I made another song for Nexuiz (& a new one - 15/4)

[Alien]

Hmm, there is no rule. You could search for the discussion about it in one of the threads, AFAIK, Tenshinhan's failed accusal by leileilol. For me, the source, which requires proprietary app to render it, is not a source, cause it requires having that app. Anyway, there are no sources of elysis works or meoblast one in svn.

This means that once Id Software or some other company threatens to sue us, we'll have the remove the music.

Do you really think this argument is reasonable? Like ID would want to be notorious for releasing the source and then destroying open source project built on that source? And nobody said they would win the court in the first case. Firstly, GPL wasn't tested in the court yet as a really working license (Cisco vs FSF case is still going on, mplayer devs even haven't gone to sue the KISS tech for breaching the mplayer GPL license). Therefore, having no proof that GPL works there is even less proof that GPL would work for sound or any other thing it wasn't meant for.

[blkrbt]

Hi

Thanks for all the replies. Everyone keeps mentioning Audition, I used Reaper to track and mix this.

Firstly, @ai, I think it might be your decoder, or your headphones. Listening to the mix through Seinnheiser HD201s it sounds fine. I know what clipping sounds like, there was also no visual identification of clipping, the individual instrument tracks do not peak, nor does the master track. I'm using a multi band compressor and hard limiter over the entire thing, and the end result of that is the -0.6db ceiling I set. I will upload in a different format, though.

Releasing the project file introduces new problems. Not only the size, but when the plugins save their current state to the project file, that data might be considered part of the plugins's proprietary code. If I render each track of the multi-track to a wav files, it'll end up being far far too big for me to upload.

As for the OGG looping, I'm quite confused on that. Since there's only a “loop start”, would that mean the end of the song would need to cut off where I want it to start looping? For the most part, when you're actually playing, even without a seamless loop it's usually not entirely noticeable that it's repeating itself.

I've rendered the track to a flac file (18mb), but someone is going to have to point me in the right direction of where I can upload it, also, still not sure what license I should declare this under and how to do it. If someone can just tell me the license of the rest of the music, so I can just use that license, or we can assume it's under that license.

Thanks

[divVerent]

Do you really think this argument is reasonable? Like ID would want to be notorious for releasing the source and then destroying open source project built on that source?

Only if you really believe that a project without source is "open source". Be sure that ID would, in such a case, make a press release where they clearly state and prove that the game whose authors they sued does violate the license (by them not providing source for some binary).

And nobody said they would win the court in the first case. Firstly, GPL wasn't tested in the court yet as a really working license (Cisco vs FSF case is still going on, mplayer devs even haven't gone to sue the KISS tech for breaching the mplayer GPL license). Therefore, having no proof that GPL works there is even less proof that GPL would work for sound or any other thing it wasn't meant for.

Well.

If the GPL does NOT apply, due to whatever reasons, it means that there is NO license to distribute anything. In case it does NOT apply, any copying is a copyright violation. It certainly would NOT render the content public domain.

So in case the GPL is not valid, there is no question left to answer - any distribution would be ILLEGAL.

However, the GPL requires "linked" content to be under the GPL too, which includes sounds that are specially linked to the code, or the model. What constitutes such linkage is unclear, but syncing an animation to a sound would be very likely linkage. Distributing it together as a single work (like Nexuiz) would, of course, make a derived work of everything, so it is ONE work, and must have ONE license. Thus, the sounds and music must be under the GPL, or the whole thing is illegal to distribute.

By the way, there HAVE been cases in court where the GPL has been enforced. One of them was D-Link getting sued for GPL violations on the Linux kernel:

http://www.linux.com/articles/57353

However, the court has not decided whether the GPL is a valid license at all. It simply ruled: EITHER the GPL is not a valid license, then D-Link had no right to distribute the kernel, and thus it violated the copyright... OR the GPL is valid, then D-Link did not follow its terms, thus had the rights the GPL grants can't apply, and violated the copyright too.

