Is all your music GPL?

For collaboration between the different artists creating music and sound for vegastrike.
starfortress2
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Is all your music GPL?

Post by starfortress2 »

Is all your music GPL?
I would like to use some of your music for background noise for a spacestation map I am making for Nexuiz (nexuiz.com). However I have been frightened because another mapper who thought adonthell (a GPL RPG game which seemed to be completely under the GPL) music was GPL is now being told by the music author that, although there was no notice that the music was not GPL, oops it is propriatary (even though he 'contributed' the music).

So I need to know if your music is propriatary like this other music or is it GPL and I thus can use it in my GPL map/project.

(The debacle about the adonthell music is here: http://alientrap.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1548 at page 2 and 3 it decends into a completely unrelated flame war ofcourse!) The music that was thought to be GPL was music by ZhayTee. It appears he believes diffrently about his music though no notice of this was given in the Adonthell sources or anywhere else.

This is a scary situation. What other media that we thought was open is not or is disputed? I think artists need to make clear their intentions in writing (text file with the art saying that they agree that their contribution is GPL like the rest of the game, otherwise they can change their mind later it seems).
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Re: Is all your music GPL?

Post by www2 »

@starfortress2
ower music is duo lisents under GNU/GPL v2 (i dont know that this is for all gpl projet or only with vega strike) and Creative Commons NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0 (stant alone lisents) and i think that we need move to the cc lisens...
and your cane alwases ask the auters of the music

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Post by starfortress2 »

Ok so I can use it as GPLv2. Thank you.

Please stay with the GPL. The 'non-commercial' part of that CC license stops things from going into Debian and other distros. It isn't really free if it prohibits commercial use. I suggest using the Share and share alike (no talk of commercial prohibitions) CC license instead, but aslong as it's also licensed under the GPL then it's fine.

The GPL is really a good license for many things so please stay under it, if you move new things to the non commercial license then it is no longer free software/media. It's just common share/freeware and not part of opensource movement. To be opensource/free it cannot restrict the commercial part.

The CC license movement has the drawback as the Share and share alike GPL like license is grouped in with the Un-Free Un-opensource/libere licenses that restrict commercial stuff and other things. So please be careful there. We don't want to slide back into the darkage of "free but not really" of the freeware scene and then into the shareware scene.

You might say that some artists don't want to give everyone GPL like freedoms (including commercial use, as long as it stays opensource and not restricting other peoples use of it). Well those artists really aren't in the opensource/freesoftware movement then. I am an artist and I do GPL or BSD all my work. I you need some new textures or whatnot I can make you some (assuming vegastrike stays really libre and doesn't start non-commercial restriction sole licensing).

We must stay free/libre. Please don't go solely to that CC license.
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Post by www2 »

@starfortress2

we know about this is only is the cc lisens is for the use in a non gpl use.

only i can say that your need concact the auturs of the music about the use in the your game and i think that that agree on this turms

and for the info about the lisents can your pont to here: http://vegastrike.svn.sourceforge.net/v ... unk/music/

note: this can beter ask to hellcatv, i can only gift your the general idea.

edit: move to "Music and Sound Collaboration"
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Post by starfortress2 »

Ok thank you for clarifying. The game I'm involved in is fully GPL too, all the code, all the maps, all the textures, all the sounds, all the music, everything, so I'll be using the GPLv2 license as you said :). Thank you.

BTW: if any of these songs have a midi score you should maybe see if you could post them on http://www.mutopiaproject.org/. It is an opensource music source site and accepts new and original compositions too.

Thank you again.

Also if you need base interiors one day.. I have experiance in that with gtkradiant.
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Post by ace123 »

I suspect that the composer, Ken Suguro, probably has a midi score. However, as Mike Ducharme informaed me, composers often do not use General MIDI, and instead define their own set of instruments and tones, so it might not be easily converted to General MIDI.

Also, what is the name of this project you are working on?
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Post by www2 »

ace123 wrote:Also, what is the name of this project you are working on?
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Post by GoldenGnu »

starfortress2 wrote:It isn't really free if it prohibits commercial use.
I consider that BS..

