Releasing the "source code" of music

Discuss how to promote using FLOSS to make music.

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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by Michael Willis »

Lyberta wrote:suicidal mode
If you are honestly feeling suicidal, then with all the love I can muster, I encourage you to please find a face-to-face support system to help you through it. I can't tell you how to do it, that's up to you. Online help might be beneficial too, but it can't compare to having a friend or therapist who is there for you in real physical meat space.

I know we've been at odds on this thread, but if you need somebody to talk to and don't have anybody in person, please send me a private message.

I actually have a lot of ideological overlap with you. I've been a free software fanatic for nearly fifteen years, I contribute financially to GPL projects, and I'm on this forum because I want to share in the joy of making music with tools that give people freedom. I'm appalled at companies that hoard very personal data about people, I value my privacy and my freedom, and I tell people that I prefer to use an operating system that doesn't make me beholden to some soulless corporation. Despite all of that, I don't think I would be helping win any battles, let alone a war, by publicly shaming some guy in front of his friends because he didn't share a chowder recipe with me.

To be honest, I'm feeling kind of disappointed that we have much potential to be allies, and I could even be convinced on some of our differences, but instead of building on common ground we have ended up so divided because we aren't a 100% ideological match.
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by wolftune »

42low wrote: If i develep a riff or tune and it is used for something commercial were i don't get my part, then that is some kind of theft. Then something which belongs to me is taken without permission, which is called theft.
It's as simple as that.
In other words, not simple at all. Legally, that situation is called "copyright infringement" and is certainly *not* "theft". Also, it's copyright infringement even if its used non-commercially if it's not fair use.

Now, if you never published the riff or tune and someone got it from you somehow (like cracking into your computer), that's quite different from you publishing it voluntarily. Once published, an unauthorized use of something isn't taking something away from you, it's just using it in an unauthorized way. No such use deprives you of having anything or not (aside from the twisted metaphor of depriving you of the power to restrict the use). This is the very nature of *non-rivalrous* goods.

Please note: I am not saying *here* whether or not you should or shouldn't have the right to restrict uses of your published works. I'm not saying here that if you have that right, you should necessarily not reserve it. All I'm saying is: it is a plain fact that your legal (and arguably moral) right to restrict uses of your published works has nothing to do with theft. It really *is* as simple as that.

The topic is about reservation (or non-reservation) of copyright and related rights. The topic is not theft.
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by Lyberta »

I have made 4 suicide attempts and been hospitalized 9 times in 4 different psychiatric hospitals. Noone in my country can help me. I am an LGBT person where being LGBT is illegal. I am anti-corruption where corrupted government beats, jails and murders people like me and sponsors terrorist attacks. I am FOSS gamer and musician in a world where there is no way to play video games or compose quality music without proprietary software.

When I'm not in front of my computer, I have to constantly struggle against my body (I am transgender), government and other citizens who are loyal to the government. When I'm in front of my computer, I have to struggle against proprietary software and surveillance. If I will use proprietary software, it may spy on me and give out my data to government which will lead to very bad consequences. Today I've read about school kid who brought anti-president badge in school and was immediately reported to police by the school authorities. Now he is facing a court and is being told that he has no future.

I have to use Tor to access the Internet, although there are plans to completely cut the country from the Internet. I have to encrypt all my messages using free software such as GNU Privacy Guard and OTR. Free software saves my life every day. And for that I am extremely grateful. That is why I value it so much.

I have starting assembling the documents to try to pursue asylum but I don't have the mental energy to complete it. If things will get worse, I will have no option than to kill myself.
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by wolftune »

Lyberta, let me add my voice to the others who have sent their basic solidarity and concern for your health and safety.

It's understandable how the attitude some may present over something less consequential like sources for a song can match the attitude you hear from proprietary software companies who go beyond being proprietary in itself and abuse their power to actually cause serious harm. The same "not getting it" happens in the latter case because most of these companies don't want the harm as an end in itself, they are just oblivious to it in their cultural context divorced from the rest of the world and focused on their pursuit of profit and power.

