Hi,

It has been brought to my attention that there is a Nexiuz map called "dastower40", by a certain "MikeeUSA", which makes use of one of my songs (at-menu.ogg). I did not give permission to MikeeUSA for the use of my song in his or her map.

Nexiuz seems like a cool game and all, but I do not want my music to be used in this way unless I grant permission first. So please e-mail me if you want to use my music. I may even be willing to create some original tunes for your map, who knows!

I am hoping that MikeeUSA and anyone else who has or is planning to gank music without first securing permission from the composer will see this.

Thanks,

--JT
http://zhaymusic.com/

Removed the map from my server for that reason. MikeeUSA may be an idiot, but the way how he stresses it is "GPLd" all the time made me think the music actually is free to use.

Out of interest, can you prove the ownership in any way? at-menu.ogg may imply it is the menu for something you made - what is it?

Sorry for that.

divVerent, admin of the RBI server


Update: I looked on your website, it seems to be the game "adonthell", which seems to be GPL licensed. By that, MikeeUSA is free to use the music in any way he wants as long as his complete package is under the GPL again. So his use of your music seems to be legal.

Still, you are the author (your website seems to be proof of ownership enough), so IMHO you shall have the final word. Map will stay deleted on my server.

Actually I was looking for a reason to get rid of the map as I do not like it, so you were quite welcome to come Now how to get rid of blueamuse?

The original song can be downloaded from my site via the following URL:

http://zhaymusic.com/music/at-menu-full.mp3

It was made in 2001 for an opensource game called Adonthell. The .ogg version is included in the distribution of that game, which you can find on their official site:

http://adonthell.linuxgames.com/

While Adonthell is a GPL'd project, and while my music is used in that game (via my explicit granting of permission), I still retain copyright and licensing rights to the music.

I love helping out opensource projects by providing original music, but I do request that I be contacted before my music is used. Perhaps I should make this more clear on my site!

Thanks for your reply,

--JT
http://zhaymusic.com/

ZhayTee wrote:While Adonthell is a GPL'd project, and while my music is used in that game (via my explicit granting of permission), I still retain copyright and licensing rights to the music.

In that case, you should REALLY notify everyone who is distributing adonthell. They all seem to believe the WHOLE game is under the GPL, including your music. With Nexuiz, this is the case BTW.

If that is the case, the package adonthell-data in Debian must be removed from main and get moved to non-free, or the music should be removed from the package and put in an extra package adonthell-music, as the license of your music seems to be different from the one of the game. The same would go for the adonthell data in any other Linux distribution.

Do the licensing terms of the game package indicate that? I do not have the game here and my line is quite slow, so I did not check. Just trying to find out whose fault these unclear terms are.

I just extracted adonthell and wasteedge and don't find your music in there... where is it?

So.... no flying over the tower on the RBI server anymore?
You remove my toys lol

Your music is really good!

Too bad that MikeeUSA got his grubby hands on it though.

Okay, the file is actually not at-menu.ogg, but at-demo-2.ogg.

That file IS being released by the adonthell people under the terms of the GPL - the archive wastesedge-src-0.3.4.tar.gz on the adonthell website contains no note about the music tracks being licensed under another license.

If you did not grant the adonthell people the rights on the music under the GPL, they are not allowed to release it that way. They have to clearly indicate which parts are covered by the GPL and which aren't. Currently there is no such indication - the source archive just contains the GPL in the COPYING file and states in the README that the game (which means the whole game, of course, as there is nothing saying only part of it is covered) is released under the terms of the GPL.

So legally, the only ones violating your copyright seem to be the adonthell people who released the files that way - one can't blame MikeeUSA for believing what he read in the adonthell licensing terms.

HOWEVER: just taking the music without asking is rude, no matter if it is allowed or not. And IF you allowed the adonthell people to release your music under the GPL, this probably is the last time that you licensed music under that license. See what such rude people are causing.

Now... I do not know if that music has a so-called "source"... but if it has, the GPL requires anyone who distribute it to provide the source on request. For music, "source" seems to refer to either the score or the tracker input file. If it's improvisation, there is no such thing, of course - the recorded file then "is" the source and there is no problem. I am not sure if you or the adonthell people are aware of the consequence of putting music under the GPL... it basically means:

• Anyone can use the music for his own GPL project!
• Anyone has the right to receive the source (score, tracker files) of the music!
• Anyone even has the right to EDIT that source and rebuild ("re-record") it, as long as the result is still put under the GPL!

