Chris Sawer wrote:
> Does anyone have any objections to people using a license like this
> [(BSD-style)] on music submitted to the mutopia archive that they've
> composed / arranged / edited themselves?
I think it will be great for people to be able to use licenses like this
for Mutopia. However, I think the license should *explicitly* state that
the music may be performed, recorded and distributed in audio format
without royalty fees. This is because allowing royalty-free performance
and recording is the opposite of the normal practice in the music
industry, so we should make it completely clear that we're going against
the norm.
I know anyone with common sense would say this was implicit from the
statement of the license. But legal systems sometimes don't act with much
common sense. If there is any possible legal ambiguity in Mutopia's
license, someone can try to flout this and Mutopia doesn't have any money
to fight back with. For example, someone could submit their composition,
use Mutopia to help it become popular, then try to charge royalty fees for
performances and recordings. They could do this insidiously, like Unisys
and their GIF licensing (see http://burnallgifs.org).
Maybe we could also come up with an example license to go on the web page,
for people to use if they want to. This should help limit the number of
different licenses we have flying around in Mutopia.
David
--
A problem shared is a problem squared.
