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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...
faq about oal here.
interesting discussion on list group here.
radio station on live365 playing OAL here.
He's an advocate of BSD-style licenses and a strong critique of the GPL. He's written a lot of good material about why he thinks the GPL is very bad.
--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
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...
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.'")
That isn't what the OAL is meant for. If you want to release a teaser, you use a different license.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
If that's the way you feel, then this license is not for you. However, for people who care solely about the art, this license is great.
The free exchange of ideas in classical music led to some great artistic achievements that would not have occurred had strict, modern copyright laws been in place then. For instance, when JS Bach was young, he left his job as a church organist and walked 200 miles (no internet in those days :^) ) so that he could hear the music of Dietrich Buxtehude. He ended up staying several months, studying and transcribing as much of Buxtehude's music as he could. This had a profound influence on Bach's development as a composer. I shudder to think about how Western music would have been affected if Buxtehude, worried about retaining credit for his work, sicked some IP lawyers on Bach and forced him to go away. It is ironic that today, Buxtehude is mostly remembered because of the transcriptions that Bach made. If he had sought to protect his reputation, he probably would have vanished into history by now.
Similarly, Bach may have vanished as well had not a small number of 19th century composers such as Felix Mendelssohn rescued him from obscurity. Though long dead, Bach has mainly remained famous through the interest of other musicians who want to reinterpret his music. My favorite example of this is Bach's Chaccone in D Minor for violin, which has been arranged for piano by Johannes Brahms and for guitar by Andres Segovia, as well as several others. These three versions are all sublime pieces of music, yet only one of them would exist if the current copyright laws existed then. These are not isolated occurences, I could go on for ages about all of the pieces with names like "Variations on a Theme by Some Other Composer", but I think you get the idea.
Anyway, to reiterate my point, fiercely guarding credit for the music you create may not be the best way to establish your reputation. Using this license is not likely to damage anyone's standing as an artist. However, if one only wants to make money off of their music, the OAL may not be a good idea, but the indusrty standard way of doing things hasn't exactly lined the pockets of many musicians either.
"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."
--Henry David Thoreau
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...