On Thu, May 08, 2003 at 11:30:15AM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: > > OTOH, I don't think there are any "revisions" you can make to any > > sound file that you can't also make with a text editor to a suitable > > text dump of a WAV file. > > My point is exactly that *no* way of editing sound files will allow me > to do the kind of changes we normally require for freedom. ... > > > If it is not possible to license sound under GFDL (which I believe it > > > is not), then the GFDL says that I must not make a modification of > > > the work that consists of reading it aloud on a sound recording. I > > > think that's quite easily non-free. > > > That's wrong too: that would merely be an opaque copy which is entirely > > allowable, as long as you distribute a transparent copy as well. > > I *cannot* distribute a transparent copy of my spoken performance, > because no such copy is possible, as argued above.
This argument might have been convincing several years ago, but it kinda flounders when coming on the heels of a series of (commercial) games which used text-to-speech technology instead of prerecorded audio data. Given a decently large sample (say, your spoken performance) it is possible to generate a fairly convincing sample with different words in it; the rest is just work with a non-linear audio editor. Or, hey, ever play with soundtracker-style mod files? This is much like saying that transparent copies of paintings are not possible, because once committed to canvas they can't be modified. Technology has improved since then. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | Dept. of Computing, `. `' | Imperial College, `- -><- | London, UK