Why should anyone give away their work, for others to earn money?
If others prosper from your work, you should be paid as well.

If they really would like to use your work for free, they should make their work free to!

just my 2 cents...
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Post by starfortress2 »

GoldenGnu wrote:
starfortress2 wrote:It isn't really free if it prohibits commercial use.
I consider that BS..

Why should anyone give away their work, for others to earn money?
If others prosper from your work, you should be paid as well.

If they really would like to use your work for free, they should make their work free to!

just my 2 cents...
It is not BS. If you cannot sell the stuff on a cd, like a linux disto, then it is restricted and non-free. You cannot, ofcourse, prohibit or stop anyone else from doing the same thing accoriding to the GPL ofcourse or putting it right back on the web for everyone to download so the amount of money you could net from that is rather limited.

As long as the media stays (as one of it's licenses) under the GPL all is fine. If it goes exclusive non-commercial then it is no longer open-source/free/libre and cannot be in debian or other distros anymore and we lose an great game from open-source and have to make atleast a media fork.

Oh, I have some music to contribute (under the GPLv2)
https://cat2.dynu.ca/cat2/media.html

The Well - Aria version 1:
https://cat2.dynu.ca/cat2/thewellariav1.ogg
https://cat2.dynu.ca/cat2/thewellariav1.mid
https://cat2.dynu.ca/cat2/thewellariav1.rg

There's the ogg, the midi (a source file) and the rosegarden file (the original source before being converted to midi and then recorded as ogg).

Organ Song version 1:
https://cat2.dynu.ca/cat2/organsong1v1.ogg
https://cat2.dynu.ca/cat2/organsong1v1.mid
https://cat2.dynu.ca/cat2/organsong1v1.rg

And ofcourse there are the other (GPLv2d) songs on there.
If you decided to use these could you include the mid and rg files too (they aren't big).

Also could you, perhapse, see if the original artists for the other songs hav midis, rg files, anything like that if possible (and distribute those too). Makes it so you can read/edit the notes.

GoldenGnu: Consider it BS all you want. I am a content maker / artist myself. I make music, textures, 2d art, 3d models here and there, and 3d (and 2d for the crossfire RPG) worlds/maps. I don't consider it BS at all.

Open Content is just as important as Open Code. As long as the content stays dual licensed under the GPL it's find though (the other license is for other projects). But it is not BS.

This is from an content maker himself. It's very important.
Remeber that please.


--MikeeUSA--
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Post by www2 »

@starfortress2

This is the curent lisents sceam:

for the source code, content:
we use the GPL lisents.

for the music:
1. if your project use the the gpl lisents can your use the gpl lisents.
2. for the pay linux distros is alowe the distrubution of the music under the turms of the gpl
3. for freeware close source (non gpl) projets, p2p and non profit (internet) radio station we alowe broadtcast or distrubution of ouwer the distrubution of ouwer music (this is the the rules cc-by-nc lisents)
5. we dont alow the music use in commercial projets that make profit (like game form EA&co)

The main lisents is the gpl and the cc-by-nc lisents is only a adition to the gpl for the non gpl use and distebution.
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Post by starfortress2 »

Ok, thank you. That is a good licensing scheme. Since the game I'm making the map for is fully GPL (it's code, music, textures, sfx, maps, everything) and the map I am making is GPL I will use the GPL license. GPL is great :).
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Post by GoldenGnu »

starfortress2 wrote:
GoldenGnu wrote:
starfortress2 wrote:It isn't really free if it prohibits commercial use.
I consider that BS..

Why should anyone give away their work, for others to earn money?
If others prosper from your work, you should be paid as well.

If they really would like to use your work for free, they should make their work free to!

just my 2 cents...
It is not BS. If you cannot sell the stuff on a cd, like a linux disto, then it is restricted and non-free. You cannot, ofcourse, prohibit or stop anyone else from doing the same thing accoriding to the GPL ofcourse or putting it right back on the web for everyone to download so the amount of money you could net from that is rather limited.

