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A Critique of the EFF's Open Audio License
In fact, let me make a brief response to Glass' points as he makes them in the critique -
OAL gives away too much: No response to this. It's for the artist to decide.
No credit to performer: Silly criticism. An intended aim of the license. The performer is free to seek an alternate license from the author if he/she wants to profit off of the song.
Potential damage to reputation: Silly criticism. An intended aim of the license. Like the GPL, this license assumes that free and open should be free and open to everyone for every purpose, even those you find distasteful. "Oh my god, someone is using my GPL'ed program called grep to search for abortion providers in the phone book!"
Viral nature: Silly criticism. An intended aim of the license. Again, if you want to incorporate chunks of someone else's work in your own, you are free to a) be infected by the OAL, or b) seek a different license from the author. Free with restrictions, or, presumably, pay the author for a different deal. Without this license, only b) is available. The OAL only ever provides a possible alternative for people wanting to use a work.
ASCAP and BMI don't enforce the OAL: This is an issue to take up with ASCAP or BMI.
Irrevocable: Silly criticism. Even without this clause, you couldn't "take back" the license, at least for people who've already made use of your work - they took advantage of the license at the time.
Most of the rest of Glass' criticisms are general criticisms of any Free license - it gives away the rights of the author. Well, duh, that's what it's supposed to do. These are criticisms of the aim of the license rather than flaws in the license. What Glass is lacking here is a general BSD-type license for music to compare this against...
This license will most likely be illegal under the son-of-DMCA law. It clearly sets a chilling effect on the right of the corporations to rule everything.
It is about time. I make music with various trackers and midi crap. I give the music away. Anyone who remembers the old Amiga mod scene should welcome such. Take a look at some free music: www.kosmic.org (they've done it all. from 2 channel mods to 32 channel xm's released in mp3 format. These guys rock. Too bad I can't find old Future Crew releases)
This is our answer to the big music companies that want to revoke our rights. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'll find my music elsewhere.
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
i know from eXPerience
I laughed 'til I cried!
Hey ESR, how many people are coming up to you and asking for money these days? Especially now that your $41 million is down to about $135 thousand?
I'm probably going to get modded to hell for this but I'm going to ask it anyway: Who is Brett Glass and why should anyone care if he disagrees with an artist's choosing to release music under some kind of open license? Is he "somebody" in the music industry? A RIAA hack? An (unknown to me) artist? What interests does he really represent?
You're using her as bait, Master!
The guy who wrote Free for All had a long explanation about why the book wasn't free. He points out that text and opinions are best copyrighted because copyright doesn't affect the facts themselves. If you want to reuse the facts, you're free to do so. You just can't reuse the exact form.
But music is kind of different. Songs do grow as other people add stanzas, verses and what not. So I can see the advantages of the OAL. This guy is complaining too much. Sure, you give up some rights when you use it, but you gain others. What's the big deal? Everything in life has tradeoffs.
Brett would prefer if we'd all put out free media that he can take private, commercialize, and not return anything to the creator. I just don't see what's in it for anyone but Brett. Most people don't take him seriously.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
faq about oal here.
interesting discussion on list group here.
radio station on live365 playing OAL here.
You say that you give your music away, but in all honesty, is it something that anybody would pay for if they had to? It's kind of easy to be on the side of giving stuff away when there aren't any income possibilities for it.
--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
I find this article particularly interesting, because this is the first time I have seen or thought of expanding the open-source movement beyond software. It would be a cool and different way to fight back against the DMCA and big corporations if video, music, and other forms of media began to adopt open source ideas. It would provide a totally legal, bullet-proof alternative to artists these fields which are currently totally dominated by industry interests(like the MPAA and RIAA). At the least, it might also put pressure on them to improve, like Linux has done on MS.
Seems to me like the license does exactly what it's supposed to, and he is opposed to that. Kind of like saying: "I don't like the color blue because it's blue!"
Maybe what he's looking for is some form of the OAL based on the LGPL.. but that's not what the OAL is all about. It doesn't say every musician has to produce under the OAL.. it says that if you want your music to be free (for everyone), the OAL is a good choice.
I don't think his critisism is a critisism at all.. it's a very good summation of the points of the OAL.
I wonder how they even begin to get away with comparing this to GPL.
Music is so simple to reverse engineer that it is fundamentally open source. You listen, write down the lyrics, and pick out some chords. You can't really totally copy someone else, but you can get away with stealing a lot. Everybody does. So much for some sort of viral license.
OAL is all about musicians living in the "free as in beer" world ushered in by Napster. But it is also stupid. It's all about giving away rights without getting anything at all in return. With computer code, at least there are a some people out there who might modify your code and make it better. There is nothing similar in the music world.
The music industry is going to continue on pretty much as it has in the past. It'll sue where it thinks it can, but it's never going back to the pre-napster days. And it's not about to shift paradigms either. The only way things are going to change will be some revolutionary security technology (unlikely) or a complete revision of copyright law into some entirely new beast (who knows?).
If you are a musician by trade why would you agree to and OSL for music ?
Just does not make prudent financial sense.
i am a musician, and in a band. I do want to be paid for my music, and I want copyright restrictions, i don't want people to obtain free copies of my work. Why? because I want money. Think of it this way, serious bands need money, because they devote all their time to making music, If my band could do that, we'd be much more productive. Oh sure you could cry that the bands are too rich, well that's the select few that are major bands.
When you buy an album forget that your paying the RIAA tax, your supporting a band that you love. This does nto mean you should let down the fight against the opressive RIAA and their tactics, but don't let hte music be the casualty in this world. Bands are poor, bands need as much money as they can get to perpetuate themselves unless they don't mind working a dayjob.
Photos.
Here.
You can browse the music that's up there already, download it, whatever. I've got a few songs up there, give them a listen.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
good starting point for a license for music?
Yes.
We, at GNUArt, directly use the GPL to protect Art.
After discussing it with RMS, we agreed it would be possible:
Lots of artists trust us, just browse our gallery for free "GNU" Art...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
The basic problem artists have with the music industry isn't the inability to make music for free. Musicians have always been able to do that. Trading riffs is part of the culture. The problem is the fact that the music cartel won't make the artist's music avaiable without him or her signing over the rights to it.
