Not a lot of happy Canadians over on the comments page for CBC Radio's program Spark. The producers for the radio show, blog, and podcast on technology issues have disclosed that the program won't be using Creative Commons licensed materials any more.
The mention came after a fan posted that he couldn't locate mention of the Creative Commons music used in the episode.
"I can't find the link?" he noted. "Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong place?"
"You're not looking in the wrong place," came a reply. "There's simply no Creative Commons music used in this episode. By management decree, CBC podcasts are no longer permitted to use CC music. Instead, we're using the APM Music library (http://www.apmmusic.com/), which is copyright cleared and fully licensed by the CBC."
Unbelievable
CC licenses let artists offer more flexible and open copyright arrangements for users. The revelation of the ban, of course, generated protest from various commentators.
"What an unbelievably dumb idea," declared copyright activist Russell McOrmand. "Great way to have people become less supportive of CBC's taxpayer subsidised budget: making sure that money is wasted in as many ways possible."
"Hi, Russell," responded CBC staffer Lily Mills. "It turned out that our use of Creative Commons licensed music was going against some of the details in collective agreements we hold with certain talent agencies. As such, we had to discontinue our use of it."
"That isn't a good enough answer," McOrmand replied. "If ACTRA or some other union is making such demands in contracts, then we have the right to see them. Please post a link to the contract so that I and the lawyers at Creative Commons Canada can read and respond."
Eventually CBC Programming Director Chris Boyce chimed in with a statement:
The issue with our use of Creative Commons music is that a lot of our content is readily available on a multitude of platforms, some of which are deemed to be 'commercial' in nature (e.g. streaming with pre-roll ads, or pay for download on iTunes) and currently the vast majority of the music available under a Creative Commons license prohibits commercial use.
In order to ensure that we continue to be in line with current Canadian copyright laws, and given the lack of a wide range of music that has a Creative Commons license allowing for commercial use, we made a decision to use music from our production library in our podcasts as this music has the proper usage rights attached.
Everyone can rest easy—there are no 'groups' setting out to stop the use of Creative Commons music at the CBC, and we will continue to use Creative Commons licensed music, pictures etc. across a number of our non-commercial platforms.
You can read the rest of the thread to get the responses to this explanation. Whatever you think about the issue, give some credit to CBC's responsive staff. Hard to imagine this kind of give and take on a National Public Radio page.
Hat tip: Slashdot
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