Hey jay and gang!
The question that is still unanswered is:
does a legal release form need to be in legalese?
or can I write one up that is human readable, but still a serious
document?
I am not a lawyer, but, I think I can help here.
(People ask this question a lot :-)
Well if two people agree on a document and sign it, it's legally binding
and all that -- and in that way it's a serious document, in the sense
that I think you mean.
But legally binding won't get you far later if you have a signed
document whose true legal meaning leaves too much open for interpretation.
Ambiguity can be your friend or your enemy - But I'm going to make the
case for ambiguity not being your friend (although I will pitch both sides
in a p.s. below)
Lack of legalese often leads to ambiguity - and that will cause trouble
later when things go wrong. eg when one party or the other decides that
the other party has violated their agreement in some way.
If you wrote up on a piece of paper:
X can use Y's artwork
X will pay Y $$ for it
X can use it for anything for two years after the date of this document.
and both X and Y signed it
The question then becomes (to a judge) - what were the terms of the
agreement exactly? (which uses were allowed, and which were restricted)
So questions like: What does anything mean. Does it mean friggin
anything? Or any use that existed to the best of either party's
knowledge at the time of the document? or whatever
And then, did X violate those terms, or not?
(Did the use in question fall under the allowable uses?)
So with Creative Commons licenses -- since they are based on existing
copyright law, if you were to prosecute a party for the unauthorized use
of your copyrighted work, you could not afford yourself the legal
protections under existing copyright law if the licenses did not use the
exact legal language *of existing copyright law. (Without that language,
it's difficult to determine what the authorized and unauthorized uses
in question even are.)
Even with the human readable versions, it's really still too complicated
to figure out very quickly, if ya ask me, so I've created this table that
summarizes and compares them - with the pros and cons of each, here:
http://video.lisarein.com/sfsu/guide/prosandcons.html
well, hope this helps :-)
thanks!
lisa
(co-founder, creative commons)
(former director of operations, wide hive records)
p.s. total sidenote on ambiguity:
It totally depends which side of the agreement you're on at any given time
whether the ambiguity helps you or hurts you.
When I'm an artist selling a photograph - I want to be paid for *that
specific use* of my work, say, for an album cover, so the company has to
come back to me to give me more money if, say, they want to make t-shirts,
or whatever.
But here's the flip side: as a record label person, I don't want to have
to go looking for the artist to make a separate deal every time I want to
make a t-shirt or print a mug or whatever of the artwork you just paid
$1000 for fer your album cover.
It's easier to give them a little more upfront and write up an agreement
that says you can do what your what you want with the artwork -- usually
for a limited period of time, like two years after the album comes out --
and if the artist is smart, they can protect themselves by putting in
language like doesn't not include commercial uses other than those
directly promoting the album., etc.
jay
--
Here I am
http://jaydedman.com
917 371 6790
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Lisa Rein
http://onlisareinsradar.com
http://www.lisarein.com
