tmp2:Free Music/en

Logo for free cultural works (according to freedomdefined.org)

Free music is the attempt to transfer the principles of free software to new areas: first of all musical compositions, including lyrics, secondly music recordings, and thirdly music videos. There are two ways how to answer what free music is –

a) with a clear definition based on legal issues, and

b) by naming things typical of the free software culture.

Definition

The term is closely based on the GNU Free Software Definition (short FSD) and the Debian Free Software Guidelines (short: DFSG). The initiative freedomdefined.org has generalized the concept of free software to be applied to all areas and speaks of “free cultural goods”.

Examples of free software include well known products such as GNU/Linux, Apache, MySQL, Gimp, and Firefox. Examples of free cultural goods include cultural enrichments like Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap.

In this sense, free music is music that everybody has the right

• to use for any purpose,
• to study,
• to improve, and
• to pass around.

Implementation

Under the copyright laws, the author of a work owns the “exclusive rights” to a work. Basicly, this means that only he is allowed to copy, distribute, perform and change the work. This makes the music non-free for other people. However, there are two ways in which music can still be free:

a) by not being “protected” anymore, or b) if the copyright holder gives permission to everybody.

Public Domain

… FIXME Auch möglich: ... FIXME can also:

   * 

This work is in the Public Domain because of its age.

– Urheberrecht abgelaufen

This work is in the Public Domain because of its age.

- copyright expired

   * 

This work has been released into the Public Domain using the CC0 protocol.

– Creative Commons Zero

This work has been released into the Public Domain using the CC0 protocol.

- Creative Commons Zero

License

FIXME… FIXME ...

Freie Lizenzen Damit alle die Musikstücke in diesem Wiki nachspielen und verbessern können, muß es ihnen per Lizenzvertrag gestattet werden. Thus, all free licenses can play through the songs on this wiki and improve, it must be allowed them by the license agreement. Bitte schreibe unter das jeweilige Lied, unter welcher Lizenz es steht. Stücke ohne Lizenzangabe werden gelöscht. Please write into each song, under what license it. Pieces without a license is specified to be deleted.

Folgende Lizenzen sind hier gern gesehen: The following licenses are welcome here:

   * Creative Commons Attribution (BY) Creative Commons Attribution (BY)
   * Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (BY-SA) Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (BY-SA)
   * Lizenz für freie Inhalte im Sinne von Neppstar License for free content as defined by Neppstar
   * ... ... 

Differentiation

A musical work is not free music, if the license does not allow changes to it, because by definition, everybody is allowed to improve free music and to change it for his needs. Music is also not free, if its license does not allow commercial use, as such a restriction would prevent the music from being used for any purpose. If a license only partially fulfills all the requirements, works under it are called “semi-free music”.

If a piece of music is neither in the Public Domain nor under a free or semi-free music license, it is completely non-free.

Attention must be given to make sure that all the songs on this wiki get proper licensing information attached to them. It should become clear to other users, why this particular work is free – under what license it is or which year the author died. Pieces with no such indication and pieces under Creative Commons Non-Commercial (NC) or No-derivative (ND) or other semi-free or non-free licenses will be deleted.