Creative Commons Licensing and Relations of Production in the Sound Industry

This article describes current production practices taking place in the sound industry, concentrating onthe process of implementation and popularization of Creative Commons. Existing studies have considered the roleof classical copyright in the creative industries, pointing at its functions in regulating the creative process, but sofar have not extensively examined its relationship to alternative intellectual property frameworks. This paper usesthe empirical example of the largest sound repository to describe the change occurring in cultural production.The article posits that mass popularization of Creative Commons provokes transformation within three key andintersecting areas of production, including the subjects of property (creators), objects of property (creations)and articulation of usage (source information). The paper theoretically frames and expands our understanding ofchange provoked by open licensing and its relationship to the creative production process.