MUSICat Guides
Guides for building a local music collection using the open-source MUSICat platform.
- Admin User Guide
- Marketing & Promotion
- Jurying
- Artist Payments Service
- New Site Setup
- Artist Licenses
- Configure the information they collect from artists for licenses, which will automatically populate in the license while artists fill out the license form
- Format text for the formal printable license
- Format text for a plain language license and web and email messages about the license
Artist License Guidelines
MUSICat empowers libraries to license work direectly from local artists. These guidelines and the example and standard licenses shared here are based on our expereince working with public libraries Across North America.
At Rabble, creator of MUSICat, none of us are lawyers, and none of the following should be construed as legal advice. This information is updated from time to time to reflect what our partner libraries find successful and acceptable to their stakeholders.
License Templates
Standard MUSICat Artist License Streaming and Download
Standard MUSICat Artist License Streaming Only
Find additional license examples from MUSICat Libraries and images of MUSICat licensing interfaces in this Google folder
License types in MUSICat
MUSICat allows libraries to create multiple “Standalone” licenses and to optionally create “Add-on” licenses, which are generally Creative Commons Licenses
Standalone Licenses
This is the main license your library will sign with artists for a work such as an album in which the licensor (the artist) grants the licensee (the library) permission to share their work in the library’s collection. You may have multiple standalone licenses (e.g. Perpetual and Five Year Licenses) which artists will select from a drop-down menu, or a single standalone license, and each work you license will have only one of these.
MUSICat License Templates allow librarians to:
MUSICat tracks changes to published licenses by versioning (e.g. license 1.4) and license signed dates, so that you will always know exactly which version of a license a particular artist signed and when, should the license change over time.
Add-on Licenses
Currently, libraries use add-on licenses to give artists the option to add a Creative Commons license to their work. Learn more about CC here. Using MUSICat LIcense Templates, librarians can format text and message for their add-on license.
License Content and Parameters
Permissions Sought
Generally, libraries use non-exclusive licenses that allow them to provide open streams and open or library-card-authenticated downloads of album tracks. The license additionally empowers the library to share artist-provided images of album cover art and artists on their MUSICat collection site. Often libraries also seek permission to use artist names and images in promotional materials, and MUSICat recommends you do so if you plan to promote your collection. Some libraries also seek permission to permanently archive all artist content in their MUSICat site.
Libraries seek permissions to content for which the artist holds all copyrights (for both the composition and the recording) or has permission to share all content from all relevant copyright holders (e.g. other band members, cover image artist, local label). Currently, MUSICat does not collect or track information about composers or songwriters, as the currently supported collections are of original works.
Timeline
Many libraries chose to create a fixed term license (e.g. 2 years) that allows the library to keep an artist’s content on their MUSICat site after the fixed term expires. In this case, the license states that the artist must contact the library to have their work removed from the site after the fixed term expires. This allows librarians to weed their MUSICat collections on their own timeline, and reduces the burden of tracking licensing terms.
Takedowns
Libraries may wish to state in their license that they will place a copyright notice on their MUSICat collection sites, and we ask that you familiarize yourself with how MUSICat supports this. MUSICat allows librarians to configure this notice that appears at the bottom of each track listing on the site.
In the event a third party were to challenge that a work on the collection infringes their copyright, they may do so with a takedown request. Learn more about takedowns here. In practical terms, such requests are addressed by removing the album if the claim of infringement is legitimate, which is easy to do using MUSICat admin tools.
Electronic Signatures
During the open submissions process, the submitting artists provides an email address across an SSL session secured by the Library’s or other certificate. The Library then uses those addresses, or addresses it has for the artist, to send each invited artist a unique key that gave them access to their complete submissions pages, where they provided information about themselves, their album, uploaded tracks, and signed their licenses. This process is also fully secured via SSL. All submissions are reviewed by library and jury members prior to invitation. Thus we can be reasonably certain, beyond industry standards for artist submitted works, that we are corresponding with the submitter.
No process can then perfectly determine the identity of a correspondent who is not physically present and personally known to the other party. Nor can compromise of the correspondent’s email account on their end be entirely ruled out. However, posing as an artist is made quite difficult and risky given that our process verifies emails by sending those unique links, collects physical address information at the contracting stage, which we also recommend be used for sending payment, and deals with a fair amount of information provided by the submitter all of which is subsequently reviewed prior to publishing.
So, while it is not impossible someone could pose as an artist, it is unlikely and would represent a relatively high risk and consequence in both willful civil copyright violation and criminal fraud terms.
In the unlikely event that any content is fraudulently provided, upon challenge from the rights-holder or another credible party, the library should notify Rabble (and we would do the same should notice come to us). At that point we would attempt to verify the authenticity of the challenge, whether a formal DMCA notice or other credible form, and remove the content if the challenge proved valid in cases of clear fraud, and if the Library chose to honor the challenge in any case.
We are not lawyers, but we believe the process above goes above and beyond the legal and community standard required here. Within this process the key element that we won’t be removing from MUSICat is human approvals prior to publishing.
We stand by our existing practice and it is what we are recommending for all libraries using MUSICat to accept and jury submissions, but we’re open to practical refinements. For example building functions that simplify requesting further verification like that described above into the tools and documenting their use would be a straightforward project for which we are happy to provide a quote.