"Such assignment shall not limit, restrict or interfere with the right of any member to issue to a music user* non-exclusive licenses for rights of public performance."
If I am reading that right, it looks like although you assign them the right to license public performances of your work, you also still have that right. Cool if so. I need to look into this further.
"In the US at least, unless you transfer all rights to them, you would retain those rights, without having to obtain a license from ascap for it (since ascap is the one licensed by you to collect)."
I think I understand the general idea, what I am asking is if you know specifically that the agreements that creators sign with ascap or bmi transfers those rights to the organizations or leaves them in possession of the creators.
If you were to start a CS and I were to sign up with you, the agreement could call for you to be the sole licensor for public performances of all of my works and could include me needing a license from you to perform my works in public. Or say in any public venue not owned by me personally. Or whatever.
Do you know how the agreements with ascap and bmi handle the deal?
"The White Album as input. It might be hard to prove that that is still clearly a derivative work of The White Album if the program would produce output (even gibberish output) given other music as inputs."
Hmmmm, make it a contest, release an edl for a Free software program. Don't say what source the edl is for. Let people find the source that best applies.
I understand the points you make but are you sure you are correct even for a solo performer who owns all his own rights but is signed with ascap or bmi? I have heard conflicting information and especially with respect to rights organizations in other countries and I am trying to learn what I can.
I have heard that when you sign an agreement, you give them the right to license out your music. (Including to yourself it would seem. I am trying to determine how this works where.)
I am quite OK with someone making a libre but not gratis play if they can pull it off. I am all for people finding ways to earn an honest living while making libre stuff if that is what they desire to do.
With that said, it sounds like your plan kills the libre part of the game to me. Would you care to explain how the software would still be Free under your plan?
"It exists to protect authors... it's the same thing that keeps you from writing a book (or whatever), changing a few things, and publishing it under their name."
You don't need *copyright* law to accomplish this.
A law against plagiarism and fraud could handle it while still allowing anyone to make copies of anything they lawfully had in their possession. That people use copyright law for this purpose today does not mean that copyright law is needed for this job.
"But, if you want to tell me that my works must also be unrestricted public domain works: well, you're doing exactly what you claim to be against."
Nah, even without copyright law, you could take your works and lock them away in your closet and no one would have the right to copy them. They would be all yours.
Collect revenue for the ad companies and then sue the others and collect again.
(well they could get it wrong in other ways too. there is so much foolishness in the system currently, i imagine it will be hard to get something right. Perhaps what these big industry players need to do is make their own industry equivalent of statutory licenses for their content and place all of their content into such a system. ???)
"The stuff in between, the indies, will struggle in such a market because they (again in my humble opinion) dont have the resources to profit as easily from global market opportunities as the major labels."
It is going to be hard for anyone to play in the same game as the big boys and hang with them.
But one can try something that the big boys will be reluctant to play. Free and Copyleft Music. And finding models to support such.
I have been working on some notes on packet In's site:
"The MPEG Working Group wants to release a reference implementation of the new MPEG eXtensible Middleware (MXM) standard as open source, but it also wants to be able to sell patent licenses."
There must be more to it than this because there is an easy solution for this one.
Put the code under the AGPL or GPL, Grant a free patent license to those using the Free stuff and charge tpatent fees to those who want a non-Free license to the code.
So, if they develop their own non-Free code and the patent covers it, they pay once.
If they want a non-Free license to the code as well then they pay twice.
(Note, I am not discussing the "rightness" of software patents here. Just commenting on the lack of a problem as stated with how things seem to have been going on lately.)
My guess is what is really meant is that they desire to obtain the "Good Vibes" that go along with being Open Source Software or Free Software without actually giving people the intended benefits. I do guess wrong with reasonable frequency so I will be interested to see how this plays out. (Hopefully there will be no sellouts from the community side of things.)
"Without copyright laws, the GPL would be unenforcible. The BSD style licenses are the anti-copyright licenses. GPL uses copyright laws to have some interesting restrictions, but definitely does depend on copyright laws."
Not really. Without copyright laws, no one can take some Free code and lock it up under copyright. Why do you need the GPL or BSD exactly without copyright?
