Collecting societies are industry-regulated bodies that collect royalties in broadcasting and performance on behalf of musicians and record labels. As Creative Commons licenses are developed for regions worldwide, many come up against collecting societies in their countries who lack understanding of Creative Commons or see it as a movement that is diametrically opposed to their organisational interests.

The intention for the 'Mars Landing' session at the iCommons iSummit 08 was to have a conversation about making Creative Commons licenses work with collecting societies. One of the first questions this raises is whether or not it even makes sense to work with these societies. This ceases to be a legal question and becomes more of a social one.

Paul Keller from Creative Commons Netherlands related his organisation's experiences in introducing CC licenses to the Dutch market. An immediate problem faced was that local collecting societies did not recognise Creative Commons licenses. The perception that needed to be combated was that CC licenses didn't work for professional and semi-professional musicians.

Elliot Bledsoe from Creative Commons Australia says that his organisation experienced hostility from music collecting societies when introducing CC licenses. This hostility is precipitated by a lack of understanding and it is important to work with societies in addressing issues, where possible or relevant.

The global experience seems to be that it is necessary not to rely too heavily on localised definitions in addressing the problem of integrating CC licenses with collecting society activities because music goes everywhere and is played all over the world; ergo collecting societies must have agreements with each other in terms of international collecting. Restrictions must be able to accurately travel with the music they describe. The move is therefore to ensure that definitions are both locally relevant, open to collaborative development and internationally sane.

At the crux of the problem is that collecting societies are part of an old music industry paradigm, while Creative Commons represents a new reality in music. But artists do need mechanisms via which to collect royalties where applicable.

Jamendo's Sylvain Zimmer explained how his organisation along with the likes of Last.fm and Deezer are pushing new music industry business models into the old paradigm, by blurring the lines between the two.

Likewise, musicians like Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead are pushing this in the opposite direction, bringing old world music models into the new music paradigm.

By taking charge of their own music via CC licenses artists are learning that there are no in-principle problems with collecting royalties, but collecting bodies are influenced, in some countries heavily so, by record labels and other organisations opposed to Creative Commons' licensing.

This transformation must focus on driving flexibility into the collecting system to facilitate the phased movement to a new music paradigm in which it is realised that artists can collect royalties on their own terms or in accordance with the licenses that they choose for their work.

In most territories royalty collecting societies are legally allowed to set their own collection policies and decide on how much of a percentage from broadcasters and nightclubs, for example, will be collected. This poses a problem for Internet music broadcasters like Last.fm who can be targeted with high royalty fees.

The overriding question is whether or not to work with collecting societies, or move onto the new music reality without them? The discussion ensues...

Picture: Funny Money by materials boy on Flickr.com, CC BY SA 2.0