[linux-audio-dev] License for sounds

[David Olofson]

On Wednesday 14 January 2004 19.36, Thomas Webb wrote:
> --- David Olofson <david at olofson.net> wrote:
> > On Wednesday 14 January 2004 10.31,
> > will at malefactor.org wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > > 4) "Derived sounds?" Holy crap, what a can of
> >
> > worms /that/ is.
>
> Actually, I think the solution is rather simple.
> Basically, a patch for a synth can be thought of as a
> "sound" in the sonic sense and a "patch" in the
> software sense. The "sound" is public domain because
> of the absurdities already discussed. Any sound made
> by synths, closed or open source are almost always
> public domain. However, the patch may be licensed as
> you wish.

Interesting point.


> The way I see it, either
> A) There doesn't need to be a special license. You can
> put the patch under any license and it will allow the
> user to use the sound as they wish, but puts
> restrictions/conditions if he/she wishes to
> redistribute the sound.
> or

The problem with this in my case, is that the normal music 
distribution format would probably be "modules". That is, compressed 
archives containing a MIDI file and some scripts. The main reasons 
are file size (the ten demos + sounds fit in 62 kB, and ~55 kB of 
that is MIDI files) and not having to decide on rendering quality or 
compression settings.

So, you *would* actually use the patches - not just the resulting 
audio data.


> B) A special license must be drafted to allow this.

...or I just put the patches *and* sounds in the public domain. What 
do I have to lose...?


//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

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