One Reason To Choose A Strong Copyleft License Over A Public Domain Dedication / Release

StrongCopyleftVsPD

One Reason To Choose A Strong Copyleft License Over A Public Domain Dedication / Release

*Note: in my view, a license is not copyleft if it is not Free.

In today's copyright environment, a strong Copyright license is a beautiful thing. (I encourage you to consider putting one on your works.)

It is not a perfect thing however and there are some problems and issues that go along with it.

Doing your best to put your work in the "Public Domain" (See: The Corruption of Our 'Public Domain' · Thursday August 05, 2010 by Crosbie Fitch http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk/index.php?id=252 for thoughts on this) will overcome some of these problems but I think choosing a strong copyleft license instead is a better option. Why?

If a work is in the "Public Domain" (Not copyrighted, copyright has expired, or copyrights purposely given up / donated to 'the public' in some way) anyone can use if for any purpose. This includes making a derivative of it and obtaining a copyright on the derivative and making money on that derivative while declaring "All Rights Reserved". This includes those whom some refer to as "copyright maximalists" just to be clear.

If everyone who was opposed to copyright maximalism were to release their works under a strong copyleft license, we would build up a pool of works that would advantage those willing to play a #Free game over those who refused to do so.

Now, nothing would prevent a copyright maximalist from enjoying the benefits of a work under a strong copyleft or even profiting from it. However, if they choose to do so it might make it harder for them to claim that it is impossible to make a profit from a work with a Free license. It might make it harder for them to claim that we need even stronger protections and harsher punishments for people to be willing to create and to profit from their creations.

My gut tells me that we are unlikely to see copyright maximalists making derivatives of works with strong copyleft licenses in the near term. This is why I think such a pool would give advantages to those willing to play a #Free game in a way that a similar pool of public domain works will not give.

Such a pool could be a game changer. If you would like the game changed, consider adding your works to such a pool.

"Free Cultural Works" defined: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition

"Free Software" defined: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

AntiSpamIdea

AntiSpamIdea

Anti Spam(er) Idea for Kompoz and other similar sites.

Give posts weights, somewhat like slashdot does but not with voting on posts like they do.

Known good users post at level 2.

New users and suspect users post at level 1.

Non-logged in users only see level 2 posts. Level 1 posts are invisible to the world.

Level 1 users see level 1 and level 2 posts.

Level 2 users default to seeing level 2 posts only but can change this behavior via a profile toggle.

Perhaps even have level 1 accounts invisible to the world?

all the best,

drew

Copyright Questions

Copyright Questions

Well, I was searching some of my old domains on the internet archive this morning looking for something for my wife and I came across this old article from 2000 I think. Here is the link:

http://web.archive.org/web/20001213071000/www.cayspot.net/ii/zbro/copyrightq.php3

And here is the article:


Copyright Questions

Copyright Questions - and a few ramblings.

I was just reading an article posting over at Technocrat.Net and decided to finally get around to starting in on writing this. I have been meaning to start for ages now.

The article that prompted it was an editorial by Bruce on Music Bootlegging with Napster hurting Free Software.

This is not relevant to the rest of this piece, but why is there so little notice or discussion of the fact that there is almost no Free Music but there is a lot of Free Software. Where is the GPLed music distributed in source form? Is it that we don't have the tools to support a Free Music movement?

OK, here are the questions. If it would be better to think patent or some other mechanism (other than trade secret) in place of copyright, so be it. For each question, if you choose to send in the answers for inclusion, state whether you think it is moral/ethical, and whether you think it is legal or illegal in your country and whether it is legal or illegal in any other country. I am hoping to get a script online that can take responses. If you feel like knocking one up before I get to it, great. (I would prefer php, but any standard free solution will do.)

* Can I take a picture of a tree in a forest and sell or give away copies of the picture?
* Can I take a picture of a tree in someone's front lawn and sell or give away copies of the picture?
* Can I take a picture of a 'lion tree sculpture' in someone's front lawn and sell or give away copies of the picture?
* Can I take a picture of an artist's oil painting and sell or give away copies of the picture?
* Can I take a picture of a sculptor's work and sell or give away copies of the picture?
* Can I take a picture of a model in a designer dress and sell or give away copies of the picture?
* Can I take a picture of a model in a designer dress and sell or give away copies of the picture with only the models permission?
* Can I take a picture of a building designed by an architect and sell or give away copies of the picture?
* Can I take a picture of a float in a parade and sell or give away copies of the picture?
* Can I take a picture of a room papered with designer wallpaper and sell or give away copies of the picture?
* Can I hear a joke and tell it to someone else?
* Can I hear a joke and tell it in a comedy club where I get paid for my act?
* Can I read a recipe in a copyrighted cookbook and make the dish for sale in my restaurant?
* Can I make a comedy version of a hot song and sell my version without paying anyone royalties?
* When a song is played on the radio, which of the following gets paid? The person who wrote the words, the person who wrote the music, the person who performed the song? The individuals who own the rights to the words, the music, the recording?
* If you commission a sculpture of your dog and the sculptor gives you the finished piece in raw marble, can you paint it to be lifelike and display it on your front lawn?
* Can I sing the latest hit song in my shower?
* Can I get together with my friends and sing the latest hit song in my living room?
* Can I get together with my friends and sing the latest hit song on the street corner for free?
* Can I get together with my friends and sing the latest hit song on the street corner and accept donations in a hat?
* Can I get together with my friends and sing the latest hit song in a club for free?
* Can I get together with my friends and sing the latest hit song in a club and get paid?
* Can I recite the words to a current hit song in a poetry reading contest?
* Can I recite the words to a poem my friend wrote (without their permission) in a poetry reading contest?
*
*
*
*