Some of Glass' critiques seem a little silly - they're intended goals of the license, not flaws.
That's not a bug, that's a feature!
To claim that a critique is "silly" because you disagree with the author's point of view is rather condescending, and does not contribute to meaningful debate. Is the purpose of this license to create a moral imperative to release music for free (much as RMS uses GNU as a platform to argue the immorality of commercial software)? If so, the issues Glass raises merit serious discussion.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
The OAL is a screw job for anybody who signs it: The last clause makes the author THE legal target for any infringemtn lawsuits. Here is the text:
"Warranty. By offering an original work for public release under this license, the Original Author warrants that (i) s/he has the power and authority to grant the rights conveyed herein, and (ii) use of the work within the scope of this license will not infringe the copyright of any third party."
Somebody else could pick up the piece, promote the hell out of it and distribute millions of copies. The original author would be forced to defend the resulting nuisance lawsuits (with no income to pay the lawyers out of). Copyright infringement is a grey area and as soon as there is money to be made, the nuisance suits start popping up.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Agreed. Here's a bit by Brett in which he lays out his views on the GPL ("The GPL ... was designed explicitly to hurt programmers' livelihoods.") and Stallman (who "says that good wages for programmers should be 'banned.'")
As far as I know, music is sold today without any license agreement of any kind. It's all implied - and the music companies can make up whatever they want later. In fact, I'll bet they could make a case that no one but them can legally listen to any CD sold to date! Why? Because no one ever explicitly entered into a license agreement.
Even if the OAL is "too free", it will nicely suit as being the opposite of current practice. And something more moderate will show up later.
*sarcasm*
OAL is confusing me with AOL so some lawyers need to get involved, domains need to change hands....
*end sarcasm*
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
Open audio: Ce don est trop peu nos diocèses souffrent.
From the summary of the critique(the page is slashdotted so I didn't read it) it sounds like the critique is not about the method of sharing, but, rather, about the sharing itself. If you don't want to share your stuff--don't. Just don't tell other people that they can't, or shouldn't.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
Well, if Glass is correct in his summary, then I would have to say that the very first bullet point:
represents a fatal flaw. This would imply that you could not release a "teaser" MP3 , say one ripped in a lower audio quality, and still retain your other copyrights to the song. That seems shortsighted and unfair.
So, to use a software analogy, Red Hat and Mandrake are performances of the work Linux. Well, does Mandrake really trumpet the fact that it?s Red Hat based? Not really anymore. Does Red Hat actively recognize Mandrake's contributions to popularizing linux? No. Do both distributions include proper credit to the authors of their content? Yes.
:-)> . (Beginners should try anything from '77 or '78. That's Gerry Garcia on lead guitar, BTW.)
I think the OAL is more about song writers than performers. I do not believe that a performer could release a conventionally copyrighted song under the OAL. This would probably be a copyright violation because no royalty would be paid to the work's owner under the original copyright. On the other hand, if Willie Nelson had released "Crazy" under something like the OAL, then he would be associated with the work, not Patsy Cline.
Ultimately, though, songwriters make money on royalties. I don't see how they can do this under the OAL, so I don't think it has a chance for any group or artist that relies on album sales. For those that rely on performance revenue (like the Grateful Dead), the the license would make perfect sense, because it would promote distribution of the performance recordings and create new consumers. For example, I always thought the Grateful Dead were about a hippie drug culture until I downloaded and burned a concert for a fried and discovered that they were a really, really good performance band. I would have never discovered this if they had not given away the rights to record their concerts.
So, in the interest of spreading the love
damn french!
My question about free music: where's the Classical? That's even a different deal, because a good portion of it (i.e. everything written before the world starting getting excited about extending the copyright period at a rate faster than things were coming out of copyright) is not copyrighted itself; only the performances would be. Surely there are classical music groups out there who've recorded music that they wouldn't mind giving away for free? For instance, university orchestras?
Is there a good repository for this sort of thing in Ogg Vorbis and/or MP3 format? (The former preferred since we're talking about Free stuff here.)
-Rob
The main one is cost. The tools to make software can be had for free, while the same cannot be said for music. Musical instuments cost money, lots of it, and can also be quite maintaince intensive. Also, recordings cost money to make, wether recorded in a studio (Big $$$), or even at home, where a decent setup including mics, monitoring head phones, and software could easily go above $1000, and that's not even including the instruments themselves. I myself have a few guitars, a keyboard, and a few other goodies. Those alone have cost me several thosand dollars. Now, before I get too offtopic, here are my chief problems with this license. It removes ALL rights from the preformer. If I ever make it big, I will probably take the stance of the Grateful Dead. You can distribute concert bootlegs, but NOT official releases. With music issued under the OAL, there is NOTHING to prevent one of our friends at one of the major labels from released OAL music on CD, or rerecording a song by an indie artist with a pop group, and not giving the artist(s) one fuckin' penny. That bothers me. Issuing music under this license would seriously effect a preformers ability to make a living doing what he/she loves, since it removes one's control over their one asset. Now some of you may be saying 'What about live shows?' Well, that involves the purchase of even more expensive equipment, plus travel expenses, etc. I am by no means saying that I agree with how most artists handle their music, but by that same token thing this extreme is just as bad.
TODO: Something witty here...
except art requires less of an investment in time, i can do art in my spare time (in fact i do) but music takes a lot more devotino if you want to be good. It also means putting your career on hold sometimes. If you were a full time artist, it would be very hard to live if you licensed all your work under the GNU art license.
P.S. does that mean you have to give credit to stallman, hmmm thank god theirs no GNU/Picasso that'd be quite a disaster
Photos.
Seriously ,I have my doubts if giving up most rights for very little in return is a good idea when it comes to fighting the RIAA and major record label slavery deals. After all, the major issue with the Big 5 and Mrs. Rosen is how can the artist retain the copyright of his/her own works of art while being properly compensated.
;-)
A better idea is forming your own labels, creating your own corporate policies to protect your artists interests, in the vein of Discipline Global Mobile, who's label policies state that all copyrights belong to the artists. Please visit there and read Robert Fripp's manifesto, it's extremely informative and, I think, a good model for the artist'friendly label.
