Copyright law insinuates itself into all aspects of the music information research enterprise.  Music information, the database structures that house music information, and the scholarly articles that report research results in relation to music information all are automatically brought within copyright's domain at the moment they are created.  Complications arise because copyright law structures the legal relationship between creators and users through a largely one-size-fits-all package of rights.  This uniform approach reflects the concerns of certain commercial copyright owners but is poorly adapted to the needs, expectations, and day-to-day practices of academic researchers.  To address this problem, Creative Commons offers standardized, machine-readable public copyright licenses through which information can be shared and adapted more freely than under copyright law's default settings while preserving the copyright owner's interest in receiving credit for his or her work and allowing the owner to place some limits on users' freedoms.  This talk will address the copyright complications and Creative Commons solutions for researchers in their dual capacities as authors and users of copyrighted information.