I hope this helps to get someone thinking. Please feel free to help me make this clearer or suggest new questions if you can. Also, feel free to treat this as if it had been GPLed for now. Still looking for the best GPL like license for non-programs.

--------

Thoughts? (Fixed a few spelling mistakes.)

Offline Scrobbling Idea

Offline Scrobbling Idea for libre.fm from portable music devices.


Offline Scrobbling Idea by drew Roberts is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

OK, so I was playing music on my son's Zen today for him while he was doing some of his homework. This idea came to me.

Why not have device makers accumulate scrobbling data while not connected to the net and then allow the resulting file to be processed by the device or the user's PC at a later time?

Thoughts on this idea appreciated.

all the best,

drew

Care about FreeArt?

Care about FreeArt?

Care about FreeArt? by drew Roberts is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

If you care about Free Art it might make sense to give as much of your attention budget as possible to those making it. Make it a non-zero amount.

Your attention includes promoting it to others.

Some of your monetary budget might be a good idea too but I figure your attention budget might be more important.

If you prefer to think of Free Culture or a subset such as Free Music, cool.

If You Have Something *Important* To Say, Set It Free!

If You Have Something *Important* To Say, Set It Free!

If You Have Something *Important* To Say, Set It Free! by drew Roberts is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

If you have something important to say, set it Free using something like the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License or their Attribution License.

If you are unwilling to set it Free, don't expect me to think you think it is important. To me, you are saying that money is more important to you than your message. Forgive me if I don't spend my time, which I value, on your message.

all the best,

drew

License for this post: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

EDL (edit decision list) Audio player functionality

EDL (edit decision list) Audio player functionality

EDL (edit decision list) Audio player functionality by drew Roberts is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

What I started looking for is an audio player that can do for audio when mplayer can do for video as described here:

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/edl.html

It would be so simple if mplayer would do this for audio as well as video but it does not seem to want to.

Cannot use EDL without video, disabling.

So. I have been on a twisty journey for a few days but it looks like I have found a workable if sub-optimal solution.

I can do the thing with ecasound and ewf files and ecaplay to play multiple ewf files one after the other.

Now, can I hack up a quick utility to take the edl file that I can create in mplayer even though I can't use it there and write multiple ewf files for ecaplay to play for me.

I really want something simpler and cross platform.

Why can't mplayer do this for audio only? Does anyone know of another Free Software player that can do this?

I will update this post as I get new info and include any script I come up with as well. (Or a link to the script)

all the best,

drew

Edit: here is a pastebin link to the code in case there are problems with cop and paste below.

Edit: (this is my first working demo, hopefully the formatting will not bork things)

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# ecaedl.pl
# script to take an mplayer created edl file
# and the corresponding audio file and write
# a series of ecasound ewf files to match
# mplayer's edl file and then play them in
# sequence with ecaplayer

use strict;

use Getopt::Long;
use File::Basename;


my ($help, $edl, $audfile, $result, $line, @lines, @parts, $numfiles, $oom, $efw, $efwo, $outfile, $name, $dir, $ext, @args);

sub usage
{
print "Unknown option: @_\n" if ( @_ );
print "usage: program [--edl edlfilename ] [--audfile audfilename] [--help|-h|-?]\n";
exit;
}


usage() if ( ! GetOptions('help|h|?' => \$help, 'edl=s' => \$edl, 'audfile=s' => \$audfile) or defined $help or ! defined $edl or ! defined $audfile);

print "$edl\n";
print "$audfile\n";
($name,$dir,$ext) = fileparse($edl,'\..*');
print "dir is $dir, name is $name, extension is $ext\n";



open(EDLF, $edl);
@lines = <EDLF>;
close(EDLF);
$numfiles = scalar @lines;
$oom = length($numfiles);
print "The number of files is $numfiles, order of magnitude $oom\n";

$efw = 1;
$efwo = substr("00000000$efw",-$oom);
print "$efwo\n";

for $line (@lines) {
@parts = split(/ /, $line);
$outfile = $name.$efwo."."."ewf";
print "Outfile = $outfile\n";
open(EDWF, ">$outfile");
print EDWF "source = $audfile\n";
print EDWF "start-position = $parts[0]\n";
print EDWF "length = $parts[1]\n";
close(EDWF);
$efw = $efw + 1;
print "efw is now $efw\n";
$efwo = substr("00000000$efw",-$oom);
print "$efwo\n";
system("ecaplay $outfile");
}