For music, you may be better off with one of the creative commons licenses - but then the music is licensed differently from the rest of the game and thus can't be provided in the same package.

At the risk of repeating myself:

Music and general content cannot use the GPL directly, and these are exactly the issues that comes up. But if the music is to be distributed in a GPL.like fashion, there cannot be a "source" for it, as the entire phrasing of the GPL is ment to be applied to machine code and its uncomiled source. One can arguably say that an uncompressed file is the source for a compressed audio file, but that is pushing it. In the sense of content being published GPLish, one must simply assume that the data itself is the content in question.

However. I hope you, ZhayTee, manages to solve any issues about this and I'm quite sure the Nexuiz community will be helpful and accommodate any such requests.

Please note that noone considers MikeUSA a part of this community. He is the only person ever that has managed to be blocked from the Alientrap forums, and he has managed to be banned several times, due to his rude behavior. (if I'm confusing him with someone else, please let me know asap )

Someone should write a content license in GPL fashion.

GPL music: Technically it is possible, but it becomes a "too free" license that artists are unlikely to accept.

But for music and GPL code to be in one package (like in Nexuiz's case), one HAS to use such a licensing model, because otherwise distributing the full package would violate the GPL (see below). Basically this means a GPL project can't have music, unless by a VERY generous author who does grant this type of license. Now assume the OP did that - I still can understand him very well when he gets upset by someone actually USING these rights without asking first (which is what you - morally - just HAVE to do before using someone else's art) and never use such a license again.

For a recording, the audio track CAN be the source, unless there is a "better" thing to be called source (like the score or a tracker file). The GPL then applies quite nicely... but it just provides TOO MANY rights.

Now... why can't a GPL game have non-GPL music? Simply: it loads and plays the music, and the music is part of the game experience. Thus, it "links against" the music (dynamically) and it may only do that if the music is ALSO under the GPL. A possible way out would be separating music and game into two packages, the music package being under a different license, but the game would have to run without it too - and then without music, but everything else would work. And quite some game projects actually do such a separation between music and rest or between data and code.

A content license for music BTW would not help with this - it would not be GPL compatible and therefore STILL need separate distribution of the two parts. In that case, one should better use the already existing licenses that work well for music, like the Creative Commons ones.

And yes, that rude "death to women's rights" guy IS mikeeusa and he did get banned from our forum quite often (with different ban evading nicknames)... and this request is actually a good reason to remove his map from my server even though people complained when I did so (personally I can't stand that map, I do not know why so many players want it). Also note that dastower40 is NOT part of Nexuiz, it is a map made by someone else and only automatically downloaded if a server hosts the map. It is NOT contained in the Nexuiz package!

Hi guys,

Thanks for the input. I'll see if I can get this straightened out!

--JT
http://zhaymusic.com/

tChr wrote:But if the music is to be distributed in a GPL.like fashion, there cannot be a "source" for it,

if it's a tracker module, you can

leileilol wrote:

tChr wrote:But if the music is to be distributed in a GPL.like fashion, there cannot be a "source" for it,

if it's a tracker module, you can

No it cant. cuase the tracker module still contains binary data.

If its a midi, that is hardware dependent.

Trying to apply GPL to non-executable program content is just stupid.

But one HAS to apply it to such data because otherwise a game can't use it.

That is due to the infectious nature of the GPL... and yes, it would be good if the GPL had an exception that allows to distribute mere "data" under another license.

"No it cant. cuase the tracker module still contains binary data."

No, not really. It contains the "notes" and the "samples". The samples just ARE their own "source", just like the string "hello world" is its own source.

In any case - code is code, and artwork is artwork. And it is rude to take artwork without asking. If it was licensed under the terms of the GPL, the artist can't prevent you from using his work - but he STILL deserves that you ask so he knows who is using it. That's just an unwritten law.

Also, artists may request that you remove their name if you edited their works. The GPL actually would not allow you to do that - but if you changed too much, the artist will request that of you and basically grant you a new license that allows you to leave out his name.

