Dear Robin Gross, et al.: Why would the EFF make a new special-purpose license to promote free music instead of working with the long-existing free art community? Has the EFF been unaware of these efforts, outlined in places such as <http://dmoz.org/Computers/Open_Source/Open_Content/>, <http://linart.net/>, <http://ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp/>, <http://dsl.org/copyleft/>, <http://antomoro.free.fr/c/lalgb.html>, and <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html>? If not, why is the EFF endeavoring to do this? The new music licensing scheme brought forth by EFF ignores the musicians and artists who have been working on and using free licensing for years, working independently, unsupported by corporate, government, or non-profit backing, and doing it through our own initiative. Our music, although free and "open source," will remain incompatible with the EFF's new license, because it has not taken existing free music licensing into consideration. With this new Open Audio License, the EFF organization is effectively promoting an alternative that is incompatible with the more robust solutions that are already available. The artists and designers who have been copylefting or otherwise freeing their work long before anyone ever spoke of "open content" are not even linked to or acknowledged in the EFF's IP resource links section -- making this seem, from my perspective, more like a political move whose intent is unclear or even dubious. There is a danger to making more and more special-case licensing; if there exists licenses for every type of work, from music to manuals, all made by many different organizations, those works will all remain incompatible with each other -- even when all such works are, supposedly, "open." These gated communities are no architectural recipe for a "vibrant commons." That said, nobody is promoting or aiding free art and music, and the EFF's assistance in this effort would be welcomed and appreciated. My suggestion is to work with and solicit input from existing efforts -- and not try to segment the community even further, or pretend that better solutions do not already exist. We have a lot to accomplish and there is plenty of work for everyone. Michael Stutz