As long as the media stays (as one of it's licenses) under the GPL all is fine. If it goes exclusive non-commercial then it is no longer open-source/free/libre and cannot be in debian or other distros anymore and we lose an great game from open-source and have to make atleast a media fork.
--MikeeUSA--
I redraw my comment... You're right, I'm wrong...
I clearly misunderstood you... when you referred to "commercial software", I though you meant closed source software, which was not the case...

Gnu GPL FTW :D
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Post by starfortress2 »

Here's another song I just made. GPL'd ofcourse:

https://caethaver2.dynu.ca/cat2/thewellevolectrov3.mid
https://caethaver2.dynu.ca/cat2/thewellevolectrov3.ogg
https://caethaver2.dynu.ca/cat2/thewellevolectrov3.rg

Note: The .ogg would sound better if re-recorded with better midi patches (I'm using freepats, which are good (better then what we used to have in free software) but needs more help, if you can make samples please contribute to the freepats project at http://freepats.opensrc.org)

My media page is: https://caethaver2.dynu.ca/cat2/media.html
Everything of mine there is either GPL or BSD Licensed.
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Post by jwrdegoede »

Hi,

Short intro: I'm a Fedora Linux developer, and amongst other things I maintain the vegastrike packages for Fedora. I'm currently looking into updating the vegastrike packages to 0.5.0.
www2 wrote:@starfortress2

This is the curent lisents sceam:

for the source code, content:
we use the GPL lisents.

for the music:
1. if your project use the the gpl lisents can your use the gpl lisents.
2. for the pay linux distros is alowe the distrubution of the music under the turms of the gpl
3. for freeware close source (non gpl) projets, p2p and non profit (internet) radio station we alowe broadtcast or distrubution of ouwer the distrubution of ouwer music (this is the the rules cc-by-nc lisents)
5. we dont alow the music use in commercial projets that make profit (like game form EA&co)

The main lisents is the gpl and the cc-by-nc lisents is only a adition to the gpl for the non gpl use and distebution.
This is a bit unclear to me, esp. with regards to the last sentence:
"The main lisents is the gpl and the cc-by-nc lisents is only a adition to the gpl for the non gpl use and distebution."

Do you mean with this sentence , that the music is dual licensed under the GPL and the cc-by-nc license?

Regards,

Hans
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Post by ace123 »

What is definitely true is that all the music falls under the GPL (or else the music wouldn't have been contributed in the first place)

As to the CC license, I believe that is the case -- I think all the artists have agreed on dual licensing scheme with the creative commons. (I can't speak personally for them if there was some sort of misunderstanding)

If you look inside the music subfolder, you will notice a "LICENSE.STANDALONE" with the creative commons non-commercial license and a "COPYING" file with the GPL in it.
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Post by klauss »

The music doesn't have to be GPL - it can be distributed with the game since it's mere aggregation, AFAIK.

In fact, it's quite common that artwork will use a different license than the program itself. And... I believe... some tracks aren't GPL (Falik's for instance).
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Post by ace123 »

If that's the case, this is something that must be cleared up.

The COPYING file seems to suggest that all music there is under the GPL, and I don't think there is any obvious place that says otherwise.
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Post by klauss »

Yep, someone should - but I won't. I'm not well versed in licensing and legal stuff, even being direct descendant of someone of the Lawyer class. I'm kind of rebelled against lawful stuff - law enforcement is so fucked up here that it makes me throw up.

I just thought I'd point out that Falik never said he was licensing his stuff under the GPL, he merely gave us (express) permission to use it. In fact, IIRC, artwork is rarely distributed under the GPL since it's quite hard to distribute the source (the GPL requires distribution of, or free access to, the source). Hence the reason for being of the Creative Commons.
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Post by ace123 »

I still don't understand all the implications of these licenses.

The think that confuses me is what it means for something to be "upgraded" in a sense to the GPL...
Let's say hypothetically that the graphics and music were provided under the BSD license or Public Domain or something like that that does not require the source code to be distributed.
Would we then not be allowed to include this BSD/Public Domain content in GPL software since we don't have the source files?

