The BY only license is perfect. But people, like myself, are afraid that someone sells their music for big money.

When people do that, would that not have happened under another license or would they simply try to find some other work? That’s hard to prove.

BY only might be the best marketing boost ever. I would love to experiment with it one day. Some of my songs are a couple of years old. Some of that music is already been paid for (project work), so I might be able to release it under a less restrictive license and see what happens. Maybe Hollywood likes to stick Blowing Snow under some film. Or some other interesting thing can happen. Would I then start thinking ‘oh my, what if it still had NC on it?’. The thing is: that might not have happened with NC on it. Again: hard to prove.

We need to experiment and be brave. If some song gets used in a huge production that means super promotion. Good for business without doubt. And you can still tell the whole world that the best is still yet to come! Which is the truth.

Some people work for free or for less money when they are asked to do some Class A work. They do that because it created huge exposure. Exposure, marketing is a price which needs to be paid. If lowering the licenses helps, that would make sense to me. Relicensing doesn’t gain a lot of money unless you are the Rolling Stones licensing Start Me Up for Microshaft. On the other hand the wallpaper-photo’s of Windows 98-xp where licensed for like 30 EURO each. I mean: yeah, right…

What if Yesterday was released under BY only? Would it have broken Macca’s heart? Would it stop him from witting new songs? He’s written a lot of superb songs after Yesterday. Yesterday was only a start, a beginning.

Times have changed. No one is making much money by selling CD’s anymore. It’s not so simple to become noticed and to make a buck with music. The days of Yesterday are over. But what you need is listeners, people who like you music; fans. If the BY only license helps best with it, it might be an idea to try it. Maybe I even will do that.

Anyone can understand how the BY license works. Am you become that social open person who’s not afraid to experiment with the ideas behind the future of music.

I personally also get the feeling that we will be able to make money by things which are indirectly related to the music, things like advertisements. That’s a great business model also for musicians. I have a sponsor running on my Dutch blog right now. And it’s paying ok (over 100 euro’s per month). And I can imagine this will grow and grow. At the moment I have between 150-200 unique visitors and it’s growing. I am a blogging musician, maintaining this blog and hopefully within a few years this blog offers me enough money to create anything I would like. Sure, I need a lot more visitors. But they will slowly be added, day by day. The only thing I need to do is continue. I would be happy to use BY only and see what happens. If Hollywood wants me for free music, mmm… that still sounds interesting to me. Huge exposure and I can always make my newest music more restrictive, or maybe not.

Bottom line: we need to be brave and experiment.

Thanks a lot Lucas for your full attention on this. Our man at Yahoo. We’ll keep an eye on you :)