>Richard Stallman, the founder of GNU, thinks in the future musicians
>will be able to make money by having their music downloadable for free,
>with voluntary micropayments if you like it (just a few pence/cents).
Yes, I suspect there will be a zillion ways for clever people to make a
living (though maybe not a killing) as music makers while allowing free
distribution/re-use of the digital versions of their works.
>He doesn't seem to think that the GPL is all that applicable to music,
Well, would you say that the fact that he's placed Michael's "Applying
Copyleft To Non-Software Information" in the philosophy directory at
gnu.org (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/nonsoftware-copyleft.html) indicates
that he actually does see its applicability?
>although personally I like the idea. I love hearing other peoples
>remixes of my music.
Have you thought through how you much of your stuff you'll share in a GPL
kind of way? Would you implement it like Michael does, with a statement
that accompanies the work, saying something like...
"Original content copyright � 1990-1999 by Michael Stutz; this information
is free; it may be redistributed and/or modified under the terms of the GNU
General Public License, either Version 2 of the License, or (at your
preference) any later version, and as long as this sentence remains; this
information comes WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty
of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE; see the GNU General
Public License for more details."
---
In thinking recently about how I'd like to make available my MIDI files and
digital photos, I realize that I don't really want to require people to
keep "change logs" of what they've done to change my originals, or even go
to a lot of trouble to keep complete credits.
What I want is to "own" my original, to always provide a source for my
originals should anyone want to check out what kind of stuff I do, and to
let anybody else do anything they want with my stuff, with or without
attribution, as long as their work also plays the same licensing game.
My urge is to blur the focus on who can take credit for what, acknowledge
that we're all collaborating with millions of other people, and perhaps
move the focus to ways that individuals might make livings using a shared
creative soup to nourish their local community's "quality of life". I
think people will pay you for that. If we're real responsive to what uses
of this creative stuff actually improves local conditions, I think we'll
discover new "revenue streams."
Just some thoughts.
Kevin