To sort out such cases, the only sensible thing is to ask. Even if he writes on his website that anyone can use it for whatever he wants - ASK FIRST. If you do not do that, the result will be that artists won't give these freedoms any more to ANYONE. The thing is - if code is under the GPL, the author gets something back if you use his code. Bugfixes, improvements, whatever. But if music is under the GPL, there is no benefit at all to the author, but actually one can - fully legally - do much harm to the author, by editing the works in a bad way for example! This is the main reason why the GPL is a bad license for music - it allows people to damage the reputation of the composer, but he gets nothing back in exchange for that risk. Now if people actually abuse the rights given by the GPL, the only consequence is that these rights won't be given any more.

tChr wrote:No it cant. cuase the tracker module still contains binary data.

If its a midi, that is hardware dependent.

I suppose musicians agree that the score (printed or not) IS the "source code" of the music. Improvisations of course have no such "source", just like hand typed machine code has no "source".

And a tracker file is samples + score, a MIDI is basically the score.

divVerent wrote:No, not really. It contains the "notes" and the "samples". The samples just ARE their own "source", just like the string "hello world" is its own source.

Yes.. exactly.. and the samples of the final object is also its own source. Therefor talking about a source for any kind of finished data, except its own source data is redundant.

have you considered this:
The GPL requires that the source should be available on Paper if requested.. (is that removed in GPL2? ) how do you intend to to that with a piece of music

Another thing: what about video? Do you require the creator to keep all his/her original unedited clips and project files in case the source is requested.

As you said yourself. For it to be possible to apply GPL-like thinking to data, you have to accept the data as its own source. Or rather, the binary data as the source, and the alalogue output (wavelenghts of light, vibrations in air density (picture and sound)) as the content. This makes the (stupid) idea of any kind of "source" for binary content (other than machine executable) unnecessary.

ZhayTee: Is your music GPL? If you have released it as GPL then it is indeed GPL and your rights are not being violated. Since Adonthell is GPL and has all it's files under that license and you knowingly contributed to that project under that license then that song is GPL aswell. The tower map is also GPL and can legally use your music if your song is GPL. If you have released a song under GPL then you cannot recind or stop others from using the song under the terms and conditions of the GPL.

Many open source sites list your music as GPL. There is no claim in Adonthell that your music is not GPL.

Furthermore GPLd music helps the opensource community. Restricted music does nto help the opensource community, it hinders it instead if it is included in a opensource game.

So. When you contributed to Adonthell, a GPL licensed program and media package, did you tell them that your songs were not GPL?

Secondly: (and more importantly): do you wish to help the opensource community (by clarifing that the songs of adonthell are GPL) or harm it by creating a license dispute (GPL cannot be recinded once given).

Please clarify. You have good music, but when giving it to an open source project it needs to be free. Unfree music does not help.

The source for most music is easy: midis. Or wavs if recorded piece.

Please clarify your position. If your music is not GPL (and legally you cannot recind the license if it was given as gpl to adonthell) then Adonthell will be removed from Debian and most other Linux distributions.

And for what?

Please consider carefully.
Your music is of most help free.

The source for most music is easy: midis. Or wavs if recorded piece.

WAVs are IMHO not necessary. I can very well imagine recording devices that encode directly as MP3, or even record as MP3. The frequency analysis can be done at a very early stage, even using analogue electronics...

divVerent wrote:

The source for most music is easy: midis. Or wavs if recorded piece.

WAVs are IMHO not necessary. I can very well imagine recording devices that encode directly as MP3, or even record as MP3. The frequency analysis can be done at a very early stage, even using analogue electronics...

That doesnt make sense, hovever, recording directly as ogg would make sens, as an ogg some times will have more accurate (vector) representations of sound than a sample based thing such as PCM wav.


Amd please stop that nosense about waht is source for music. The music is its ouwn source, if there is such a thing as a source for it. Just as artwork (pictures) and videos are their own "sources".

So is the song gpl, not gpl?
The fact that it was in adonthell (which is all licenced under GPL), and he contributed to it, and there is no disclaimer otherwise (which supports that he did not put diffrent terms or establish diffrent terms with the other adonthell developers) seems to point to it being GPL. Otherwise we have to make all music a graphic artists sign a legal document before contributing to opensource projects so that the license won't be "oops recinded" (not legally possible... but it becomes he said she said) before committing something to CVS.

I make music too. I explicitly GPL it. Music, maps, and code are not diffrent really. We need media freedom as much as we need code freedom.

