I discovered Creative Commons a couple of
years ago. At the time the albums on my SSRI-label were manufactured and distributed
by Higher Octave Music/EMI – In the Arms of Love (2002) and The Santa Fe Sessions (2003) – and I was not able to use a CC-license.

In 2004 I switched the manufacturing and distribution of new SSRI albums to 33rd Street Records and discovered that 33rd Street president Morty Wiggins is a supporter of Creative Commons.

Recently I read a wonderful book called Opening the Hand of Thought by Kosho Uchiyama. And while it is my favorite book on Zen practice, it was the title that especially engaged me. You see, I think as a society, a country, even a world, we seem to be making a tight fist right now. We keep looking for greater security. We buy cars that look like tanks. We extend copyright to last much longer than the average lifetime. Safety and security seem to be the main concern. We are willing to give up freedoms, as long as we are assured that we are going to be safer without those freedoms. It seems to me that making our music available with a CC Sampling+/1.0 license means we are opening our hands. The fist turns into an open hand. A gesture. Meaningless perhaps, in view of all that is happening in the world right now, but the biggest gesture we as artists can give.

So, without further ado, we are now happy to announce that all of the music released by SSRI in the form of CDs or downloaded from SSRI’s Listening Lounge will as of now be governed by the Sampling+/1.0 license from Creative Commons. All new product will show the Sampling+/1.0 logo. This license will also be in effect retro-actively for all CDs of Ottmar Liebert’s La Semana and Jon Gagan’s Transit purchased in the past.

The Sampling+/1.0 license cannot be applied to any songs purchased through the iTunes store or any other web-download store. It can also not be applied to any album that was released prior to 2004.

Here are the features of the Sampling+/1.0 license:

Customers are free:
– to sample, mash-up, or otherwise creatively transform this work for commercial or noncommercial purposes
– to perform, display, and distribute copies of this whole work for noncommercial purposes, e.g. file-sharing or noncommercial webcasting

Under the following conditions:
– they must give the original author credit
– they may not use this work to advertise or promote anything but the work they created from it
– for any reuse or distribution, they must make clear to others the license terms of this work