishers. A collaboration with similar societies across the world ensures that an agreement on music usage with KODA gives the user access to the entire world repertoire. In 2006, administrative fees constituted just 11.1 percent.
For more information, please visit http://www.koda.dk.
About Creative Commons Denmark
Creative Commons Danmark is a collaboration between the law department at Copenhagen Business School and a network of volunteers. Creative Commons Denmark is part of Creative Commons, a not-for-profit organization founded in 2001 that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works. Through its copyright licenses, Creative Commons offers authors, artists, scientists, and educators the choice of a flexible range of protections and freedoms that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to enable a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. For more information about Creative Commons Denmark, please visit http://creativecommons.dk, and for Creative Commons, visit http://creativecommons.org.
Contact
Public project lead: Henrik Moltke, [email protected] (Press and non-legal inquiries)
Legal project lead: Thomas Riis
Creative Commons Danmark c/o Copenhagen Business School
Juridisk Institut
Howitzvej 13, 3. sal
2000 Frederiksberg
[email protected]
Press Kit