IANAL
Hi, Michael and all!
Sorry for the late answer. I forgot to finish and send the
original one, so I better completely rewrite it, now.
On Thursday, 21. February 2002 20:05, Michael Stutz wrote:
> Thomas Uwe Gruettmueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > 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.
>
> ...
>
> > 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:
>
> See the following ...
>
> > 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?
>
> You gave some good ones:
> > | * 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,
I copied them, almost literally (albeit translated), from the
German Copyright Law, �15. There, the usage rights cited above
are listed together with copying and distribution, which makes
me think that they are equally important.
I don't think they fit into this section of the license, as it
is entitled "Copying and Distribution". But none of these
activities is copying or distribution.
Also, the consequences are not fully considered. Lets say,
someone has created an artwork, using xfig. Now, you create a
slide of it, and present it, using a projector. Now, as the
object form is used, the license requires to include something
into the distribution. However, there is no distribution at all,
in this case.
> I will talk to a lawyer about this, and see whether or not
> these examples ought to be explicity listed or their
> permissions otherwise granted in the license.
Do you personally know one, or do you pay for it?
> > 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:
>
> I will talk to a lawyer about these items, too. The DSL is not
> identical to the GPL so clauses may not entirely correspond.
;o)
> But you should be permitted to modify your own copy and not
> distribute it. In practice, copyright law does not really
> offer any real protection for modifications that aren't
> distributed or otherwise made public.
IIRC, this is only true for certain kinds of work. For example,
music works can be modified freely, computer programs however
must not.
> > 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
>
> This WAV file might be good for some purpose, but it won't be
> identical to the original WAV file because MP3 is a lossy
> format.
Oh, sorry. I sloppily must have dropped some words when reading
the license. :o(
IMHO, your source data definition is too strict. The GPL one is
not so tight. There, the source code only has to be the
preferred form for modification of the work, not necessarily its
origin.
BTW: this very strict definition causes trouble, e.g. when a
music work contains samples that are not handmade, but ripped
from the object form of other free music works. This way you get
a huge pile of sources together.
> > 5. Too huge source code
>
> ...
>
> > However, I heard that Cubase VST files are usually about 1
> > Gigabyte. In this case, the source code can be considered
> > nearly undistributable.
>
> It was much the same in the early days of free software --
> source code was often distributed on tape.
>
> There is a business idea in this. I think that in the near
> future, free-information distribution businesses might become
> lucrative for some just as free software distribution
> businesses had thrived in the '90s.
I can imagine commercial archives that you can browse with some
web based search engine. If you found what you want, you can
order it on CD. This will propably replace the publishers of
today.
OTOH, I don't think it is a good idea to force every licensee to
copy 1 GB of source data with each 3 MB of binary data. This
might be considered harassment and lead to license breaches.
> > 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).
>
> Unless they arrange to obtain the source from you on a
> physical medium ... it's a hassle, but I don't know of a
> better solution.
The source data of my music consists of two parts: samples and a
mixing script. The last piece of music had about 8 MB of samples
(600 KB, if compressed with Vorbis). I don't think it hurts
anybody to copy 600 KB of lossy compressed source data along
with a 3 MB lossy compressed binary or 8 MB hiqh quality sources
with a 40 MB high quality binary.
However, if somebody would remix my songs, and then require
people to copy 1 GB of source data along with each 3 MB of
binary data, I would not want that. This would be like making my
music proprietary. In this case, the sources should IMHO better
not be bundled with the binary, but distributed voluntarily.
1 GB of sources is not what I consider a preferred form for
making modifications, and if it is done with proprietary crap,
such as Cubase, it is of no use in the free world, anyway.
So, in this case, there is no source data.
I'm not sure whether or not a license for free music (or
content) should require distribution of the source code at all.
Maybe it should be a question of honour to release it, to keep
its size small and to design it beautifully. ;o) (For technical
things like construction papers or software, I see the
importance, of course.)
cu,
Thomas
}:o)