As a performing musician I belong to those who aspire to make a living from my art, and I'm not sure if software-esque licensing schemata are the right way to go with this. For hobbyists I can see this as a nice way to get your name out. As with software, some will be more interested in something using a GPL-like license, but I don't think a license like this would be practical for the professional musician who has another 24 rates to pay off on the XV-5080.
One could use the argument that if an artist wants to make money he/she should play gigs. There is very little money in playing live, most bands in fact make money by selling merchandise, i.e. T-shirts and CDs. After reading the OAL I"m not sure how this license would be of any help in this field.
I would personally use a service like MP3.com than Napster to promote my music, at least I can tell how popular my stuff really is.
I hope this didn't come across as a rant, but if anyon can enlighten me on how this license would benefit anyone, please do. Until then I cautiously take the side of Mr. Glass.
I used to be Madfishmonger, but I forgot my pass
Huh? Music is in the eye of the beholder...better music. sure to you but not others.
I bet you can't find but a handfull of musicians who sell enough CD's and tickets to friends and family to make any money...not enough to survive but real money.
as a musician i resent the idea of anyone else touching my work that isn't in my band. especially since it still would have my name attached to it. Plus i cant' imagine the hell you'd have with multiple bands playing "forked" versions of the same song. Who deserves more credit? he who aranged the song or he who wrotes the licks. Lets say i write a song with some killer riffs but it's arranged poorly, downright ugly. Lets say someone comes around are rearranges the parts, who deserves the credit? bullshit, GPL is great, but it's for software.
Photos.
I think it is obvious that this license is not for everyone. Just like the GPL (ducks a swing from RMS). I both write software and record music.
If my music is, for example, written for a game or a web site or something where the music is basically ancillary to the main part of the entire work then I would have no problem releasing the audio under the OAL. However when the audio is the main part then I do not want that audio taken and molested by anyone who wants to harm it.
When I write a song at 2 am with my guitar it is very spiritual. I don't sing mathematical truths or other factual data, I sing a unique interpretation of my life as I have experienced it. This song is not something that anyone else can understand the same way I do. Other people may be able to identify with it and share some common ground, but no one can truly feel the same way I did when I recorded it - if they did then they would have mysteriously written the exact same song.
I want to keep these songs mine, like journal entries, as a collection of memories. I don't want some teenager with a eukalalie recording a modified version of my memory.
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
the score is not copyrighted, you can rearrange it as you see fit, as you can with any music over 65 years old as in my understanding (IANAL). The performances ARE copyrighted, now if you want to spend a few hundred thousand dollars paying for your favorite orchestra to rehearse/record your favorite classical songs, so be it. The music is free the performance is not.
Photos.
I don't agree that this is a silly criticism. Look at the Windows95 launch, and how they used "Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones. While the Stones did sell the rights for this song to Microsoft, the average Slashdotter-slash-musician here would be completely aghast--and have absolutely no recourse.
The software world doesn't have a concept of "selling out" (well, we do, but generally it's a positive thing: "You sold your company to a behemoth for 50 mil? Good job!"). In the music world, particularly pop music, this is a huge thing. Fans are everything--you make music for your fans. If your fans think you're a corporate shill, or they get your songs pummelled into them constantly by obnoxious commercials, and can't stand to listen anymore--you're going to lose your fan base. And who are you making music for anyway?
Neil Young ("This Song's For You") would be turning in his grave, if he was dead yet.
- dlek
folk songs are a different genre of music, pop music would better be equated with classical music, a field where some composers went to great length to protect their pieces from another composer taking credit for them. Folk musicians were not in the business of making money, classical composers were. Art and money do mix, to form a good product many a time.
Photos.
Nice to see you don't have the nuts to post using your real account. The Linux Advocacy HOWTO was written precisely to deal with the Linux versions of your "advocacy".
There's a reason a lot of people won't deal with the *BSD community, and you're one of them.
Nice that you don't want a choice of license to exist for programmers, though. Maybe you'd prefer to be able to take whatever code you want without having to comply with said license terms? If you have a problem with it, just don't use it. GPL code doesn't hurt you, unless it's better than your own code and people won't use/buy yours... wait, have I touched on the problem?
Here is a short critique of Glass's article:
Glass uses ad hominem attacks against John Perry Barlow, but fails to instruct us in any way as to why Brett Glass is any more credible than John Perry Barlow- in fact Glass strongly urges that anyone looking for legal advice regarding this legal license look elsewhere.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Let me get this straight:
Brett Glass submits an article about the OAL, and provides a link to "this critique," which just happens to be on... brettglass.com.
In short, he's pimping his own opinions as News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters... and getting away with it.
I hate BSD zealots like him just as much as I hate GNU zealots. He could really stand to read the Advocacy HOWTO.
The amount of control that photographers, musicians, and other artists are granted by the law is astounding. They can control when, how, and by whom their work is used.
It is somehow culturally and legally acceptable to pay a photographer to take your picture, yet for the photographer to retain the rights over the images created of you.
Yeah, I'd love to get paid to write some code, retain ownership over the completed product, and get a royalty every time my program is run for the rest of my life and 70 years thereafter. But it would be a huge drag on society.
The tight control granted by the law over artistic creations is a huge drag, too. Of the millions of books and songs created every year, a normal person has access to a handful. Even if free distribution reduced production by 90%, everybody
would have access to that last 10%, and it would be a lot more than what is available now.
Or we could just do something more reasonable and fair, like reduce copyright to a period of 10 years. By then, 95% of the profit is taken, yet such a policy would give the public (eventual) access to an incalculable wealth of information. It would only hurt the producers a little and would help society overall a whole lot.
I have to agree with Brett's analysis. This OAL sounds pretty silly. The question I have is pretty simple: What need is served here?
I've written a number of things that I have made freely available. They are up on my website along with the permission to copy, link, etc -- with attribution. I didn't need the OAL to do that for me.
Should I ever finish the book I'm writing (light is now visible at the end of the tunnel), I will try to sell it. Obviously, I don't agree with RMS that my efforts shouldn't give me some right to the product of all that work. I certainly would not use the OAL for that. I
So -- what's the point of the license?
How could it possibly be important? I can understand the need for freedom with functional items like computer source code. There is a real value in fixing bugs, finding privacy holes, security holes, etc. But a song? A story? I just don't get it.