The one reason why the GPL _could_ be an invalid license is its language. Most countries require legal documents in their own language, or they aren't enforcable. If a German software author licenses his software under the English GPL, he might later retract the licensing by claiming that there was never a license at all - he did not understand the license, thus no contract was formed between him and people who downloaded the software. How a court would decide such a case is unclear, as the other side is that the internet is a quite international medium, and he would be expected to know English.

[Fisume!]

Good job!

[Alien]

Only if you really believe that a project without source is "open source". Be sure that ID would, in such a case, make a press release where they clearly state and prove that the game whose authors they sued does violate the license (by them not providing source for some binary).

Depends on what the source is. Nobody defined what the source of the sound file is. A project file is only interpretation, what the source could be. It has no legal background to prove if the GPL is really applicable to soundl.

Well.

If the GPL does NOT apply, due to whatever reasons, it means that there is NO license to distribute anything. In case it does NOT apply, any copying is a copyright violation. It certainly would NOT render the content public domain.

So in case the GPL is not valid, there is no question left to answer - any distribution would be ILLEGAL.

However, the GPL requires "linked" content to be under the GPL too, which includes sounds that are specially linked to the code, or the model. What constitutes such linkage is unclear, but syncing an animation to a sound would be very likely linkage. Distributing it together as a single work (like Nexuiz) would, of course, make a derived work of everything, so it is ONE work, and must have ONE license. Thus, the sounds and music must be under the GPL, or the whole thing is illegal to distribute.

By the way, there HAVE been cases in court where the GPL has been enforced. One of them was D-Link getting sued for GPL violations on the Linux kernel:

http://www.linux.com/articles/57353

However, the court has not decided whether the GPL is a valid license at all. It simply ruled: EITHER the GPL is not a valid license, then D-Link had no right to distribute the kernel, and thus it violated the copyright... OR the GPL is valid, then D-Link did not follow its terms, thus had the rights the GPL grants can't apply, and violated the copyright too.

The one reason why the GPL _could_ be an invalid license is its language. Most countries require legal documents in their own language, or they aren't enforcable. If a German software author licenses his software under the English GPL, he might later retract the licensing by claiming that there was never a license at all - he did not understand the license, thus no contract was formed between him and people who downloaded the software. How a court would decide such a case is unclear, as the other side is that the internet is a quite international medium, and he would be expected to know English.

It could be the same thing as with the Creative Commons non-commercial use with no real definition of what actually source code (non-commercial use) is.

[Diomedes]

Woah, that's an impressive song, nice one!

[divVerent]

Only if you really believe that a project without source is "open source". Be sure that ID would, in such a case, make a press release where they clearly state and prove that the game whose authors they sued does violate the license (by them not providing source for some binary).

Depends on what the source is. Nobody defined what the source of the sound file is. A project file is only interpretation, what the source could be. It has no legal background to prove if the GPL is really applicable to soundl

If it is NOT applicable to sound, this whole thing is moot, as it would be entirely impossible to use ANY sound in a game that's under the GPL.

Also, source code IS defined by the GPL:

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it.

GPLv3 has this same definition, but clarifies further:

The Corresponding Source for a work in source code form is that same work.

Now, normally, the ogg or wav file is NOT the "preferred form of the work for making modifications to it". However, depending on how it was created, it may be it anyway.

For example, if you make an image, and have to apply some filter to the result of merging the layers, and this filter is NOT linear (be it resynthesizing, gamma correction, or a median filter), you can't work around it by applying the filter to each layer separately. This means you have to flatten the image, to merge all layers into one. All the layer information is lost here, and then, the XCF/PSD file would be no gain over the resulting TGA file. In this case, the texture TGA file basically "is" the source code - simply because it's the only editable form at all that is complete.

If, on the other hand, your image editing application allows non-destructive editing even in such cases, and can preserve the input even after flattening (e.g. because it stores the whole "undo history" with its project files), its project files WOULD be the only source, as it is fully editable and nothing else would be.

