On Tue, 20 Jul 1999, Richard Stallman wrote:
> The Open Content License is not a good choice, because it does not
> (at least when last I looked) permit selling copies.
Very true. It allows one to cover costs when producing offline
media, but explicitly forbids imposing any other sort of charge.
Anyway, some features that would make sense for a free music
license:
* It probably makes sense to allow people to make changes to the music,
for the sake of editing, arranging, or whatever; a verbatim-copying-only
restriction doesn't make sense. Should the content be changed, though, the
changed content must be distributed with a precise accounting of exactly
what changes were made, exactly when they were made, and by whom. Not only
is this a good thing to do on general principle, but it may be important
in order to allay composers' fears that their reputations would be
impugned by anonymous changes.
* There should not be a distinction in the licensing of typesetting
source (e.g., mudela) and any intermediate or final output (e.g., TeX
files, dvis, PostScript, printed pages.)
* If intermediate or final output made from free music typesetting source
is distributed, then a) It must be bundled with the typesetting source, or
b) The typesetting source must be made available on the internet, and the
distribution must include instructions for downloading it.
* There would be no other restrictions on distribution of the content. It
should be perfectly fine to charge money for the free music or to include
it in packages with non-free music.
* Pieces of music will often take inspiration from earlier music,
sometimes even in direct ways. Say, playfully quoting a bar or two. Though
one could argue that such things may be considered a "derivative work",
such derivation would probably be beyond the scope of a free music
license.
* If desired, the license could have a copyleft feature that mandates
modifications to the free music be released under the same license.
* Alternately, there could be no restrictions on the license under which
derived work is released. (Even so, I can't imagine that the temptation
not to release derived work under the same license would be all that
great; it's not as though changes can be taken private be hidden from view
the way that they can be when dealing with source code.)
And, as Richard points out, there could be two versions of the
license, one with a copyleft feature and one without.
One parting thought; some people would point to the proliferation
of free licenses and say not to add more. In fact, I'm half-inclined to
agree. :) It's just that licensing something that isn't exactly software
under the GPL may not completely make sense.
Matt Hiller
