I have pasted in the FAQ from Remix Reading. Please add to it/leave comments. Remember to leave initials after comments - EGJ

Contents

Basic Questions
our agenda

Basic Questions

1. do I have to be from Brighton to submit work?

No. You can submit your work from Brighton, Tokyo or anywhere else in the world. But we will be initally running events, providing equipment and support and generally basing our activities in Brighton, East Sussex, England. However in the future, if this project works well, we might well consider setting up more Remix projects around the world wherever there is interest - watch this space.

2. are you against copyright?

No. In fact, all works on Remix Brighton are protected by copyright. Rather than advocating a world without copyright, where artists receive no protection to make a living from their work, we are advocating a world with a more balanced use of copyright. This means that artists can choose to give certain rights to the community with some or all of their work. This makes cultural communities more lively and innovative.

3. how can artists make money if they don't protect their work?

First, an artist can still make money from their work even when they release it under an extremely permissive license. An artist can sell hardcopies, receive commissions and charge for commercial use of their work. Secondly, we are not forcing artists to release all of their work under one of our licenses. Rather, we are asking artists to consider releasing some of their work, even if it is a tiny proportion of their portfolio, into the community.

4. what if I uploaded someone else's copyrighted work and put it under a Creative Commons license without their permission?

The simple answer is that you are not allowed by law to do this, and the copyright owner will be entitled to take legal action against you and Remix Brighton. As you can imagine, we want to actively discourage people doing this. At the end of the day, we can't possibly moderate every single thing that is uploaded and check if it contains copyrighted material or not. Therefore we have to trust you not to do this.

However, if a record company, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) or anyone else were to approach us and demand us to take off the web-site any material which infringes on their copyright, we would do so immediately. Our standard procedure for offenders is to track down the user who uploaded the material in question and e-mail them a notice that basically says: "Take it down today, and notify us you've done so, or your access will be suspended and we will take the infringing material off the web-site ourselves."

In 1998, the US Congress (the ibiblio servers we use are based in America) passed the On-Line Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA) in an effort to protect service providers on the Internet from liability for the activities of its users. In order to ensure that copyright owners do not wrongly insist on the removal of materials that actually do not infringe their copyrights, the safe harbour provisions require service providers to notify the subscribers if their materials have been removed and to provide them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed. Therefore, if we were to get a false accusation of copyright infringement, we would work with you to write a "counter-notice" claiming that the material does not infringe copyrights.

But the less hassle for us the better, not least because we don't get paid to do this. We don't want to be chased by record companies threatening to sue us if we don't take a certain work off Remix Brighton. Therefore, please only use your own or creative commons licensed work which allows you to remix it.

5. if I already have a record deal/film contract, can I still upload my work onto Remix Brighton?

This is a tricky one - it depends on what the contract states. It may, for example, force you to release all of your content for a period of time under your contractor's copyright, or under a exclusive distribution agreement. Our advice is that you discuss the matter with your agent and/or record label. You can also send us a copy and we, together with the Creative Commons UK legal team, can try and advise you.

6. I am about to sign a record deal/film contract/publishing contract – how can I still allow my work to be uploaded under a creative commons license?

If you contact us we will try and advise you. We will also put you in contact with other artists who have already done this.

There is currently an increasing number of artists who incorporate Creative Commons into their licenses. An example is one of the founders of Creative Commons, Lawrence Lessig. He negotiated with his publisher, Penguin, to release his newest book online under a very open Creative Commons license. He distributes it on the internet, and Penguin distribute it in paperback format. Because of the increased publicity that his book gained - over 400,000 people downloaded it - many more people bought it.

With music, you don't necessarily have to release all of your tracks under a Creative Commons license. You could just release a few, in order for people to legally distribute and listen to a taste of your new album. In this way, creative commons licensed work is a great way to advertise and gain publicity for your music. But you'll have to be sure there aren't any exclusivity clauses in your contract.

7. can I change the license for a piece of work some time after I first uploaded it?

We try and discourage artists from doing this. Instead, we want artists to think long and hard before they choose the appropriate licence for their piece of work.

You must be aware that if you change your licence at a later date, your previous license still applies for the period of time that you had it selected. For example, say I download a piece of work that is marked with a particular license. If the author were to change the license at a later date, I would still be entitled to use the piece of work under the license that it was marked with when I downloaded it.

8. how can I help Remix Brighton?

We are always looking for more people to help us. Whether you are a PHP programmer, a gig promoter, a graphic designer, or just someone you wants to actively spread the word about Remix Brighton, we need you. We try to be open to new ideas and we will listen to anything that you suggest to us. Maybe we could even collaborate on some project together? Just contact us with your idea and/or how you can help, and we will try and get back to you as soon as possible.

In the long-term, we are also looking for people to help us moderate the website. If that interests you, then we could give you the training and you could be part of an innovative project that tries to bring people and creativity together in Brighton.

9. what should I do if I find an error?

Please go to the contact section of the web site and e-mail us with details of the problem. If you find an error, it would be very helpful if you could copy the error message that you get in your browser and paste it into the contact form. The more detail you give us, the easier it will be for us to fix it. Thanks for helping in advance!

our agenda

10. why are we doing this? where's the money coming from? what gives?

For more of an understanding of why we are doing this please read: the motivation behind Remix Brighton (provide link).

In terms of money, ibiblio and Positive Internet have been kind enough to provide the web-hosting and bandwidth for free. Other than that we have no funding so far, apart from our own time and money. We are currently applying to various sources for funding. If you are interested in advertising on the website or supporting the project, then please contact us.

11. have you got some political agenda that we ought to know about?

The various members of Remix Brighton all have their own politial agendas. However, as a whole, our main aim with Remix Brighton is to spread the use of Creative Commons licenses as well as to promote Free Software ("free as in "free speech, not as in "free beer.").

12. what's your relationship with Creative Commons?

Creative Commons provide the licenses and legal advice for Remix Brighton. In return we encourage people to use the Creative Commons licenses and to spread the word about them through Remix Brighton. It's as simple as that.

13. what's all this malarkey about Free Software?

Free Software as a concept was created by the Free Software Foundation back in the 1980s. It is software released under a license that gives certain freedoms to those who use it, namely:

The freedom to use the software for any purpose
The freedom to study how the software works by viewing the source code
The freedom to modify the software for yours and others' needs
The freedom to redistribute the modified or improved software so the whole community benefits

The freedoms the community can enjoy under these terms are significant. It allows programmers to be self-taught and to learn in an open community; it allows them to adapt others' work rather than reinventing the wheel; it allows individuals to work together in communities across the globe; it stops companies being able to hold customers to ransom since the customer can take the source code to a competitor; and so on.

For artists, it means more affordable software that they can, if they are able, adapt to their needs. And it enables artists to talk to the community of developers directly about their needs... if you want a feature in some Free Software, you can email a developer or file a feature request on their web site and they will be receptive to your ideas. You aren't a consumer, you're a member of a community.

The Free Software Foundation inspired Lawrence Lessig to found Creative Commons, and both organisations share a common philosophy of promoting innovation and freedom through licensing. Free Software, or Open Source as it is sometimes called, is now revolutionising the software world. Examples of Free Software that you might have heard of include Linux, Mozilla Firefox and the Apache web server, upon which almost 70% of web sites are hosted (at the time of writing - October 2004; source: Netcraft).

The Remix Brighton web site only uses Free Software (the operating system Linux, the web server Apache, the database mySQL and the programming language PHP, amongst others). We will also promote artistic Free Software as part of our project.