[Freepats] Fwd: License information for the instrument samples

[Roberto Gordo Saez]

This is the first message I've written to Lawrence Fritts, at the
University of Iowa. I'm sending it to the list for reference. I have
almost finished the new mail, i will send it soon (I usually need more
time to write in English).

The email bellow contains a mixture from our recent conversations.
I've also taken some information from Walt Gregg at the Freepats web
pages.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Roberto Gordo Saez <roberto.gordo at gmail.com>
Date: Apr 27, 2006 4:26 PM
Subject: License information for the instrument samples
To: lawrence-fritts at uiowa.edu


I contact with you to ask some information about the copyright status
for the musical instrument samples, in orther to use them with
Freepats. I will provide a short introduction to the freepats project:

The freepats project wants to create a free and open collection of
instrument patches. This patches could be used by anyone to produce
music or in any other task. For example, one of this tasks would be to
make a free soundfont that could become the default instrument set for
most GNU/Linux desktop distributions, which is today a missing
component for the free software community.

Some people with the common dream of creating a free, high quality
instrument samples repository, has started to make contributions. But
as today, there is still most of the work to do. People usually has
access to a limited set of instruments or equipment, so contributions
from many more persons are needed.

You may be wondering why we are searching for new or original samples
only. While there are lots of "freeware" soundfonts on the net, they
are usually not really free (they are free as price, but not as
freedom). Also, most "free" samples on the net do not state whether
they were recorded from real instruments, analog synthesizers, or
digital synthesizers. The problem with this is that the manufacturers
of digital synthesizers usually claim a copyright in their recorded
samples.

Freepats project is searching for this kind of samples:

- Original. Either recorded from real instruments, or made from
scratch with analog synthesizers, to make sure they are unencumbered.

- High quality. 24bit/96khtz ideally. Currently, most samples in
freepats are in lower quality, but willing to replace them when better
alternatives exist.

- Free. Use, modification, redistribution should be allowed for all
kind of works, commercial and personal. Content must either be in the
Public Domain or have an open and free license (the GNU GPL with a
special exemption clause).

Note that, although the Freepats project has no commercial destination
and is driven by volunteers, the GPL licence and other free licenses
allows anybody, under certain conditions, to make full commercial
usage of the resulting sample collection, and even redistribute them
for money. This is on purpose; the Freepats project wants a completely
free and not limited instrument collection.

I've found your musical instrument samples at the University of Iowa
web pages. They will be very useful for the Freepats project, but it
is important to know the exact legal terms for them. I have not found
copyright notices, which makes me think that their are on the Public
Domain (unrestricted, not copyrighted). In case they are actually
copyrighted, we would want to know the exact license terms for them
and, in particular, if they are compatible with the GNU/GPL license.
In either case, your response and comments are always valuable (even
in case the license is not free).

Please, do not hesitate in asking me, or anybody in the freepats
mailing list if you want to know more information or to discuss
something with us.

Thank you for your time on reading this message.

Freepats mailing list is at:
http://opensrc.org/mailman/listinfo/freepats/