Hi!
I need a public license for my music, however the licenses I
have seen so far are all insufficient. It seems that the best
choice is still the DSL, especially because it's a license for
any type of content, and not just music.
However, there are also some points about the DSL that keep me
from using it:
1. Rights other than copying and distribution
In l.76ff the DSL reads:
| Your right to operate, perform, read or otherwise interpret
| and/or execute the Work is unrestricted; however, you do so at
| your own risk, because the Work comes WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY --
| see Section 7 ("NO WARRANTY") below.
IMHO, this is not sufficient. While for software, the author has
only exclusive rights on copying, distribution and modification,
authors of other kinds of work have also some other exclusive
rights. In order that the licensee can execute these rights, it
is not enough that the license does not (further) restrict them
-- they are already restricted to the extent. Instead, the
license should grant them. Like this:
| 2a. RIGHTS OTHER THAN COPYING AND DISTRIBUTION.
|
| Permission is granted
| * to exhibit the Work (if applicable),
| * to recite, perform or present it to the public,
| * to broadcast it, and
| * to make it publically perceptible from a recording or
| transmission of the Work,
| without any restriction; however, you do so at
| your own risk, because the Work comes WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY --
| see Section 7 ("NO WARRANTY") below.
|
| You may also use the Work as stated above, modified.
IMHO, there should also be a (weak) kind of copyleft for these
rights, too:
| You are strongly recommended to allow your audience to
| photograph or record the Work or its performance, and to copy
| and distribute the results under the terms of this License.
2. "publish or otherwise present"
In l.83f the DSL reads:
| Permission is granted to distribute, publish or otherwise
| present verbatim copies of the entire Source Data of the Work,
| in any medium,
What exactly does "publish or otherwise present" mean? Can you
give some examples?
3. Modification without distribution
When I compare DSL clause 4-a (s.l.126f) with the corresponding
GPL clause 2-b, I notice two flaws in the DSL version:
* Literally read, the DSL version says that I cannot modify my
copy and keep it to myself. I always have to publish it. If I
am a hermit, I cannot modify the work.
* The DSL version does not say that the work has to be licensed
to *everybody*. So, if A licenses his work to everybody, B
changes it and distributes and licenses it only to C, C can
still copy and distribute it to D, but D cannot distribute
it to E, because D is not a licensee of B!!!
4. Source code
l.53ff:
| if the Work is an MPEG 1.0 layer 3 digital audio recording
| made from a WAV format audio file recording of an analog
| source, then the original WAV file is the Source Data;
I think the MP3 example in the Definitions section is quite bad.
I agree that a WAV file is better suited for human modification
than an MP3 file (due to the lack of MP3 editors ;o)), but why
has it to be the original WAV file and not one derived from the
MP3?
mpg321 --wav output.wav input.mp3
On the other hand, for formats without free players (like
RealAudio), I agree with your definition.
5. Too huge source code
I make my music with Soundtracker, and consider the module files
as "source code". Usually, these files are very small. I have
uploaded an example song to
http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0014499/Musik/
...in which the source data is just 600KB. However, I heard that
Cubase VST files are usually about 1 Gigabyte. In this case, the
source code can be considered nearly undistributable.
This means that when I put my songs under the DSL, they cannot
be rearranged by someone else, using Cubase (or any other
program that produces lots of crap data).
I don't know how to solve that issue.
cu
Thomas
}:o{#
