The highlight reel from the first week of the Sampling License discussion:

Sarah Brown raised concerns that the draft language wasn’t clear enough about the copyrightability of sample-derived works and what other rights the sampler enjoys in them. She suggested we address these issues more explicitly.

Cathy Kirkman, however, explained why the license itself need not spell these points out, and that a thorough FAQ entry or Commons Deed provision was a better place for the explanation.

Chris Kelty and Negativland debated the sampling license’s proposed “anti-advertising” clause. Kelty reasoned that there may be ways to achieve the same end without using anti-advertising language, and expressed other worries about the provision. Negativland stood by the clause.

Finally, I submitted three humble requests to the list participants (1, 2, 3).

To sum up: No changes to the lawyer-readable language so far, though we should be clearer in our human-readable version of the license (e.g., FAQ, license summary) about what rights the sampler enjoys in the new, sample-derived work.

Discussion is still young — join us. Three weeks left until redraft.