SLAMGAUGE

You have written and recorded some music. You want to protect your intellectual property. If you have been paying attention to the music industry lately then I am sure you have heard of Creative Commons License. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has distributed his last few albums under the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike in order to make his music more available to the public and allow his fans to remix his tracks without having to worry about going against his copyright. If this kind of license sounds appealing to you and you would like to apply it to your music or other intellectual property, then follow these steps to get your work licensed under Creative Commons.

Step 1: Get your work Copyrighted
Essentially, once you have recorded your music, all you have to do to get it Copyrighted is to simply say it is Copyrighted. For example,

Copyright How to license your music with Creative Commons ^© 2008.

Now this blog post is protected under Copyright. You can not distribute or copy this work without my permission. To go one step further, you can register at the U.S Copyright Office for $35. Registering your intellectual property with copyright registration entitles the availability to statutory damages and any fees that occur. Basically, if you have to fight it out in court without being registered at the copyright office, the legal fees would probably be more than the sum you would win. You don't have to register, but it is a good idea. If you don't register, then you will have to pay all the legal fees associated with it, proving that you are the copyright holder and original author. If you are registered then apparently the Copyright office takes care of that bit.

Step 2: Choosing a License
Now that you have your work protected and all rights are reserved, it is time to loosen your strangle hold on your intellectual property so others can be free to use it in whatever way you deem fair. Visit the Creative Commons Choosing a License page and read over the different types of licenses that you can apply to your music. Everything is spelled out in plain English so you should not have any problems with confusing legal mumbo jumbo. After deciding how you want to restrict the usage of your work, head over to the Creative Commons License Your Work page and select the allowances and fill in the info.
Generally you will want to select "No" for "allow commercial uses of your work". So if someone wants to make money off of your music, they will have to pay you for it, but if you want your work to be totally free then select "yes". Then select what modifications you will allow. Here "Yes" means someone can remix or cover your song however they like. "Yes, as long as others share alike" means they must attribute the original work to you, and it must be released under the same license you originally released the work under, and "No" means they can't modify your work at all without your expressed permission.
You then select your jurisdiction, which will make the license apply to whatever country you select and then fill in your info. Once you have done all that, click the "Select a Licence" button at the bottom of the page.

Step 3: Publishing your License
Now that you have gotten your license all squared away, you have to let people know that your work is in fact licensed under Creative Commons. The page you are taken to after clicking the "Select a License" button will have some code you can insert into the HTML of your web site or blog. On the left side of this page, you will find specific instructions on how to insert the code into Blogger, Movable Type and Typepad blogs. They also have some guides on how to publish your music to p2p networks like Morpheus.
Once your web site is set up, you want to be sure to include your license info in the ID3 tag of any mp3 that you are planning to distribute. You can use any program that allows you to edit ID3 tags to add your license information into the comments area. The information you will need to list includes the latest year the recording was licensed, the name of the band or artist, the type of license, and a link to the license info. It is also a good idea make sure it is pretty clear on how to contact you in case someone is interested in using your work for commercial purposes. Ex: 2008 Velvet Wasp ^©. Contact through www.slamgauge.com Licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

Now you are all set. Make a torrent of your music and put it up on Piratebay, Limewire, Myspace, your blog or where ever else you would like. Perhaps later I will write about different ways to distribute your music online.

H/T:Audiotuts, Electronic Music Production Tips, Home Recording Blog, The Home Recording Show, Adventures In Sound