Although there's some room for bringing up the broader context so people understand why you care so much, there's also value in seeking understanding and solidarity where you can. Many of the people here who don't want to go out of their way to share music sources still agree with you on the more important issues of privacy, safety, freedom, etc. and we all hope for successful asylum for people like you (and better, a change to repressive governments in general).

Thanks for sharing, and please work to stay strong. When you think about the others even here as being oblivious or on the wrong side, it will lead to feeling more isolation and despair. If you recognize that we're all having some side discussions between people mainly on the same team, you'll feel better. To get there, try practicing Rapoport's Rules when debating: https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/community/h ... orts-rules

To everyone else, assume the claims are valid (since this stuff is indeed part of our world), it's good to reflect on and remember why FLO values really matter…
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by wolftune »

42low, if you want to play semantic games to insist on the idea that unauthorized use of "intellectual property" is "theft" of "property", then the only intellectually fair way to even consider that spin is to acknowledge that because it is non-rivalrous, it is still not at all analogous to theft of private-property (i.e. of rivalrous physical goods). We can either talk most honestly about the plain issues around copyright infringement or we can accept, for discussion, the term "theft" as in "you stole my monopoly by using my music without authorization" (which all seems a less productive way to talk, but is possible). But there's no room for anything other than confusion if you try to equate this issue with theft of private property in which the resource is actually no longer available or usable by you after the theft.
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by Lyberta »

The US law doesn't have the term intellectual property. If we assume that intellectual property exists, then people who use others' IP on proprietary terms are intellectual slaves.

[offtopic]I've suffered so much that I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Modern medicine doesn't have the cure for schizophrenia so it's most likely that I will never recover and keep posting angry posts.[/offtopic]
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by wolftune »

I appreciate RMS's views on the matter and always use quote marks, but the term "intellectual property" is used in U.S. law. It's not in the Constitution or anything but it's at the point where references to it exist in lots of legal documents and probably in some legislation and court opinions. Although it's unfortunate, the term is used by lawyers and in legal contexts. That doesn't mean it's any more sensible.

And people are liable to have a strong reaction to the use of "slave" here, but Nina's article is, of course, spot on. However, actually saying "intellectual property" and "intellectual slavery" while appropriate in pointing out how bad the terms are, it plays into the very idea that we *can* talk about this stuff that way. Even human slaves were *rivalrous* property while "intellectual property" is non-rivalrous, so they are fundamentally different. Accepting the concept of ideas as property is as WRONG as the concept of humans as property, and the arguments for each are comparable in their wrongness, but the truth of what ideas *are* and what humans *are* remain pretty distinct (unless we get down to the questions of whether a clone of myself *is* me and whether I am just the organization of my atoms in a pattern etc. which gets at the question of what it means to be you and to have an identity).
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by Lenny »

RMS is always right. We need more people like him (and Lyberta here) - not less.

People laugh at RMS, but it's exactly idealistic people like him who have made all this possible. I value them very high.

We are heading towards world, where *everything* can (and will) be represented as information, so to me as well this question is fundamental. Ownership of publicized ideas, those "fugitive fermentation of an individual brain" (quotation from article above) is something I really cannot understand. It's just wrong.
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by wolftune »

Lenny, you seem to misunderstand the context. Lyberta and I are aligned completely here and are *more* concerned about cultural freedom than RMS. RMS is not always right, he thinks it's fine for art to have ND non-free licenses, and he's wrong.

I'm not the person laughing at RMS or criticizing his ideals. I'm clarifying a particular point he made, one which I largely agree with.