Now in image editing, we are simply not that far yet in "widespread" applications. There once WAS such an app for Windows 3.1 that could do this (and also work on very large images by actually working on a small preview, and applying all the edits to the large source images on request), but neither this app nor its methods ever caught on.

In video editing, on the other hand, we ARE that far. Non-destructive video editing is the standard.

As for music, I simply don't know what apps store as project format. Also, not all people make music the same way. E.g. if it is a live recording, the recording obviously IS the preferred form for editing - while, on the other hand, the POSSIBLE editing is very limited.

If your app however stores a project format and allows later edits with it, it most likely IS the source code. And as you have even publicly stated to possess such a source, you cannot later claim the wav is the preferred form for editing. Thus, these project files would be required.

You do not have to give us these files now, but you have to keep them and give them out to anyone who requests them. Obviously, it'd be better if you'd store them at a public location instead, just to get that problem out of your way.

To conclude: do you prefer editing your music in wav form and throw that project file away, or do you prefer editing that project file? Do you think anyone would believe you if you told him you always edit the wav file as that's easier (assuming you're not talking about a live recording)?

[blkrbt]

Hi.

Thanks for the lengthy response. I think I get it now.

Unfortunately, if the multi-track project file, being what would be used if I were to make modifications is considered the source under GPL, I won't be able to distribute this under GPL. I used a lot of proprietary software, and the data they save of their current state inside the project file might not be something I'm licensed to distribute. The project file also weighs around 100MB, which is quite large considering my net speed.

Alternately I attempted to render the multi-track project file to stem tracks (so each instrument's channel would be a separate wave file) which is considered a viable way for modification to be done, but unfortunately this results in 1.05GBs of data, which is far too large and troublesome for me to distribute.

Is there any way around this? I could distribute the song as a lossless wave, or in it's unmastered form, but neither of them would strictly constitute as it's source.

I don't think this is going to be able to be GPLed, unless there is some way around this.. hmm. Are all the other songs on Nexuiz GPLed with their available multi-track project files?

Thanks anyway.

[Alien]

If it is NOT applicable to sound, this whole thing is moot, as it would be entirely impossible to use ANY sound in a game that's under the GPL.

What? Somehow Space Trader is using id Tech 3 (GPL'ed) with proprietary art and music. CC is incompatible with GPL and used in wsw.

Also, source code IS defined by the GPL:

GPL v2 wrote:

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it.


GPLv3 has this same definition, but clarifies further:

GPL v3 wrote:

The Corresponding Source for a work in source code form is that same work.

GPL v2 - one could argue that his preferred form is working with binary data. Or is there universally defined thing as preferred form? I doubt so.

GPL v3 - The Corresponding Source for a work in source code form is that same work.
??? The Corresponding Source for a binary blob in source code form is that same binary blob. Sounds illogical. Maybe work has a special definition here.

Continuing about music. Musician's DAW usually has projects, but what if you produce several separate wavs and mix them using e.g. reaper. What would you define as source? If you get project files, you will still need to mix. If you get reaper project, you still need original wav files. In that case, it seems you need to put out all projects of all music apps you used to create that piece of sound which sounds ridiculous, cause not the material is GPL'ed but the whole process, which is way different. Giving is the source in any of the programming languages does not mean you need to give ide project files or makefiles or anything else.

Same goes to image editing. One could argue that he is very talented pixel artist and created that and that using paint equivalent. What would be the proof that he didn't? His post at forum claiming he has a psd file. Nobody would take it serious at any case.

Therefore all lossless things should be considered as source, cause they are the solo things which do not differ what artist has rendered/produced at his studio.

Anyway, I could find Stallman's post where he mentions that it's better to use CC instead of GPL because GPL was meant neither for music nor art.

I don't think this is going to be able to be GPLed, unless there is some way around this.. hmm. Are all the other songs on Nexuiz GPLed with their available multi-track project files?.

IF they are available (big question mark), definitely not svn.

[blkrbt]

So am I good to just declare it under the CC license instead?

In the mean time I've made another song along the same theme, linked to in the original post.