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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'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!
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.
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
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.
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
Perhaps a good solution would be to license your music to a record company for say 10 years, then release it to the general public. This allows you to make money off of it when it is new (and hopefully popular), but preserves the original intent of copyright -- that someone can make money off of a published work for a while, but it will become part of the public domain within a reasonable time.
As far as I know, music is sold today without any license agreement of any kind.
True, but keep in mind, the record company's "licenses" are passed as laws. The things you are allowed to do and not do, the Audio Home Recording Act, the DMCA, much of that could be placed in a license spelling out exactly what you're allowed to do.
The RIAA, etc, don't need to make licenses, they just pass the laws they need, and save a lot of trouble.
Software has been a little different because the software monopolies (Microsoft, in other words) haven't been paying much attention to Washington. Just wait until they figure out how to lobby with the efficiency of the record labels, your next MS software might contain no license agreement, since the terms Microsoft likes will be part of copyright law.
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.
Bands are poor, bands need as much money as they can get to perpetuate themselves unless they don't mind working a dayjob.
Hey, I am poor. I would love for someone to come along and pay me for my *cough* Creative Talent. But, guess what? Money is not an entitlement. You have no god-given right to profit off of your creative juices just becuase you are you. You have to earn money just like the rest of us.
Think of it this way: I am an artist, I go to work and create beautiful, elegant art all day long, and I don't get to put my name on any of it and I only get a salary for what I do. NO copyright for me! Does that sound wrong to you somehow? I'll tell you why: Becuase I say "artist" where you would say "programmer".
Just becuase your "art" is useless and mine is functional does not make us any different. 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.
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. 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. 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.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
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.
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
OK, ``just for the record'':
If I write a piece of software and distribute it under a proprietary license,
1. Do you think I'm acting unethically?
2. Do you think my license should be ruled unenforceable?
3. If not, why is it unacceptable to require someone to make certain contracts, but acceptable to require him not to make certain contracts?
There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
-- David D. Friedman
Brett, I've done a google search on the terms 'Brett Glass GPL' and found a great deal, as you can imagine. I've actually spent a couple of hours reading your various attacks against the GPL in a variety of forums over the last couple of years.
You tend to make a few points that are worth considering, but the value of those points tend to be diluted by your hatred of the GPL, and the lengths to which you will go to attack it and anyone who supports it. Declaring that people who use the GPL are either morons who don't know their own self interest or evil sons of bitches who want to hurt others is not helpful. Describing the GPL as not being an Open Source license due to the discrimination clause when the authors of said license explicitly wrote the Open Source terms to encompass the GPL also does not make you seem like you are interested in listening to anything anyone else has to say on the matter.
The GPL is a mechanism to implement a social contract, where programmers put their software under the GPL to ensure that said software can have continued relevence and utility in the network effect economy of the software world. The value in software is, as you know, not intrinsic to the bits. Microsoft paid $50,000 for QDOS and made untold billions off of it. The reason they did is because DOS became the standard of compatibility for all the software made for the IBM PC, not because DOS was particularly well made. In a winner-take-all software market, what can programmers do if they want to have a piece of software be available for public use and public evolution, without worrying about a bad actor doing as Microsoft did with the Kerberos standard in Windows 2000 and taking a public program or specification private and then using network effects to freeze out other usage?
The GPL is a license of one's own work to the public under specified terms. You seem to think that it is unfair that programmers may not take GPL'ed work and then do anything they like with it, but the same could be said of any commercial license. If you or anyone else wants to create something with functionality similar to a GPL'ed product but under non-GPL'ed terms, then you can very well go off and write it yourself, the old fashioned way. If the labor of others, available under the GPL, makes it hard for you to make a living creating similar work, then that's too bad. That's competition. Those programmers working under the GPL have sacrificed much (as you like to point out) to release their software in that way.
There are a lot of reasons not to use the GPL, even for publicly distributable software. There are many kinds of software that would have better effect and influence if they were to be released under a BSD or Apache style license. That's a debate worth having. But claiming that the GPL is evil, as you do, is unconvincing unless you would claim that any kind of restrictions placed on you for the use of someone else's property is evil. If you want to write commercial software, do like everyone else does and write it yourself, or pay to license it from someone else.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX