Releasing the "source code" of music

[Lenny]

I think the question for me is not about demanding everyone to release sources, that doesn't make any sense. But maybe most people would agree that it is a good thing if someone goes through all that trouble, and shares the work with sources. At least if the music is good

[wolftune]

One time I was visiting somebody's home with a group of friends. There was a piano in the room, and I impulsively sat down to play something improvised from the top of my head. Some of them told me they enjoyed it. I was so consumed by my own selfishness; I didn't immediately set about writing it down on notation paper so that they could all have the source code to which they are entitled as a basic human right.

Next time I'm in an art gallery, I'll decide upon my favorite painting along the collection and then demand that the curator provide me with a specification of each combination of color that was in the palette along with a detailed step by step written description of each stroke, including the brush material, size, and shape. If they refuse, I will promptly storm out in indignant wrath about such a flagrant violation of basic human decency.

Is there a symbol for indicating the specific variety of sarcasm that is also a straw-man argument? I'm 99% sure that Michael was totally self-aware of doing that in writing that comment… The 1% is, well, you know, Poe's Law — the sarcasm is 100% clearly intended, the awareness of straw-man I'm only 99% sure of.

[wolftune]

All of your points, 42low, amount to a personal description of the freerider dilemma inherent to all public goods.

Fundamentally, it sucks to be the altruist who shares freely while everyone else is restrictive. You're contributing but not getting a robust commons to benefit from yourself. There's no easy answer to these things. But there *is* one simple thing that's clearly true: it would be better for everyone if we all cooperated and all shared. The idea that knowledge *should* be costly is nonsense.

So, it's one thing to acknowledge the fundamental dilemmas and refuse to be an altruist in a world of freeriders. It's another thing to argue against the people who are simply saying that we all *should* share and have a robust commons.

To put another way, here's a reasonable argument:

"Sure, it would be great if we all shared, and everyone had the lowest-barriers to gaining all the knowledge and tools and sources. The result of such cooperation would be wonderful. But in reality, most music and software etc. are proprietary, secretive, restrictive, and if I unilaterally release everything I do, it just gives me a disadvantage compared to all the others who are freeriding and/or being restrictive. I'm not gonna be the sucker in this game. If everyone shares, I'll share too. But I don't see any way to get that to happen."

And here's an unreasonable argument:

"You folks say I should share my sources and knowledge etc. — well, I went through a ton of hassle in a restrictive world in the past to get the knowledge I now have, so all folks in the future should have to go through as much hassle and cost as I did or else it wouldn't be fair."

[tramp]

Fortunately there are a lot of people in the world who believe in the open source philosophy, otherwise we wouldn't been here, in this forum, talk about Linux and free open source music applications.

So i give as much as i receive, to those who give me too. I grant everyone who grants me. But not to those who don't (which is most of the people).
I stopped being the good guys sharing everything simple because it disappointed me too much (mostly to be honest).

Taking into account what you receive anonymous from the open source developers and packagers all over the world, I guess, your stance will fail. More then 1000 people support you for free, providing binary's, ready to use, and the source code, to study and learn, if you wish, without ever asking for "give back what they give to you". Give that gift forward, and put a little gift aside, without restrictions, will help to open minds for the "open source philosophy"

[Lyberta]

Another good point for people who are picky - use copyleft. That way your work will not be used by someone who doesn't want to share. CC-BY-SA is good but doesn't require releasing source code. If you want total control, use AGPL. Google and quite a few employers ban usage of AGPL stuff so people who develop proprietary software won't be able to listen to your music. I'm seriously thinking of switching to AGPL for my music.

Just don't go NC route because you will be one of the bad guys. *cough* LinuxSampler *cough* Sonatina *cough* No Budget *cough* Virtual Playing *cough* *cough* *cough* *cough*

[wolftune]

Another good point for people who are picky - use copyleft. That way your work will not be used by someone who doesn't want to share. CC-BY-SA is good but doesn't require releasing source code. If you want total control, use AGPL. Google and quite a few employers ban usage of AGPL stuff so people who develop proprietary software won't be able to listen to your music. I'm seriously thinking of switching to AGPL for my music.

Just don't go NC route because you will be one of the bad guys. *cough* LinuxSampler *cough* Sonatina *cough* No Budget *cough* Virtual Playing *cough* *cough* *cough* *cough*

Spot on. NC is crap. http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC

AGPL is the strongest copyleft for sure. Now, the one issue tough: Google doesn't ban *listening* to music under AGPL! The AGPL has absolutely NO restrictions on ANYONE using the thing, it only restricts what happens if the redistribute/convey to others. The bans on AGPL at software companies are bans on use (which AGPL doesn't block, but the companies internally censor), but I'm sure that's only for programs, not for plain music listening.

[Lenny]

I'm still wondering how copyleft really works in music.

Let's say I have a source file that describes how to create music with some music software, and I license that with copyleft. Let's make the example as simple as possible:

1. source: music.src
2. product: music.src -> MusicBOX -> music.wav

Is it now so that the end product "music.wav" cannot be distributed without source "music.src"? Distribution is in the end same as listening, because that always involves downloading/streaming the wav to computer in binary form.


Edited: maybe my WAV example is more like "general data" instead of program, as described here: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-li ... erLicenses

Even more concrete example, I could have a CSound configuration file, that will produce an audio "object" file. If I understood it correctly, GPL could be used in some cases, but for example SDL is 1-to-1 compatible with such cases: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html

[Michael Willis]

Is there a symbol for indicating the specific variety of sarcasm that is also a straw-man argument? I'm 99% sure that Michael was totally self-aware of doing that in writing that comment… The 1% is, well, you know, Poe's Law — the sarcasm is 100% clearly intended, the awareness of straw-man I'm only 99% sure of.

Fine, I admit that I was trolling. Part of me is this wide-eyed idealist that is all for freely sharing everything, but the other part of me is what my co-worker describes as "hopefully pessimistic", understanding that nobody is under any obligation to share anything with me.

Another quick story: I like to cook, and when asked how I make something I'll happily share in great detail. One time I knew a man that served a chowder that I really liked. I asked him how he made it, and he refused to share, saying it was a secret. He seemed to think that he would be losing something special by sharing. I was of course disappointed, but let's be honest, I am not entitled to knowledge that is in his head if he doesn't want to share.

[wolftune]

I am not entitled to knowledge that is in his head if he doesn't want to share.

Right, but you are perfectly reasonable (though not necessarily tactful) to complain about his secrecy or criticize him for it. He's not entitled to keep secrets and be free from people complaining about it… You can *ask* him for the recipe, and he can *ask* you to respect his request for secrecy without complaint.

[Lyberta]

I'm still wondering how copyleft really works in music.

Let's say I have a source file that describes how to create music with some music software, and I license that with copyleft. Let's make the example as simple as possible:

1. source: music.src
2. product: music.src -> MusicBOX -> music.wav

With CC-BY-SA:

Since music.wav is derived from music.src, it will be CC-BY-SA. Someone can take music.wav and add it to a video, that video will be CC-BY-SA. However, you don't have to distribute music.src or another guy video.src.

AGPL:

Since music.wav is derived from music.src, it will be AGPL. Someone can take music.wav and add it to a video.ogg, that video will be AGPL. Whoever receives music.wav must receive music.src. Whoever receives video.ogg must receive video.src AND music.src. Therefore, AGPL is stronger.

He seemed to think that he would be losing something special by sharing. I was of course disappointed, but let's be honest, I am not entitled to knowledge that is in his head if he doesn't want to share.

But you can spread the word about that guy and other guys like him and say that they don't contribute to society. You can make the public aware that those who don't share are bad people and should not receive any payment or recognition for their work. Sure, that will not get rid of all proprietary works but more people will start sharing.

[Jack Winter]

One observation of life tells me that there are 2 kinds of people. Those that think that if someone else gets something, they must have lost something (the zero sum game people). Then there are the people that think that the more we all get, the better off we'll all be (the people who believe that sum of the parts is greater than the whole). Guess what group I consider the source of evil in the world

[singforme]

My thoughts on that might me due to me being a christian and not totally understandable to agnostics;)
When God created the universe and other things - what kind of source code should he have released? No one would ever be able to understand it due to the fact that there are no other Gods;)
I think it's a tiny bit like that with music: How could you share the source code of that music? When Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the Brandenburg Concerts, that was just after his wife died. How could you have the source code for these emotions by this one historical person? What would be the source code for Kurt Cobain's music? If I had the stems or even the ardour files - so what? So much of music is emotion and individual expression. No binary code could ever do justice to that... my 2 pennies;)

[Jack Winter]

One observation of life tells me that there are 2 kinds of people. Those that think that if someone else gets something, they must have lost something (the zero sum game people). Then there are the people that think that the more we all get, the better off we'll all be (the people who believe that sum of the parts is greater than the whole). Guess what group I consider the source of evil in the world

You forget group number 3.
Those who are happy with what they may use at this moment and don't look at others what they have with jealousy and/or envy. Who are happy with what they have at this moment. Because they know what it is to have and to loose.
Those kind of people exist too.

And there's nothing wrong with trying to 'get some more' or at least 'enough' out of life.
IMO it's each task to make the best of life out of respect for life itself. Were (after food/roof/clothing) enjoying life and good personal relations are much more important than material stuff.

I'd rank them in number 2

I'd agree with the getting more out of life, and that health, family, and friends are more important than material stuff..

[Lyberta]

I'd agree with the getting more out of life, and that health, family, and friends are more important than material stuff..

I'd argue that health, family and friends are also material stuff and tend to die very fast. The real question is what is important in this world? Even humanity will be extinct. But I don't know anything that is more important than humanity so I give my work for humanity. People who don't share my view are excluded using the copyright

[Lenny]

My thoughts on that might me due to me being a christian and not totally understandable to agnostics;)
When God created the universe and other things - what kind of source code should he have released? No one would ever be able to understand it due to the fact that there are no other Gods;)
I think it's a tiny bit like that with music: How could you share the source code of that music? When Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the Brandenburg Concerts, that was just after his wife died. How could you have the source code for these emotions by this one historical person? What would be the source code for Kurt Cobain's music? If I had the stems or even the ardour files - so what? So much of music is emotion and individual expression. No binary code could ever do justice to that... my 2 pennies;)

Bach's source code are his notes. He of course sold those to Church or whatever kings, who then used them for their purposes. Not really free sharing, but Bach was a poor man with ~1K children.

Analogous to what we are talking about would be releasing the notes under copyleft. That would allow everyone freely to study his wicked fugues.

This doesn't mean that anyone could then replace Bach. Only thing we can do is to just stare and wonder his notes for centuries and shake our heads. That's not the point. Point is how the notes are used, who can take advantage of the notes etc.