If I had my way, everything would be free. In the old days before recording, musicians would constantly play each others songs, maybe changing the order or altering lyrics slightly, and these would be passed on for generations without any clue as to who might have originally come up with certain musical or lyrical phrase. Almost all music today still borrows from this past.
I’m a musician and songwriter (with a SOCAN membership since 1996, incidentally) and though I’ve always been proud of my originality, I wouldn’t mind at all if someone played one of my songs, as long as they weren’t profiting from it. But that’s the non-commercial part of Creative Commons.
And my music is really at odds with being a public school teacher. Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll need to be quietly hidden away from my elementary-aged students and their parents. All the music stuff I’ve put online predates my teaching career, but with my band just starting to play live again after 11 years, it could come up. It’s still a conundrum for me. I’m hoping my MET degree will enable me to continue working in education but in a capacity where a lyric from a song I might have written in 1999 won’t come back to haunt me.