Well by the style of writing and the other posts.. I assume penguin IS mikeusa so you should use your chance to settle this with the music author before one of the admins does ban you again.
How many times have you been banned now? 6? 7? Even a complete idiot would have noticed by now that mikeusa is just not welcome here.. I guess someone here really likes it to get kicked and banned and all that just because of stupid ideas and spreading bullshit and ignorance.. After wondering how that fits in with being pro-GPL and talking about how valuable freedome is one must also wonder what a hard and sad live mikeusa must have. Well i guess pity would be in vain.. so just get lost mike and try to get a life.. Take that as a kinda tip.

MikeeUSA's IP isnt banned? I guess it's a twisted sort of compliment that he likes it here so much, if infact it is him.

He is using the tor network to stay super-secret IP banning will not really work unless you want to ban all end-nodes. But as you see its quite easy to find him even without that

eh I wish tor worked behind my school's firewall...

Getting back to the point.
Is the music GPL or not GPL?
If he contributed it to Adonthell, didn't demand a diffrent license he can't now go and recind the GPL license (contract based on unilateral mistake is enforcable).

This really sucks, why do artists "donate" to opensource projects and then turn around and say "well I didn't mean to put it under the license of the rest of the project... you should have knew that".

Should we call up the FSF and ask them?

Who said it was donated as GPL music? From what i read here it sounds more like he wanted to donate it to Adonthell under some other license and this seems to have just gotten done wrong.. like forgetting to mention the special license for the music.

But even ignoring this.. mikeusa was asked by the copyright holder of the music to withdraw it from this map. So unless mikeusa wants to prove he is an asshole he would just honor that request..

Exactly. The license is the legal part - but the artist should still have the last word. Anything else would be disrespectful - and will eventually result in the artist not providing these freedoms again.

If the Artist has freed the music then he does not have the last word as the music is no longer encumbered (this is the whole point of opensource/freeness). Nor does anyone else have the right to recind the music or lock it up in proprietary licneses (this is what the GPL prevents).

I would not remove the song from the tower map, it goes well with it and if it is indeed GPL then that should stay. Someone would also have to find another song for the map that fits and repackage the pk3.

If an artist (and I myself am one) does not want his work to be free then he should stay a long way away from open/free products. To put a propriatary item into an opensource project jepordizes that project and is a Trojan Horse for the free project. It is not "helping" the project.

If the artist donated the music to the GPL Adonthell project and forgot to mention his intent to have it put under another license that still does not change the legal fact that he has, by his actions, GPLd it. Unilateral mistake does not reduce the force of a contract (and that is what a license is).

His music is also in 'The Battle for Wesnoth'. I will be contacting Debian to have Adonthell and Westnoth removed from the distribution because of this submarine change-my-mind licensing. I will also be contacting the FSF for legal advice.

I like the song, it was indicated as GPL. Then suddently the artist changes his mind.
This is dispicable submarine topedoing of all free software, if an artist can change his mind (or her mind) then we're all screwed.

We should all start practicing on our midi keyboards (hooked up to our linux boxes using Rosegarden (a great Free/Opensource Midi sequencer).

ZhayTee: Your music will continue to be used under the terms of the GPL unless you show that it was never GPLd and you explicitly told the adonthell team that you were not contributing open music. Sorry, it's just too good to not use if it is GPL.

Yes maybe this might stop artists form "fake contributing" to free software projects but that is all the well: we cannot have those who do not understand our movement contributing to it and then deciding they want to still control their contribution afterwards.

Also we should contact the other Adonthell developers to see their side of this debacle.

"Giving" music to open project non-freely is no gift at all. It's a 'gift from the greeks' .

penguin wrote:If the Artist has freed the music then he does not have the last word as the music is no longer encumbered (this is the whole point of opensource/freeness). Nor does anyone else have the right to recind the music or lock it up in proprietary licneses (this is what the GPL prevents).

You did not see my point. My point that it may be LEGAL that you use his music even when he requests you not to, but not LEGITIMATE.

I would not remove the song from the tower map, it goes well with it and if it is indeed GPL then that should stay. Someone would also have to find another song for the map that fits and repackage the pk3.

And exactly this behaviour of you is what causes artists to not WANT to put content under the GPL. Which, in the end result, brought Nexuiz to the problem it has - not many people make player models for it. Since the release of 1.5 (or maybe even 1.0), we now got our FIRST extra player model. It is hard to find artists that make content under these conditions... especially if people like you do not follow basic principles of politeness.

