When is it legally permissible to sample and reuse content? What’s in the public domain? And what is this Creative Commons thing about?

These questions are perpetually important to anyone in digital media, but there have been a number of resources I’ve come across just in the last few days that may be friendly to those curious about these questions.

Fair Use

Seesmic, the video community, has started a discussion with LA-based entertainment lawyer Michael Donaldson about copyright and the oft-misunderstood Fair Use provisions of US copyright law.

Here’s a teaser video; follow through and the Seesmic community asks questions about what the law means:

Mr. Donaldson has also written up a PDF report on fair use and online video. While it’s video-based, it’s worth a look for musicians, as well.

Via wire to the ear

Public Domain

Public Domain covers works that can be used and distributed freely, without restriction. Lifehacker points (via Ars Technica) to an online tool created by the American Library Association:

http://librarycopyright.net/digitalslider/

Digital Sliderule Makes Copyright Law Dead Simple [Lifehacker.com]

Now, "dead simple" to me would be a wild exaageration — you’ll see that various amendments to US law have allowed all sorts of complex loopholes to keep works out of the public domain. But it does make things more visual — even if it requires that you know whether a copyright has been renewed. Notably, the early history of recorded music is rapidly approaching public domain — that is, assuming labels don’t successfully lobby the US Congress to provide new exceptions.

Those of you outside the US, of course, have different laws, though you are subject to US laws wherever you are, if you’re sampling works that have a copyright in the United States.

Confused by Fair Use (which seems to boil down to nearly nothing) and Public Domain (which seems only to cover really ancient work)? That’s the reason the Creative Commons organization has created their alternative licenses, for artists who want their work to be more freely accessible, or those who want to sample and remix works more freely.

Let this be a lesson to you, purveyors of online music. If you do DRM-lock digital music, be prepared to continue to support it well into the future, lest users rebel. Microsoft announced earlier this year that its MSN Music service, defunct now for some time and never terribly popular, would cease to function as of August 31, 2008. This would mean that people who bought tracks from MSN Music would no longer be able to authorize files to play on new PCs and devices. The only workaround: burn to CD and re-rip.

Even on a relatively unsuccessful service, though, that caused a major outcry. Result: Microsoft has backpedaled, extending the deadline to "at least the end of 2011" and possibly even beyond. (By then, you may have to appeal to our new robotic overlords anyway, after the Great Cyber Rebellion of August 4, 2011. Oops, sorry, the people of your time aren’t supposed to know about that yet.)

The lesson here seems clear to me: the cost of DRM is ultimately exacted on the vendor. It’s especially ironic as video sellers move toward more DRM rather than less, but DRM in music seems utterly dead. And whereas the DRM controversy began as a discussion of piracy issues, it’s now centered on sales. The simple fact of the matter is, online music has proven to have real profit potential, even if it’s been slow to catch up with the late 90s CD bubble. True, DRM does live on in subscription services, though I think the comparison there isn’t entirely valid — the point of subscription models is unlimited access to music, not necessarily building permanent collections. And even there, we’ve seen a migration away from DRM, as in the streaming/purchase model on Lala.com, which I examined earlier this month.

Tomorrow night, I’ll be attending the launch party for the Wax Poetics digital download store, and they’re a print magazine for vinyl buffs, for crying out loud. (Oh yeah — guess that bit about print and vinyl being dead was also wrong.)

Conventional wisdom: 0. Music lovers: score.