[Freepats] Re: GPL for sound samples

[Mark Constable]

On Sunday 16 April 2006 03:33, Richard Stallman wrote:
>     To clarify, 2 years ago, in haste, we came up with this license at
>     the bottom of this page... http://alsa.opensrc.org/FreePats
>
> Could you email me the license text?

See appended below. Your recent suggestion has not been added yet
and this web version references the FSF whereas the actual license
distributed with the first freepats tarball used Eric A Welsh as
the copyright holder because, at that time, he was the sole
contributor of the samples. And to be clear, he did not create
any samples, he just found samples that were clearly NOT
copyrighted from his extensive personal collection.

>     In the case of a multi-sample soundfont set, this could include
>     dozens, or more, of individual authors... from a previous message...
> 
> Then you should ask a lawyer what to do in the copyright notice.
> Maybe it is enough to mention one person.  IANAL.

If this issue became _that_ complex then we would probably opt for
a Public Domain non-license and avoid any further "problems" dealing
with such legalities. I would rather spend my time earning money to
pay someone in a studio to record the much needed raw samples.

>      This only applies to a single "set of instrument patches" which
>      includes multiple samples by a number of people. The FSF may or
>      may not want to have their name legally associated with the
>      license and our potential exemption.
> 
> I don't understand that.

I'm not sure if the FSF would accept our exemption (as we have
preempted below.) I guess it depends on the exemption(s) when and if
we settle on using the GPL + exemption.

>     A question: would the FSF accept our, so far still evolving, exemption
>     clause ?
> 
> If you mean the one that I've been discussing with people in this
> thread, definitely we would.

Great, that is encouraging. Thank you for your feedback on this.


FreePats - a set of sound fonts for use in audio synths.
Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation

This patch set is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This patch set is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

As a special exception, if you create a composition which uses
these patches, and mix these patches or unaltered portions of
these patches into the composition, these patches do not by
themselves cause the resulting composition to be covered by the
GNU General Public License. This exception does not however
invalidate any other reasons why the document might be covered
by the GNU General Public License. If you modify these patches,
you may extend this exception to your version of the patches,
but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so,
delete this exception statement from your version.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the
Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA.

--markc