If an artist (and I myself am one) does not want his work to be free then he should stay a long way away from open/free products.

If free content means to deal with rude people like you, nobody wants to make free content. Especially in your case. Believe me - if we could revoke your license to play and distribute Nexuiz, we would have done so after all you've done - after all, you are opposing human rights, that is, basic rights of freedom, and thus don't deserve the right to use free (as in speech) software.

His music is also in 'The Battle for Wesnoth'. I will be contacting Debian to have Adonthell and Westnoth removed from the distribution because of this submarine change-my-mind licensing. I will also be contacting the FSF for legal advice.

He can't sue you, but he won't contribute to any free project again thanks to you.

Basic politeness requires you to ask the author when you want to use his works and to not use it when he says no, EVEN if you would legally be entitled to anyway. But if the author did license it under a free license, he can't say no - so he wouldn't and you can even rely on him saying yes when you ask. Still, you HAVE to ask - otherwise it's rude and impolite. Now if you tried to contact him and got no reply in some days, you can use the work anyway because the license lets you - you have done your part, you tried to contact him, even though you failed. Does not matter. But please be polite to artists who are taking the risk of providing content under a free license.

Otherwise you'll drive them away, just like you've maybe already done to ZhayTee. You may just have damaged all projects that potentially could have used ZhayTee's music.

penguin wrote:If the Artist has freed the music then he does not have the last word as the music is no longer encumbered (this is the whole point of opensource/freeness). Nor does anyone else have the right to recind the music or lock it up in proprietary licneses (this is what the GPL prevents).

First, a spelling lesson: "rescind" and "licenses"
While something licensed under the GPL may indeed be legally included in another thing which is also licensed under the GPL, a person re-using a work would do well to at least notify the original author. The GPL is not about anti-socially mashing up everything else under the same license.
As for "rescinding", original authors are free to relicense their work.

penguin wrote:Someone would also have to find another song for the map that fits and repackage the pk3.

"Someone"? No one has any interest in your maps.

penguin wrote:If an artist (and I myself am one) does not want his work to be free then he should stay a long way away from open/free products. To put a propriatary item into an opensource project jepordizes that project and is a Trojan Horse for the free project. It is not "helping" the project.

"proprietary" and "jeopardizes"
As noted in this thread, the GPL is an uncommon license for artwork, particularly music. Which is why some games with code licensed under the GPL use a separate license for their media.
The artist has stated that he does indeed want his music to be free, but he also wants more control over it than the GPL allows, which can be solved by relicensing the music.

penguin wrote:If the artist donated the music to the GPL Adonthell project and forgot to mention his intent to have it put under another license that still does not change the legal fact that he has, by his actions, GPLd it. Unilateral mistake does not reduce the force of a contract (and that is what a license is).

The problem is, the world is not made up of people like you. Most people are reasonable and capable of resolving differences through communication and compromise.

penguin wrote:His music is also in 'The Battle for Wesnoth'. I will be contacting Debian to have Adonthell and Westnoth removed from the distribution because of this submarine change-my-mind licensing. I will also be contacting the FSF for legal advice.

Just calm down.

penguin wrote:I like the song, it was indicated as GPL. Then suddently the artist changes his mind.
This is dispicable submarine topedoing of all free software, if an artist can change his mind (or her mind) then we're all screwed.

First, yes, artists can change their mind. The point, though, is that the artist did not change his mind, he never intended his song to be released under the GPL it seems.

penguin wrote:ZhayTee: Your music will continue to be used under the terms of the GPL unless you show that it was never GPLd and you explicitly told the adonthell team that you were not contributing open music. Sorry, it's just too good to not use if it is GPL.

He's been quite polite in expressing his wishes, there's no need to threaten to Das Tower his music.

Yes maybe this might stop artists form "fake contributing" to free software projects but that is all the well: we cannot have those who do not understand our movement contributing to it and then deciding they want to still control their contribution afterwards.

Also we should contact the other Adonthell developers to see their side of this debacle.

"Giving" music to open project non-freely is no gift at all. It's a 'gift from the greeks' .

Instead of scaring away contributors, we need to clarify license terms and make sure the artists explicitly license their works.

Dave wrote:First, a spelling lesson: "rescind" and "licenses"

Don't correct his spelling. As a native speaker, he couldn't care less