It has exactly the same effect that the GPL have for programmers. No more, no less.
Use a sample (no matter how small) from an OALed recording without asking, and your finished work must be licensed under the OAL and given away.
OK, I'm going to toss a WAV file up on my website somewhere and make sure that sample N has the same sample value as sample N of some other WAV that is under the OAL. Then I'm gonna thumb my nose at the EFF and all the other AIP (Anti-Intellectual Property) imbecils we've had to put up with for the past several years.
Slashdot posting an article by Brett Glass, with a link to an essay by Brett Glass!? Is It Happening? Are the Slashdot editors finally waking up and realizing that OSS runs business into the ground, that the only reason so much of the Internet is built on OSS is because of fat defense contracts and stuff that leaked in from the traditional business model? What is waking them up? Perhaps IBM selling SourceForge services and not paying LNUX is waking them up. LNUX fired developers Friday and Slashdot knows it might be next. Maybe Hemos and CmdrTaco actually want to have jobs and not just be "new new economy" losers standing in the unemployment line. Well sorry, it's probably too late for you guys. You've spent the last few years at the forefront of the AIP movement, it's a little to late to change your tune now.
Of course, Slashdot always has been less leftist on the week-ends, probably because conservatives don't goof off as much during the week.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The EFF-branded license has the one "downside" of an ad-clause BSD license--it allows (or seems to; it's very poorly worded) the sale/distribution/commercial use of the creator's work by anyone and everyone without payment or (situational) permission--without the BSD "upside": the creator's option to un-BSD derivative works for whatever reason (like, say, sale/distribution/commercial use). The OAL is the most pro-mega-distributor, anti-little-author license I've seen outside an RIAA-affiliated label contract. Wait--actually, it's worse than anything the RIAA has come up with yet, because people are suspicious enough to read label agreements carefully; but "art's not about money, man"-spouting idiots will use the OAL because it's EFF-certified "free"--free as in serf, I guess.
(And oh-- Add another red X to your "EFF: Corporate Whore" scorecards at home.)
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
You say that the artist cannot live on his/her work anymore.
:)
As a programmer I say: Welcome to my problem.
This is basically the same thing as the GPL and has basically the same effect.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
We have read similar rants about {open source|free} software licences before. The usual answer was: If you don't like this licence, use that licence, or this alternative one, or ..., or roll your own. This is what {open source|free} software people have done for years. No one is forced to use a paricular licence. There are plenty of them, and there is freedom of choice.
The most important thing about EFF's OAL is not its particular content, but its existence. It just shows that open licences for music are possible, and it may serve as a prototype. A development similar to that of {open source|free} software licences seems to have begun -- people start to think about what they expect from an {open|free} music licence, write it down, and use their licences. Look here to see another example.
http://erichsieht.wordpress.com/category/english/
If you don't like the license, you don't have to use it. That is no different than that of any MS style license. It's a choice that the producer gets to make. If they don't like conditions involved int he license, they don't need to use it. You can't take MS-Office when you buy it and resell 20 copies of it, with your "improved" box, either.
Furthermore, I think it's rather presumptuous of you to say that people who use the OAL won't know what they're doing. Elitist attitudes like that are typical of patriarchal "I know better than 'the masses'" types.
In case you forgot, the reason shutting down Napster was wrong was because it was a file transfer mechanism. The NRA is a closer ally to Napster than the EFF. The reason sharing music is okay is because it does not violate copyright. The reason the media conglomerates are opposed to things like Napster is because it takes the power away from them. They haven't lost money yet.
Copying bits is practically free. That is one reason to share them. The GPL was designed to protect copyright holders while allowing them to share their bits. It was about sharing knowledge. It could be extended to cover sheet music, lyrics, and tableture, but not performance.
I agree with a lot of the critique. I also would like free music. I would also like artists to have more control over their own copyrights. Freedom is the answer, not conformity.
By confusing the issues, the EFF is damaging the cause of free software and of freedeom in general.
> be very hard to live if you licensed all your
> work under the GNU art license. "
GNUArt protect art, not the artist, this means that if -for example- Britney Spears put one of her songs under the GNU GPL License, she is not obliged to do so with all the rest (Thanks God
A full time artist may also live by GPL'ing his stuff, as if he gets enough recognition, he then may earn money with either concerts, expositions or whatever else, which doesn't forbid any other to do so with *his* creations, but just gives *him* a chance to get more recognition with fewer risks as either
I think GNUArt is the missing link and I'll translate it ASAP. Please, use the Fish, till then.
A former famous hardcore band from France also "gave" us the responsability of putting all their stuff under the GNU GPL License: Garlic Frog Diet...
Also, Tompox, in my
And BTW, there no License called the GNU art License, we only use the GNU GPL License itself.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
--Brett Glass
A $1000 computer with a monitor, CDRW and high speed internet connection (and heaps and heaps of GPL software) runs about the same as a guitar, amp, 4 track and mic. The really big difference is that I don't need all the software that would otherwise cost a bundle if it wasn't free to make my music.
It scales about the same too. A top 40 album with a producer, engineer, mixer, full band, studio time, etc. runs about the same as a cvs repository, hosting, several computers, office space, QA, etc.
I guess we'll be driving to Canada to buy our computesr if this passes.
Both my Senate Representatives got letters today.
I think this bill is a bit over the top and won't pass, but we are stepping closer and closer to the world of 1984 every day. and it scares me.
I do security
I'll ever release my music under this license. Why not?
grants the worldwide public permission to:
Modification
This means, you can mess my song up and release it under the same name. Like hell you can. Remix it if you must and release it under your own name, but don't make me responsible for what you do to it.
Note that this clause isn't saying the same thing as: you have the right to sample from this track and create a new track from the samples you've made - under your own name, which I'd have no problems with (unless people start sampling complete riffs, which isn't quite my taste), it's saying "redo a track released under this license any way you see fit and then release it as a "fork" of said track." This may be fine for software, but music has a very different dynamic, which I think the EFF people are forgetting. Artist + Track of which integrity has been preserved are much more important in music than it is in software.
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
any idiot can become a coder and write shitty programs, an excellent coder can come up with innovative ideas, and create a great program to earn lots of money
just as
any idiot can pick up an instrument and join a shitty houseband. A great musician can pick up an instrument and compose a great song
i code, and and play guitar, i know what i'm talking about
Photos.