And you seem to be in agreement with Lyberta and I, which is disagreement with RMS and his lack of full understanding of cultural freedom.
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by Lyberta »

wolftune wrote:unless we get down to the questions of whether a clone of myself *is* me and whether I am just the organization of my atoms in a pattern etc. which gets at the question of what it means to be you and to have an identity
3D printers will surely make us ask a lot of questions. I remember that anti-"piracy" ad: you wouldn't download a car... With 3d printer, I would!
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by Lenny »

wolftune wrote:Lenny, you seem to misunderstand the context. Lyberta and I are aligned completely here and are *more* concerned about cultural freedom than RMS. RMS is not always right, he thinks it's fine for art to have ND non-free licenses, and he's wrong.
Ok, fair enough - I don't all the views of RMS. But when he talks about software, he's spot on.
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by Gps »

Lyberta wrote: I have to use Tor to access the Internet, although there are plans to completely cut the country from the Internet. I have to encrypt all my messages using free software such as GNU Privacy Guard and OTR. Free software saves my life every day. And for that I am extremely grateful. That is why I value it so much.

I have starting assembling the documents to try to pursue asylum but I don't have the mental energy to complete it. If things will get worse, I will have no option than to kill myself.
It might be easy for me to say, but if you kill youre self, you let the assholes win.

To some extent I think I understand how you feel.
Short version, years ago, I got ill, and now I can find a job.

Because of this I have much more time, to do stuff I like, if only I had enough money it would be perfect.
On the bright-side I have much more time, to try to compose music.

I also however learned who is in charge in this world. and Its not my government,

I sometimes get very frustrated, but never will I let those assholes win, and kill myself.
I prefer to stay around and hopefully, by spreading the word, one day, we the people will revolt together.

More on topic, I am a fan of Richard Stallman, but I am also a computer user, who likes to use a minimoog vst.
I also like to play game like alien isolation, so I have to use the proprietary video drivers, on openSUSE.

I must admit, I maybe should look better at the license used on soundcloud.
But the way I understand things, I release my music, so that everybody can do with my music as the like, as long as the admit they used my project.
Anybody who wants the lmms file of a song of mine only needs to ask. :)
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by wolftune »

Did you know that when we play a dvd a warning text comes first that says "copying is theft"? I didn't created that definition.
Nobody accused you of making up the idea that "copying is theft", we only were clarifying that the idea is in *fact* wrong. Copying is not theft. You *do* seem to have fabricated the idea that DVD warnings say "copying is theft". I'm pretty sure they never say that. They talk about prohibitions against unauthorized reproduction and such. I can't find any example that says anything about "theft" https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dvd+warning+&iax=1&ia=images
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by Lyberta »

Gps wrote:It might be easy for me to say, but if you kill youre self, you let the assholes win.

To some extent I think I understand how you feel.
Short version, years ago, I got ill, and now I can find a job.

Because of this I have much more time, to do stuff I like, if only I had enough money it would be perfect.
On the bright-side I have much more time, to try to compose music.
I was declared mentally disabled and started to receive pension of 250$/month. So far it is enough to pay for food so I have time to work on [A]GPL software and CC-BY-SA music.
42low wrote:SO I DIDN'T MAKE THAT UP, AND I DON'T TALK SHIT!!!
You didn't make this up. Whoever made the movie made this up. The final authority is the judge in a court case. Don't automatically believe in what random people (even if those random people have a lot of money) say.
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Re: Releasing the "source code" of music

Post by wolftune »

42low, I hope you at least guess at the truth: I'm not taking any of the bold or over-the-top things all that seriously. This is a casual discussion forum, and I know we're all mainly on the same page here in lots of regards. I'm not taking this debate all that seriously or emotionally.

At any rate, it's indeed obvious that "copying is theft" is not an original idea that you have, it's a widespread view promoted by corporate publishers making lots of propaganda to spread that view. It happens to also be false. You can repeat an idea an infinite number of times and get more people to agree, but that's still not the measure of whether it's true or not.

Again: we could go with "copying is theft" just to *avoid* semantic arguments, as long as you recognize that the "theft" that comes with copying is totally unlike the theft of private property. The problem isn't the word. The problem is the invalid equation of copying with stealing a car or such things.

There ARE issues around copying. But none of them are the *same* issues as someone stealing your car. So, the main point is to not have that invalid argument but to discuss the actual issues that actually apply.
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