A Critique of the EFF's Open Audio License

Brett Glass writes: "This weekend, the EFF is staging a public concert in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park to promote its "Open Audio License" (OAL), a music license based loosely on the GPL. But is a license intended for software a good starting point for a license for music? And is the EFF's license a good choice for composers and performers? This critique discusses the intended and unintended effects of the EFF's license, and suggests alternatives that might be more beneficial (and more palatable) to musicians, composers, and performers." Some of Glass' critiques seem a little silly - they're intended goals of the license, not flaws.

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...

Comments

Looking for an honest answer

[Zico]

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.

The OAL appears to have some real flaws

[blamanj]

Well, if Glass is correct in his summary, then I would have to say that the very first bullet point:

• You cannot allow free copying of a recording but keep the rights to the song that was performed in the recording.

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.