The most telling example for me is busybox, an embedded Linux toolkit that I created in 1996, which is a critical part of most of embedded Linux systems. Lineo took that toolkit into their product, as have most of the other embedded Linux companies. It gave them a time-to-market advantage. But because it was under the GPL, all of the various companies (especially Lineo) that improved Busybox contributed their work back under the GPL, and it's now about 5 times as functional as what I released, and everybody profits from that functionality. If I had used the BSD license, they would all have made their own improvements, duplicating effort, and keeping them proprietary, and fewer would have the benefit of that product, and the public version would still just be the 1/5 that I wrote. That's how a lot of non-GPL products have gone in the embedded market.
Thus, I think sharing works better than a handout.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
how musicians have more common sense than a lot of programmers seem to...
Guess What. If we continue to pay the RIAA, they won't care what we think. btw, most of my music was found from free amiga mods -- those composers loved music, not money.
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
Musician against copyright samples:
http://www.icomm.ca/macos/
This has been around for quite a while now. Basically if an artist label her Ablum with MACOS, then anyone is freely to sample it. -w
After all, they're the only ones who'll benefit from this.
As for why I released them under that license, I respond: why not? Those recordings were done many years ago. I will never make any money off of them, nor do I really need or want to. I didn't make the music with the intent of making money... I made it because I wanted to. I learned long ago that the kind of music that I wanted to create wouldn't be the kind of music that would make me rich... or even make me enough money to live off of.
If someone else can get some enjoyment out of them, then that's great... if not, then oh well... But they're definitely not going to do any anyone any good just sitting on cassette tapes in my closet.
To within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff
I bet she would freak out when some bearded weirdo starts chasing her screaming "It's GNU/OhBabyIWantYou!", "It's GNU/OhBabyIWantYou!"
I find music and code to be virtually identical in nature: It is the structured ordering, presentation and manipulation of simple primitives, to create a more complex body of work, so it makes sense to me to have similar licenses.
Is this kind of license needed for music? Definitely. Just like the coding profession, some pieces, indeed, some jobs, are entirely dependant on using free tools, be they code libraries or sample libraries. As noted, every major operating system today now ships with free (GPL, Q, BSD, or similar) tools and components, which can be copied and distributed without any royalties. Some software products have succeeded in obtaining large market $hare, some have not.
Those products that have lined the pocket of IT professionals (including mine) were built both with privately owned IP, and public (GPL, Q, BSD etc.) IP. Those that were built strictly with only private or only public IP did not become successful or profitable based on the IP they used... that's a red herring in this discussion. The nature of the license does not dictate the profitability or success of a software, or music, product.
So what is the impact, if I choose this license, to me? Well, just like the GPL work I've done, it means that others can do what they want.
Does it prevent me from releasing other work? Of course not. I can OPL/GPL some work, BSD other work, and use a restrictive EULA for other work. Since I'm not a one-hit-wonder kind of guy (I'm a professional, I "publish" a lot), this isn't a problem.
Is my ability to capture revenue altered by my choice of license, be it in code libraries, or in songs? Of course it is. But it's my choice.
People just don't understand. I don't mean they don't see it my way- I really mean they don't understand. Most people have never had a serious discussion about property rights and the way that the government grants monopolies to creators with the stated goal of fostering innovation.
Another more pithy way to put it is this: We don't subsidize the pony express now that mechanical transportation is available.
The bottom line is scarcity. gnovos is trying to say that some people think it's the talent that's scarce even if copies of their works are free, but that people are wrong and talent is not in fact scarce. This is basically right on the money. If talent *is* scarce, then the music industry needs to find ways to reward talent that make sense, like charging for live performances and other things that can't happen without talent, rather than trying to jealously contain free copies of recordings.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Artistic works given away for free for others to improve upon and give them away for free as well? That sounds remarkably like what happens in places that don't sell their culture at the highest price possible. Namely, anyplace but North America. This describes perfectly songs written for cultural events such as Carnival in Rio de Janerio. Or Christmas in Mexico. Or any traditional music in the Far East. It could also describe public domain works from Europe like Germany's classical music, Italy's operas, and England's plays. Although these are experiences sold to the public, they are sold in a fundamentally different way than how it's done in the US. (ie, you could pay to see a concert or a play, or you could get a copy of the script off a friend and do it yourself - results may vary) This music license is probably exactly what the US needs to develop its culture.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
- Do you think I'm acting unethically?
- Do you think it should be illegal for me to do so?
If so, why can't I do what I like with the software I write? If not, what exactly is your problem?--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
...down any and all criticism of their darlings; Linux, GPL, EFF etc.
/. wouldn't want anyone to think for themselves. They want people to follow the group-think line: "Everything Free All The Time!"
Glass makes some *EXTREMELY* valid points that are valid in all cases of GPL like licensing schemes. He is merely makeing a point of letting people know what the 'gotchas' are before some poor schmo releases somthing under it.
Of course
Go-Go Communism eh?
I could have sworn the GPL was intended for freedom.
Brett does not answer short, to the point yes or no questions. If this were a (good) software movie, and RMS was the hero Brett would be an anti-hero. (note: thats AN, not THE). He basically trolls the GPL. He asks rhetorical questions that have already been answered. He knows that the questions have been answered, has read the answers, and ignores them. His goal is not to understand or to create, but to disinform and destroy.
Basically, he's like the VC of a Jerry Springer episode, without the C or the guts to V anything.
In July 2000, at the H2K conference in New York (2600's Hope conference), Jello Biafra gave the keynote speech. Later that day, he sat on a panel about intellectual property.
He suggested there should be something like an "equal exchange" for artists (equal exchange is the organization that, among other things, makes sure people are being paid fairly to grow coffee). This seems pretty close to the OAL idea from the EFF. It's definitely an idea whose time has come (even though the GNU Artistic License, and other licenses, have been available for years).
On a side note, Jello was/is really pissed that his Vegas song got used in a car ad. He fought a long and very costly legal battle with the rest of the Dead Kennedys, and lost. He wrote the song, but in the end did not control its destiny.
On a side side note, there's a new Dead Kennedys album of live takes from the bay area. It's fantastic! Sorry I don't recall the title right now...
Words grow as people add annotations and interpretation. It's the same fucking thing as reinterpreting music.
It's quite funny to see the logical falacy in the whole idea. Boo hoo, the author of Free for All is poor because "There just wasn't any VC money to burn." See the logical flaw there. Of couse you don't you GNU licking toad.
But let's face it, the real issue is societal turbulence.
There have been middlemen between IP producers and IP cosumers, and they have done quite well over the years. Indeed, they have done so well that they have near infinite resources with which to lobby the government.
IP producers and middlemen do not want to lose out in the information age, any more than a Linux programmer wants an all-microsoft world.
But how to accomodate both sides, when both sides demand extremes? One side wants every copy paid for, the other wants everything to be free. It has not been a black and white issue in the past, and should not be one in the future.
Some type of reasonable freedom to share needs to exist, while preventing widespread piracy and copying.
If such a system can be developed, all the arguments about IP and licensing will be moot -- things will remain roughly the same. I can transfer my right to utilize IP content 'A' to another person, but I can't make unlimited copies of IP 'A'.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
No right to get paid?
Well, where's your right to have free entertainment? Why do you expect the
world to provide you goodies for free?
Please, by all means post copyrighted worked (which includes OAL material) and claim it as yours and state that you are publicly distributing it. We'll send the FBI thugs on you, unless RIAA, Adobe or someone else does first.
Blowhard.
I wouldn't chase her. Rather I would just try to correct Every radio station in the world when they forget to credit the Free Song Foundation. After all, she mearly added the singing. Much of the background music was written or incorporated by us. This includes the LIPS based electronic drums, dmacs, which is my most recent work which I coalesced together in 1977.
This is why it only proper for her to change her last name to GNU/Spears.
Brett, this is news! You are creating free content and pass it around on sites like slashdot! You used to get paid for writing columns on InfoWorld, and now you are reduced to asking slashdot for readership. What a change! And how sad for you!
Well, at least you are giving away something free, though the value of the content is something to be questioned...
..when I saw he had trademarked YMMV and AFAIK. Seems to have a pretty loose grasp on IP principles.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
Amen, Brother!
(Plus, Lisp S-Expressions have a much smaller standard representation.)
ObMusic:
I don't think music is the same thing as code, so a GPL-style license isn't appropriate for music.
Reason 1: The majority of people who listen to music do so for aesthetic purposes. The majority of people who use code do so for practical purposes.
Reason 2: Music conveys something of the heart & soul of the artist, in a much stronger way than software does.
So, you can't just take the GPL (or any other software license) and assume it applies to Music. You have to decide what's morally right for Music
There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
-- David D. Friedman
I would like to comment on the most striking part of your answer, which is that you think the GPL should be declared to be unenforceable, either by the courts or via legislation. I write Free Software, and I choose to distribute it under the GPL. Distributing it in this way is my remuneration for writing the software; that remuneration is very valuable to me (and I'd be a lot less motivated to do the work if I wasn't so compensated).
What you're saying is that the State should unilaterally step in and take this compensation away from me. Yikes. Isn't this exactly the sort of behavior we don't want from our government?
(It's not really clear whether you want unenforceability to mean that no one gets to use my software or that everyone can use it any way they like, but I'm substantially poorer either way.)
--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
How many bands and musicians have done bad covers of All Along the Watchtower and Free Bird and Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds and I did it MYYYYY Way! are out there? And that's from the commercial versions - the folk tradition shared far more music, sometimes keeping names attached. There was a while that everybody was recording Summertime and the Livin is Easy and Cold Rain and Snow and Pretty Peggy-O and everyting Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie or Alan Lomax wrote, sang, or collected and every female vocalist had to solo everything that Joan Baez soloed, whether they had a voice like hers or not. And this was good. (OK, 90% of it was crap, but 90% of everything was crap....) And you know Woody Guthrie's music far better than you know the music of some singer-songwriter from the 80s who had their 15 minutes of fame and the record company who owns their contract hasn't advertised it since then.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
You also probably signed an agreement when you took your job that released your copyright and designated your creative output as "works for hire". That's great for you! Unfortunately, there are many, many fewer businesses willing to pay a salary for a in-house composer to write music works for hire. Just because you signed away your copyright doesn't mean all programmers do. I know at least one former coworker that signed a deal where he retained rights to all his work.
"You on the other hand are only asked to create art for a few hours every so often. "
This is patently false. Most composers are not asked to create their art. They create it and then try to sell it. In circumstances where this doesn't obtain (recording contract, commissioned work), meeting the demands of the request for music is no less arduous than programming (don't try to tell me otherwise; I've done both). Even writing a decent 3 minute pop song is hard work. Much like programming, music does not spring fully formed from a wellspring of creativity. It requires practice (education), good basic themes (design), and editing (debugging). And, if you try it live, unlike programming, you have to be able to reproduce it in real time. Also, unlike programming, it's hard to find someone to compensate you for that time.
My fundamental objection to your argument has to do with your contempt for musicians and the difficulty they face. How many people write/play music as a day job to support their dreams of being a programmer? How many do the reverse?
Many people are satisfied to play music as a hobby, for friends or family, or take the occasional weekend warrior gig. For these people, something like the OAL is great. That's fine. Many devote their lives to it, hoping against hope that they'll be able to eke out a meager living. For these people, it would be insane to release under such a license. A statistically insignificant number make piles upon piles of money (though not NEARLY as much as their labels make off of them). For these lucky few, we can hope that they understand that their fans want the joy of sharing the music with their friends, a la the Grateful Dead. The real fact of the matter is that without musicians in the 2nd and 3rd categories, you wouldn't have anything decent to do while you hack away. So don't be a fucking ingrate, dig?
I do heartily agree with you that everyone is talented, and everyone is an artist. But we all have different talents in different quantities, and talent without hard work is worthless. Hard work takes time, and if you don't get compensated for that time, you don't eat.
There's no free lunch. Even authors of GPL software are getting money from someone for doing something, or they'd starve.
