I’ve been enjoying Curry’s podcast a lot lately. Today he created another great one.

One thing is tricky though. On the show Adam is talking about that any ASCAP artist can release his/her music using a Creative Commons license or add their music to Podsafe Music Network. ‘It is YOUR music’, he says.

Well I am not so sure about that Adam. I recently asked the Dutch ASCAP, called BUMA, about this and they said no. So I decided to contact Lawrence Lessig by e-mail:

“Hi Lawrence,

Here in the Netherlands there are lots of discussions going on weather or not an ASCAP (we call: BUMA) artists can use Creative Commons for online licenses. The BUMA simply says you can’t. But I was thinking CC is just a license between me and a listener. I give those listeners special permissions using a CC license, so BUMA has nothing to do with it. But like I say, BUMA says no. I have their answer on paper. BUMA says they are in charge to protect your copyright. CC is not changing this copyright system or harming it. It is juts a special license. So the answer of BUMA sounds strange to me.

Would it be possible for you to dug into this matter, help me with it as well as other? I know a few people who are doing music of TV but also want to use Creative Commons licenses. For example check this recent podcast of Adam Curry: http:// mp3.dailysourcecode.podshow.com/DSC-280-2005-11-15.mp3

Thanks for reading and hopefully a ‘bright light’ on this matter!

Regards,

Marco Raaphorst”

And Lawrence e-mailed me back straight away, stating:

“Marco, indeed we’re doing work on this issue. I’ve cc-d Mia, our General Counsel, and Christiane, who leads Creative Commons International. I’ll let them followup. Thanks for the note. “

I will keep you informed about it. As usual 😉