With copyright laws... We have what we have. Do your thing.
OK then, and do they release data on how many kite flight notices are filed and sent out each year? I would be interested in knowing if there are more than a hundred compliant kite flights each year.
This is the point I immediately thought to make too.
The problem isn't that you paid too much for that machine, the problem is that you now had to turn around and buy another machine that actually was Vista Capable surely...
"Well, he makes that claim in an essay published on gnu.org [gnu.org]. His statement seems pretty clear:
I shouldn't have the power to tell you not to do these things. No one should."
I would be very careful with RMS and the words he chooses to use.
You will notice it does not say that your should not have the right to negotiate with someone that they not do these things but that you should not have the power to tell them not to do them. It is something to consider.
"I don't see any way of running something like FB without these kinds of policies. The only surprising thing here is that FB didn't realize it needed ownership forever until recently."
Possibly touching on this subject is to design a site around the hosting of works put under Free licenses. If all the content was under a cc BY, cc BY-SA, or Free Art License, many of the issues would not arise.
The site would just need to do what it does without needing any side license. The license on the content would have to be what they rely on to do their thing.
Slashdot Mirror
that's just gonna upset the scammers. they figure that is their bailiwick.
First you need to decide whether equity or predictability is more important in your law.
all the best,
drew
I was wondering how this interacts with Creative Commons Licenses myself...
all the best,
drew
Thanks,
I found this:
"Such assignment shall not limit, restrict or interfere with the right of any member
to issue to a music user* non-exclusive licenses for rights of public performance."
If I am reading that right, it looks like although you assign them the right to license public performances of your work, you also still have that right. Cool if so. I need to look into this further.
all the best,
drew
"In the US at least, unless you transfer all rights to them, you would retain those rights, without having to obtain a license from ascap for it (since ascap is the one licensed by you to collect)."
I think I understand the general idea, what I am asking is if you know specifically that the agreements that creators sign with ascap or bmi transfers those rights to the organizations or leaves them in possession of the creators.
If you were to start a CS and I were to sign up with you, the agreement could call for you to be the sole licensor for public performances of all of my works and could include me needing a license from you to perform my works in public. Or say in any public venue not owned by me personally. Or whatever.
Do you know how the agreements with ascap and bmi handle the deal?
all the best,
drew
"The White Album as input. It might be hard to prove that that is still clearly a derivative work of The White Album if the program would produce output (even gibberish output) given other music as inputs."
Hmmmm, make it a contest, release an edl for a Free software program. Don't say what source the edl is for. Let people find the source that best applies.
all the best,
drew
I understand the points you make but are you sure you are correct even for a solo performer who owns all his own rights but is signed with ascap or bmi? I have heard conflicting information and especially with respect to rights organizations in other countries and I am trying to learn what I can.
I have heard that when you sign an agreement, you give them the right to license out your music. (Including to yourself it would seem. I am trying to determine how this works where.)
all the best,
drew
If a band (its members) is a member of ascap or bmi, could they even perform their own stuff?
all the best,
drew
"15% of MBA's will get you the correct statistics though."
With a 10% level of confidence?
I am quite OK with someone making a libre but not gratis play if they can pull it off. I am all for people finding ways to earn an honest living while making libre stuff if that is what they desire to do.
With that said, it sounds like your plan kills the libre part of the game to me. Would you care to explain how the software would still be Free under your plan?
all the best,
drew
"It exists to protect authors... it's the same thing that keeps you from writing a book (or whatever), changing a few things, and publishing it under their name."
You don't need *copyright* law to accomplish this.
A law against plagiarism and fraud could handle it while still allowing anyone to make copies of anything they lawfully had in their possession. That people use copyright law for this purpose today does not mean that copyright law is needed for this job.
"But, if you want to tell me that my works must also be unrestricted public domain works: well, you're doing exactly what you claim to be against."
Nah, even without copyright law, you could take your works and lock them away in your closet and no one would have the right to copy them. They would be all yours.
all the best,
drew
They made a TOS change somewhere back in the distant past that resulted in my pulling down most of my info from my spot in TheTropics.
http://web.archive.org/web/19990128020615/www.geocities.com/TheTropics/1298/
I don't remember the details at this time.
drew
So long as they don't try to have it both ways.