His post certainly does represent your views, which you've made abundantly clear over and over here. You seize every opportunity to flame the GPL and anyone associated with it, and your complaints always boil back down to the same point - once something's GPLd you can't turn around and make a derivative work proprietary. Oh, the horrors. That's the whole point to the GPL! If you don't like it, don't use it. If you spent half the time coding that you spend flaming, you might amount to something.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
You refernce to [stallmann.org] is a troll - you certainly did not discuss your project with a German kitchen supplier...
f.
Why don't you just go and wank in your microwave oven while mature people discuss this project ?
Comments like yours make it clear that Brett's gripe with the GPL is pretty much a personal one - if he doesn't have to use it, his opinion of it is his own personal ethical judgment, no more. Only where he can put his opinions in the frame of a larger issue, such as govt use of the GPL, which is what he _sort of_ did at the Silicon Valley discussion, does his ethical opinion take on a more social import. I find I must always remind myself of this after reading his bombastic verbiage.
Y'know, it's interesting. Brett likes to go on and on about RMS' ego, he likes to psychoanalyze RMS as having sublimated desires to dominate and so on.. And yet Brett is nothing if not the anti-RMS. He may have a good point or two, but he never _sounds_ simply reasonable; his criticisms always have the flavor of someone trying to save the universe from a horrible and unseen menace. It's quite clear that he takes his role as the anti-RMS very personally. If RMS has ego and desire to dominate, what does the personal attitude Brett takes toward RMS say about Brett?
I mean come on. His fanatic opposition to the GPL should be evidence enough. I have never seen anyone use "viral" so many times in one article regarding licensing as the ones Mr Glass write. (OSOpinion has a few.)
And just browsing thru the beginning this one makes me conclude that it is his general anti-GPL troll but with the following rules applied:
s/GPL/OAL/
s/programmer/artist/
s/program/music/
And it's getting seriously old. So Mr Glass, if you are reading this. Why don't you try to counter some of the arguments people have given against your articles instead of clamping your hands firmly over your ears while repeating "four legs good, two legs bad"?
That is why I'm seriously considering putting out my music with this liscence. Imagne if we were allowed the cooperation that Free/open programers were regulary afford each other!
I was thinking of starting a project where everyone would save the "source code" of the music that they created (be it four track recordings, mods, etc..) and realease them seperatly with the CD.
Of course the problem would be that the source would take up like ten CDs while the album was only one.
And I don't think anyone has read it. Its sitting 3 levels down in some thread next to 5 other comments with the same subject (I should have retitled mine - duh!)
:).
So, here is my take on this whole issue, in response to the comments in italics.
Just becuase your "art" is useless and mine is functional does not make us any different.
Having gone through 6 years of intense programming, and followed it with 3 years of intense music production, I'm in a somewhat unique position to comment on the above paragraph.
I agree that programming and music are both art. However, I take serious offense to your comment about music being a "useless" art.
Are you ready to read?
I can't write a song that will add any two numbers. I can't write a song that enables the listener to run through corridors and chase other listeners down with rocket launchers.
I can, however, write a song that helps give a person insight into their relationships with other people. I can write a song that makes someone laugh, or smile.
At this point, it still might not be so obvious to you that music is important. Why do you think people bother to make music, anyway? Lets look to one of my biggest musical inspirations. Bjork, in a recent interview, talked a little bit about why she began producing solo CD's (at the age of 26 or 27 - she's 35 now). You can watch the entire interview here: damnit, the site couldn't handle the traffic but just in case someone comes through with a mirror, check out http://63.67.107.43/bjork/. I'll have to paraphrase: She explained that very often a book, a song, a movie, or a story, would be exactly what she needed to feel better about something that was bothering her. Something of a magical cure, I guess? She looked at the names of people on CD's and books, and realized how much they had sacrificed just to create their works and have them distributed. All that work just to make her feel better. She set out on a mission to do the same for others, and 4 CD's later she's far along that path.
I look back on my obsession with programming, and its quite clear to me why I devoted so much time to it - its a perfect creative outlet and a very effective escape from reality. When you're 72 consecutive hours into a coding binge, you're in a different world. The unpredictability of social situations are at a safe distance. You don't think about things like your appearance, your odor, whether or not people like you, whats happening in asian sweatshops, or what sort of evil is being planned in those 12 levels of management above you. You are in control of the world - there's you, your keyboard, mouse, data structures, control statements, functions, registers, libraries, memory, a video card, a sound card, some speakers, and a monitor. There is nothing else. (And people wonder why ego-centrism is a characteristic commen to so many coders, heh)
I got a job in the industry, and quickly learned that when someone is paying you to code, your creative options are a bit more limited. Unless you're the lead programmer, the best you can hope to do is come up with a creative way to solve whatever problem is being put in front of you. For me, this amount of creative control wasn't enough. It wasn't fun. Programming, which had been my ultimate creative outlet, was now just a chore. Sure I was making money and could pay my rent, but I lived at the office. Whats more, I worked at a computer all day on things related to my job - the last thing I wanted to do when I got home was spend more time at the keyboard working - even if it was on personal projects. There's only so much time one can spend sitting at one of these things. I was no longer able to enjoy programming as I once had, so I returned to college and got back on my parents payroll. (A side note, overaggressive intellectual property clauses in employee contracts make outside-the-job coding projects even more difficult.)
When you throw something like an intense addiction to programming into the garbage can, there is no escape from reality. You've got to fucking figure it out. This is when books, paintings, music, and other traditional art forms came into my life. They helped! I was trying to deal with the fact that some girl wasn't calling me back or (gasp) responding to my emails, and Bjork sang to me "Give her some time, give her some space", and everything was better. I was sad about something so intangible, that it took Beck's "Mutations" to turn my frown into a grin. I was so upset with everyone in America being so goddamn *motionless* - I wanted to move! So I immersed myself in the aggressive dancefloor rhythms that are collectively known as "Jungle" or "Drum and Bass". I don't suppose you understand the therapeutic value of dancing until you're dripping with sweat?
A more generic example: Some people simply feel better when they hear a beautiful voice.
My father used to play classical music for me as a child, and I would pretend to be the conductor (plastic straw in hand, flowing with the beat). I spent some time in high school (coincidentally the same time I began programming) writing music with Cakewalk 2.0 and a midi-based synth workstation (Korg X5). However, music never really stirred me deeply until after I began confronting the reality of my life, in college, on the planet earth.
The difference is that I have to go to work for hours and create art every single working day of the week. You on the other hand are only asked to create art for a few hours every so often. You have ZERO right to make money just because you think you deserve it. You have to earn it just like the rest of us.
I've come to realize that, through music, I have the ability to effect people's lives in a positive way - and in such a unique way! I enjoy it immensely, its fufilling for me as well as others, and (fuck you!) its challenging! I'm not Britney Spears - I don't work on music "every so often" - I *live* in my studio. I'm writing music just about every day - to the point where I go through withdrawal when I'm on vacations (like this weekend, for instance).
Schlockmeisters in LA and New York can cookie-cut and sell over a million pop album's in a matter of months - but that music is fast food garbage. Its filler. Its an advertisement for itself. And for some strange reason, the only thing that ever seems to be gleaned from it is that the most important things in life are sex, money, and being cool. How convenient for the rest of the entertainment industry, which specializes in these products.
The real problem is, organizations like the RIAA have built up the notion in your (and my, and the whole world's) head that being "creative" is some magical ability that few people possess in any quantity.
In my entire life, I've met about 10 other people who take music as seriously as I do, and who devote as much time to it as I do. I've met about 10 million other people. Being creative is not a magical ability, you are right - and it could even be argued that making music is not a magical ability. There *is* something special about everyone - but not everyone devotes themselves to music so wholeheartedly that their incomes depend on it. Those who chose to are entitled to do so, though you may believe they are not.
Nevermind that for hundreds of thousands of years humans have been artistic just fine without the need for superstardom. Today you we taught that musicians/actors/artists/etc. are so special and rare that we must pay a hefty percentage of our GDP to thier masters simply because who knows when such talent will ever been seen on this earth again, right? Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, but we are all talented, we are all artists. We can't help it.
The ones who teach "celebrity" have always been the ones selling it. Most of the "superstar musicians" you're exposed to in American pop culture aren't really musicians anyway - they're puppets. You can't blame musicians for that sick circus.
Making money off of art is like making money of of breathing. Everybody does it, no one has some "right" because they happen to have asthma. By trying to make a living off of music, you are simply perputrating the notion that music is something that is rare enough or difficult enough to make a living doing. You are contributing to the death of music and humanity's musical soul far more effectivly than any sort of "Open Music License", my friend.
As I said earlier, everyone has the right to chose their profession, so long as it doesn't infringe upon the rights of others. Given that this is a country defined by its capitalism, none of us will be able to make any money unless we sell something. Our programming skills, maybe. Our salesmanship. Our unique ability with scissors and hair.
Both the GPL and OAL licenses are absolutely great for stimulating interest and creativity in the fields they apply to. However, neither will help pay the rent.
I do plan on releasing some music under the OAL (now that I've heard about it) and when I get back into coding, I'll probably release some code under the GPL too. I've released code before too [rwth-aachen.de], you know - before I really knew what the GPL was all about.
My advice to musicians? Work your fucking heart out and sell the fruits of your labor. If you end up with lots of experiments gone wrong, or just lots of doodles, or you just don't really give a shit about what happens to a particular piece of your music, don't let it sit in your vault - release it under the OAL. Someone, somewhere, will learn something from it. Just make sure you don't plan on using any samples of it in future works for sale
The sad truth is though, that to be heard, you will need promotion. To make music, you need money, even if it is just to pay for the equipment, the recording, or calling in a pizza during a long recording session.
Most bands i know don't have dreams about tons of money, or superstar status. Sometimes it is even enough reward to see people singing along in the front row, or the chill when you feel connecting to an audience.
But how can you make yourself heard if there is so much out there, the stations only play what they get from the big companies, and there is not enough money coming in to change anything about it.
Music is part of todays society, which relies in a lot of ways on money.
Music should be cheaper, no doubt, but in a lot of cases it is just impossible to make it free.
The OAL may provide some benefits for some musicians, but right now it would be just as easy to put your own music up on audiogalaxy.
Leon
Brett,
is your idea of a business model, taking something that is obviously in the public domain, sneakily trademarking it, and then charging people for access? I find it odd that you critique the GPL on philosophical grounds when your own actions are blatantly in your financial self-interest and devoid of philosophical or ideological rationale.
Bruce Perens may have his own agendas, but at least they are born out of a consistent ideology and principle. You seem to be nothing more than a corporate shill. Perhaps you'd like to share your thoughts and opinions on the DMCA and S3CA ?
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
is that it doesn't go far enough. It's not close enough an analogy to the GPL because music is different than software, and merely keeping the finished product free is more like a free-beer "freeware" license than the GPL. It seems kinda weird in the differences in protection between a composition, an arrangement of that composition, a specific finished recording of that composition, and a live performance which between improv and everything else makes it a whole new ballgame.
;)
It looks like it would make perfect sense to people who write folk songs (heh, including RMS), because those are sort of like free software - adding an extra verse is both common and analagous to adding a new function to some software. I don't do folk myself. I seem to remember there being a "Free Music License" around some time ago, but I think it had similar problems in that it focused on the idea of a finished studio track rather than its components.
But I also don't have a better alternative yet. I'm thinking about it in my copious free time
Brett Glass is a complete fool. His rants are ignored by most. Check out the bikeshed discussion in the FreeBSD FAQ or the full email on the subject.
You're clearly not a jazz musician, then. The entire genre is based on "forked" music, played -- and modified -- by different artists. It is an oddity of modern rock music that bands are considered to have an exclusive connection to the songs they happened to write, and that the "covering" of older songs is considered to be a mark of immaturity. Genres predating the current era of copyright madness generally admit forking, and indeed many are based on it....
"Open music" has existed for aeons. "Closed music" is a thoroughly modern idea, and a pretty sad one at that.
-Carter
Programmers and musicians deserve to eat. They should act in their own financial self interests and protect their rights. What is truly amazing is the attitude of some people here on Slashdot, who seem to believe that they should be able to appropriate creative people's work without ever having to pay for it. Yes, the DMCA is bad; however, so is theft of intellectual property.
As for using YMMV as a trademark for my publication: Why not? It is absolutely no different from having a publication called "Time," "Life," or "People." Apparently you are unfamiliar with what trademarks are about.
--Brett