Anyway I really have no idea what I'm talking about... This isn't the first legal issue I have with distribution under the GPL:
[EDIT]
The high school I went to has an online newspaper, and I was trying to get it released under an open source license like the GPL, but some lawyers got involved and the project never finished... a few contributors were only willing to release their code under the GPL, and the school district only would release it under a license that they wrote, and things got too confusing.
It's really sad, because I wanted to see the code released, but legal problems seem to get in the way of everything. (Either from misunderstandings, or that people get too concerned that one thing might be distributed the wrong way to see the big picture).
[/EDIT]

Perhaps it would be best to have a list of the music and data files that are definitely GPL, and move the others to a separate package, or list clearly which ones cannot be distributed/modified.
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Post by jwrdegoede »

Hmm,

As ace123 said, this is something that must be cleared up. We (Fedora) cannot distribute the vegastrike music unless its clear under which license we may do this. And note that the CC by-sa-nc license is not acceptable for us. We don't need the music to be GPL, but it must be freely redistributable without restriction, and no commercial use is a restriction. An NC clause would for example mean that people cannot ditribute fedora on a dvd, unless they give the dvd away for free, as charging any money for the dvd could be seen as commercial use of the music.

So can you perhaps make a list of the songs that are actually under the GPL ?

Thanks & Regards,

Hans
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Post by klauss »

Actually, charging material, burning and shipping costs is not considered commercial use (true almost everywhere).
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Post by jwrdegoede »

klauss wrote:Actually, charging material, burning and shipping costs is not considered commercial use (true almost everywhere).
That is not how Fedora's lawyers see it, anyways discussing this is useless, any form of non commercial use clause is not acceptable for Fedora, so any songs which are only licensed under the CC by-sa-nc license cannot be distributed by Fedora,

Which leads me to repeating my previous question, can anyone make a list of songs which are actually GPL licensed?
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Post by klauss »

That's the problem with opensource licensing... lawyers get paranoid over stuff they didn't write, to the point of complaining about a clause that in reality isn't problematic at all.

I'm not saying it's the case with Fedora, it makes sense that they will try to avoid usage restrictions. But that's why Ogre has been using a dual licence - LGPL for those happy with it, and a commercial licence for companies unhappy with the LGPL.

I guess you'll have to contact the authors then. AFAIK, those are Ken Seguro, Falik, Zaydana, Peteyg and m1ck.
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Post by jwrdegoede »

klauss wrote: I guess you'll have to contact the authors then. AFAIK, those are Ken Seguro, Falik, Zaydana, Peteyg and m1ck.
Ok,

Can you give their email addresses and/or forum login names to me then?

I'll send you a pm with my email address.

Thanks & Regards,

Hans
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Post by hellcatv »

We definitely had cleared this up when we initially asked the artists to make the music files:
I was in touch with Ken Suguro after he gave me his very inspiring music and we agreed that by GPL music it meant that the lossless audio is the source and the binaries are available as compressed .ogg files. Those are definitely available on the website.

Also PeteyG who did a lot of the second set of musics also had agreed to have GPL music. And I had a lengthy discussion with dalek on the matter of GPL license and he agreed that the songs he did for Vega Strike were GPL but that anything for other mods that he would do in the future may not be.

Since then others have committed music to the svn, specifically zaydana and m1ck. People later on after the project had been GPL for years should know that music they submit to a project under the GPL is GPL. The appropriate thing to do is do what Ogre has done and make everyone who contributes sign a legally binding agreement to donate their material solely to the Vega Strike foundation and then that foundation can relicense it under the GPL (or LGPL as is the case) but we were being generous and allowing the artists to keep their music as long as we got a GPL license version. It says that this project is GPL on sourceforge, it says that in the license agreement that you agree to when you download it (and yes those artists have downloaded and agreed and known their songs were inside). The artists should all know that they don't get special treatment for art, and all artists I spoke with personally agreed (sometimes grudgingly) that it was worth the publicity and difference they can make to give away their music as free (not as in beer).

And yes Klauss got the music developers names correct. Hopefully they remember their discussions with me about licensing, or otherwise I can try to dig through my hard drive backups to find the actual conversations as evidence that they did agree.
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