Open Source Music: Definition & Background

“Who owns the alphabet?”

I.Definition

onliness v1.0.1 is  released as Open Source Music (OSM). demon doc defines OSM as any musical composition(s) where the copyright owner:

1. gives the music to the People for free as MP3 downloads at a resolution of the copyright owners choice
2. allows the People to share the music with anyone they choose to
3. permits the People to sample the music via a creative commons sampling license of copyright owners choice
4. makes the source elements that constitute the music available to the People as free downloads, including recordings’samples/loops/one shots and MIDI data and any,. Audio files should be provided in .wav or .aiff format and the copyright owner may choose to provide additional program-specific formats.
5. requires that samplists distribute their own works as OSM, if they have incorporated any elements of the music in their own works.

The goal of defining OSM is to work towards standardizing format and copyright that serve as a guide  for releasing music  as open source. This is demon doc's rendition - augmentation, criticism, debate and revision are welcomed and encouraged.

onliness v1.0.1 serves as an example of OSM in that:

1. onliness v1.0.1 is free. You can download the album for free right here, get it with bittorrent and on the Gnutella network.
2. you can share onliness v1.0.1 – give it to your friends, post on your blog, link to the download, burn it for your mom.
3. you have free and open access to the core sounds and programming data used in the creation process: onliness v1.0.1 source files include loops and single hits in .wav format as well as midi data and Reason files, organized by track. The Source Files can be downloaded for free right here. For more on source file naming conventions click here.
4. you can remix, sample, and mash any of these tracks. You can rhyme, chant and sing over them. You can use any of the constituent sounds however you please. You can reinterpret, mock me, or even challenge me to a battle with my own beats.

II. Background

Old-school copyright is designed to prohibit our freedom to share, change and borrow from the music we listen to. Sharing with friends, remixing a track for a house party and chopping up riffs for a new beat are all fun, inspiring and natural uses that fly in the face of existing restrictions.
New School copyright (ie Creative Commons) is designed to allow more flexibility in our relationship to music by allowing various forms of re-distribution, re-interpretation, and borrowing. Flexible copyright is necessary to ensure an open dialog amongst music consumers and producers, an environment where new communities form, collaboration evolves and new ideas flourish. The proven analog is the open source software movement and the GPL/GNU licenses, which, among other things, provide not only access to the fundamental building blocks, the source code, that comprise a particular application, but also a supportive community that contributes to the evolution of the application.

Open Source Music (OSM) is conceived in the same vein as a way of cementing our freedom to share, change, re-use and sample the music we consume at the most basic level.. Conceptually, it is similar  to a Sampling Plus 1.0 license in that it allows you to “To sample, mash-up, or otherwise creatively transform this work” as well as “To perform, display, and distribute copies of this whole work”.
But reallly OSM speaks more towards the format of the release. It applies the model of open source software to music and enables access to the elements, or code if you will, that constitute the work. A musical composition can be broken down into tracks, tracks are identified by the instruments/sounds recorded on them, and these instruments/sounds can be broken into riffs, loops, hits and notes- the most basic elements of a track.

In addition, most keyboard and computer-sequenced music contains MIDI programming data. MIDI is a standard communications protocol that represents how sounds are arranged and triggered in patterns and can represent countless parameters unique to any particular sound it calls upon, such as note, chord, key, pitch, velocity, after-touch and so on.

Audio recordings, riffs, loops, hits (*.wav,*.aiff) and MIDI programming data(.mid) represent the atoms, the building blocks, the code base, and, most precisely, the source elements of any musical composition. They can be used to reinterpret the musical composition, extracted for for  a mashup/remix, or even assimilated as elements into a completely new, unrecognizable work.