[linux-audio-user] Free Music licenses: which to choose?

[Christian Schoenebeck]

Es geschah am Samstag, 28. September 2002 22:53 als Graham Percival schrieb:
>
> Here's a few loopholes in your license:
> - if I (speaking now as a laywer) don't try to make money off of
> Graham's music, then I can copy and modify it and claim that _I_ wrote
> it.
> - I can copy it, modify it, and then release it with a very
> restrictive license.

No, you can't, because when you just modify my work, it's still part of the 
modified version. So you're still making use of my work.

> - I can copy it and place it in a "members only"
> portion of my business partner's website.  *I'm* not making money out of
> it.

I don't see a problem with this as long as it's fee free to become a 'member' 
of your site and / or you're not advertising with my work to attract new 
customers. If that's not the case, you're not able to exclude the chance that 
new 'members' signed just because to get access to my work. And then you do 
make money out of my work.

> - that license is not Free because it doesn't allow others to modify the
> work.  That's easily fixed by adding `modify' near the beginning: "you
> can use, modify, copy, and (re)distribute..."

Ok, I agree with that.

> My other concern, that many of the Free licenses can't work together, is
> still valid.  For as long as I live, somebody can ask me "is it ok if I
> use your work in my Design Science-licenesed project" and I can reply
> "yes, I give you permission for that", but if I die -- and a few
> contributers to Free software have unfortunately done so already -- then
> that option is lost.

Hooo, you're looking that far?

> Writing a good Free license that can't be exploited isn't all that easy,
> which is one reason why it might be good to have one or two "main" free
> music licenses.

I'm still not convinced why to do so. Taking your arguments above, I guess I 
would win about 90% of court procedures (especially if there would be a 
jury). But go ahead, perhaps you're really show me a point why such long 
license agreements have their sense.

Regards,
Christian