Free Music License?

[Alexandre Dulaunoy]

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:

>    Keeping a single free license in the free community is better for
>    the dynamic of the community.
>
> Software, music and documentation, articles, ..., are all different
> kind of works, and need different kind of protections.  Applying a
> hammer when you wish to screw in a screw, is well... Silly, to say the
> least.  You don't need to be change my article about who much I love
> feries, to say that I don't love them.  Fo functional works (software,
> for example) one needs the right for modification, fo non-functional
> (non-technical written works) one doesn't.  Music, and a novel, are
> quite similar, and a simple `verbatim copying allowed' is quite
> satisifactory for such works.  A manual, or a program, is where you
> need more freedom since it is useful to change a manual, or a program.
> But a manual is very different from a program, so a manual needs to
> define a different set of freedoms.

The  subject  is  a very  difficult  matter.  We  got a  very  similar
discussion in  the fsf-france  mailing-list sometimes ago  without any
conclusion.

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/fsfe-france/2005-05/msg00001.html
(sorry mainly in french but maybe some references could be useful)

I  was  thinking  that  the  differentiation  between  functional  and
non-functional was easy. But working on various projects, I found that
is not the  case following the evolution of  usage and distribution of
"digital  object".  If  we  want  to  keep them  free,  the  right  of
modification  is   very  important...   A  nice   example  is  digital
archiving.  In digital  archiving, you  have to  protect the  data and
meaning  of the  data. If  we take  into consideration  just  the data
(without  the meaning)  it's already  difficult  to keep  free a  work
without  making modification  (because conversion  is  often (always?)
modification in digital format).

Another nice  example is the representation  of an object in  3D for a
free software a game. If you make a modification in the description of
the object (a vertex for example because the render is unable to parse
it), the result (representation) can be the same but the work has been
modified.  You can  also make modification or conversion  of fonts and
keep the same representation of the work.

A lot of non-functional work  has a functional description behind. Can
we disallow modification  of "non-functional" free work ?  or does the
separation make sense today ?

{For me, the questions are still open...}

> Keeping a single license, that is applied to everything, will only
> hurt the community in the long run.

Making new "virtual" boundaries  between digital free works will limit
their current and future usage.

IMHO,

adulau

-- 
** Alexandre Dulaunoy (adulau) **** http://www.foo.be/ **** 0x44E6CBCD
**/ "To  disable the  Internet to  save EMI  and Disney  is  the moral
**/ equivalent of burning down the library of Alexandria to ensure the
**/ livelihood of monastic scribes." Jon Ippolito.