Collect revenue for the ad companies and then sue the others and collect again.
(well they could get it wrong in other ways too. there is so much foolishness in the system currently, i imagine it will be hard to get something right. Perhaps what these big industry players need to do is make their own industry equivalent of statutory licenses for their content and place all of their content into such a system. ???)
drew
"The stuff in between, the indies, will struggle in such a market because they (again in my humble opinion) dont have the resources to profit as easily from global market opportunities as the major labels."
It is going to be hard for anyone to play in the same game as the big boys and hang with them.
But one can try something that the big boys will be reluctant to play. Free and Copyleft Music. And finding models to support such.
I have been working on some notes on packet In's site:
Income: http://packet-in.org/wiki/index.php?title=Income
Promotion: http://packet-in.org/wiki/index.php?title=Promotion
Perhaps it will give some help to some trying the Free game.
all the best,
drew
"Why is making it easy for people to steal ethical?"
Come now, if you want an honest response, quit with the loaded questions.
Not that I necessarily agree with everything he has to say, but go read what Crosbie has to say and then talk to him some:
http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk/
all the best,
drew
"The MPEG Working Group wants to release a reference implementation of the new MPEG eXtensible Middleware (MXM) standard as open source, but it also wants to be able to sell patent licenses."
There must be more to it than this because there is an easy solution for this one.
Put the code under the AGPL or GPL, Grant a free patent license to those using the Free stuff and charge tpatent fees to those who want a non-Free license to the code.
So, if they develop their own non-Free code and the patent covers it, they pay once.
If they want a non-Free license to the code as well then they pay twice.
(Note, I am not discussing the "rightness" of software patents here. Just commenting on the lack of a problem as stated with how things seem to have been going on lately.)
My guess is what is really meant is that they desire to obtain the "Good Vibes" that go along with being Open Source Software or Free Software without actually giving people the intended benefits. I do guess wrong with reasonable frequency so I will be interested to see how this plays out. (Hopefully there will be no sellouts from the community side of things.)
all the best,
drew
"Without copyright laws, the GPL would be unenforcible. The BSD style licenses are the anti-copyright licenses. GPL uses copyright laws to have some interesting restrictions, but definitely does depend on copyright laws."
Not really. Without copyright laws, no one can take some Free code and lock it up under copyright. Why do you need the GPL or BSD exactly without copyright?
With copyright laws... We have what we have. Do your thing.
all the best,
drew
I don't like your use of the word "precedence". It sets a poor precedent.
What does the president have to do with this issue?
drew
Did I Miss Something?
Or is this to be an Open Company developing and selling Closed (non-Free) Software?
drew
OK then, and do they release data on how many kite flight notices are filed and sent out each year? I would be interested in knowing if there are more than a hundred compliant kite flights each year.
drew
"If you do launch _any_ craft into the air in the US it will fall under some sort of regulation that you should follow."
Kites?
drew
In The Bahamas...
It is claimed that VOIP (say vonage) is illegal. Two local telco's supposedly provide legal voip. One is the government owned former telco monopoly.
all the best,
drew
Hear! Hear!
This is the point I immediately thought to make too.
The problem isn't that you paid too much for that machine, the problem is that you now had to turn around and buy another machine that actually was Vista Capable surely...
all the best,
drew
"Well, he makes that claim in an essay published on gnu.org [gnu.org]. His statement seems pretty clear:
I shouldn't have the power to tell you not to do these things. No one should."
I would be very careful with RMS and the words he chooses to use.
You will notice it does not say that your should not have the right to negotiate with someone that they not do these things but that you should not have the power to tell them not to do them. It is something to consider.
all the best,
drew
"I don't see any way of running something like FB without these kinds of policies. The only surprising thing here is that FB didn't realize it needed ownership forever until recently."
Possibly touching on this subject is to design a site around the hosting of works put under Free licenses. If all the content was under a cc BY, cc BY-SA, or Free Art License, many of the issues would not arise.
The site would just need to do what it does without needing any side license. The license on the content would have to be what they rely on to do their thing.
all the best,
drew