On tablets, on displays, multi-touch control these days is calibrated largely as a software interface – more Starship Enterprise panel than violin. As such, it works well for production tools and exploring compositional ideas. But it falls far short of being an instrument: even on the much-hyped iPad, touch timing and sensitivity is too imprecise, and the absence of tactile feedback and real, kinetic resistance makes you feel like an operator rather than a musician.

Several projects in experimental instrument research seek to change that. But of all of them, the one that has generated the most enthusiasm is Randy Jones’ Soundplane, co-developed with hardware designer Brian Willoughby. CDM shares a conversation today with Randy about his brilliant Aalto synth, and I’m working on a review soon. But wonderful as Aalto is, many of us are still eager to hear more of the Soundplane controller. I chose to wax poetic and optimistic back in December of 2008:
Intimate Control: Multi-Touch, New Models, and What 2009 is Really About

I shouldn’t have put a year on my predictions, though – good things take time. (If I could clearly recall what happened in 2009, maybe my general prediction was correct. The past tends to blur together for me into a continuum in the manner of the modern technologist, a vague assemblage of stuff that happened in the 60s with things that are actually still in the future.)

The good news: Randy continues working on the Soundplane, and Aalto will help.

Continuing our interview, here are the thoughts most relevant to Soundplane — and a glimpse of what it’s looking like as he works on it in the lab.

First, Randy explains his ideas about running a small business, continuing what he had to say in our Aalto story. The basic idea: Aalto’s software will bootstrap Soundplane’s hardware.

I think the whole idea of venture capital is sort of a poisonous one. It’s a little like bands wanting to get signed right away. The first thing you want to focus on is giving up your autonomy, really?

Instead, why not scrape together whatever you can from friends or family and just make something that you can sell right away, however small. I didn’t have enough saved to finish the Soundplane project so halfway through I switched to putting out Aalto as a plan B for paying the rent. Now it’s out and it’s a product I’m proud of that I think reflects where we’re coming from, and it’s going to fund Soundplane development, and it’s letting tons of people know we exist. Just get a foot in the door, do something useful.

He also shares his feelings about patents:

Some people won’t like to hear this, but I applied for a patent on the sensor used in the Soundplane. I know, the patent system is totally broken, and often, if not usually, used in stupid ways. But if there’s one thing I think it is actually good for, it’s to protect small companies like ours that innovate against a bigger entity simply stealing their R&D. This is why it was designed, right? I don’t know if our patent will save the day if such a thing ever happens, but if it does I’d much rather have one than not. It’s a pain to write one but it’s not impossible, you just need a lot of patience. “Patent it Yourself“, Nolo Press, is a good reference.

The patent question raises some additional questions for me – in fact, I’d love to see open source hardware that’s also backed by patent protection, in the same way that the GPL license is made tenable largely through the existence of traditional copyright laws.

But I do tend to agree that in the case of a truly novel technology, which this is, patent protection may be necessary. The question for projects like this will be whether to operate as a conventional, patent-protected design, or whether some sort of open source model with a patent covenant and a copyleft license like GPL will make sense — both preventing exploitation and allowing free experimentation. If there are any IP lawyers lurking around out there, let us know (I have some contacts, too); and definitely let us know if that’s a conversation you’d like us to continue.

In the meantime, the important thing is that Soundplane lives, and using Aalto could help it come to fruition. We’ll absolutely keep you posted.

As proof, though, more shots from the lab:

Also, must-read article from shortly after Jones’ NIME presentation:
Why Soundplane?

The whole article is worth reading, but Jones argues that not only is it likely many people will try to do tactile multi-touch, but it may be necessary. For those of you not all that good at hardware design, you could be just as essential as well to there being any future for these curiosities. The designers need other designers. The hardware needs software creators – lots of them. The software creators need to try lots of ideas. And everybody needs players, composers … users.

It’s all-too-tempting to sit back on the Web and marvel at what everyone else is doing, to take their genius and novelty as an engraved invitation to give up on your own work. “It’s been done before.” “Someone else is already doing this.” It’s probably a topic for a dedicated article, but it’s simply the wrong reaction. “It’s been done before — maybe it’s worth doing. Or doing again. Or doing better. Or doing over and over again.” “Other people are doing this — that means I have someone else to do it with.”

Historically, revolutions aren’t solo pieces. They’re ensembles.

Updated: speaking of work being ensembles, while Randy’s name is most associated with the Soundplane project, credit is due to hardware designer Brian Willoughby, who did the hardware design for the instrument. As he wrote in comments on CDM in 2010, when we covered Roger Linn’s Linnstrument: “For my part, I’ve been deep into the process of designing the analog circuits, DSP hardware and firmware necessary for the product, so it’s nice to poke my head up for a moment and see interest on this site, as well as to hear about other engineers trying new things and inspiring ideas.”

Max for Live, now into its second year, is a tool with an ambitious goal: take the custom music software creation, visual-patch-programming powers of Max/MSP, and put them inside live performance and production host Ableton Live. It’s not the only tool that allows you to hack your own instruments and effects, or customize how your music tool works – several hosts now offer scripting and patching options. But it’s both unique in its depth and breadth, and paired with the tool most popular with musicians for playing live, which puts it in a league of its own.

I personally like tools I feel are worth criticizing, and I think Max for Live fit that description. Members of the passionate Ableton and Max/MSP communities, perhaps most of all those who embraced Max for Live in their workflow, had some ideas of their own.

This week, Ableton is releasing the first batch of significant, non-bug-fix improvements to Max for Live since its release. You can try them right now in the just-unleashed 8.2.2 beta.

It’s not just about what Ableton is doing differently, though. Recently, Ableton also unveiled a set of guidelines for people making their own patches, with the hope of raising the bar and making patch publishing clearer and easier.

Daniel Büttner of Ableton offers his thoughts to CDM, including improvements to the Live API and the new “production guidelines” for people building Max for Live patches. It’s a detailed read, but I know we’ve got some hard-core patchers out there who will appreciate it. Daniel writes:

Max for Live has been around for over one year. As the community grew and produced more devices, we noticed the obvious weak points that every programmer was trying to work around, such as keeping parameter mappings intact.

A few months back, after Live 8.2 was released, we started working more closely with programmers in the community, listened to their problems and evaluated lots of devices. The two main issues we ran into were 1) limitations in the software that made it difficult to create reliable devices and 2) certain knowledge to program devices that work well in Live.

Top item on the list was the handling and persistency of mappings from a Max device to any Live parameter, which required clumsy workarounds. From what I have seen, the new persistent Ids allow programmers to reduce their Max code in a typical LFO by 60%.

live.object and live.remote~ now have an option “Save Mapping in Live Set” (Fig. 1)

Fig. 1: Save Mapping in Live Set better integrate Max for Live with your Live sets – a must for live performers, production.

Another improvement allows Max devices to observe the selected_parameter in Live via [live.path live_set view selected_parameter]. Max programmers can now build an intuitive Map mode into their devices (see example code below) or follow the user’s selection, which may be useful for certain hardware integration.

The Live API can now reach inside racks, so LFOs can be grouped with Live effects and saved as a preset.

Fig. 2: “This device” is a new Max object that makes it easy to design actions around a patch being opened.

A small feature that doesn’t show up in the changelog is a new Max object called live.thisdevice (Fig. 2):

“live.thisdevice reports two pieces of information about your Max Device. A bang message is automatically sent from the leftmost outlet when the Max Device is opened and completely initialized, or when the containing patcher is part of another file that is opened. Additionally, a bang will be reported every time a new preset is loaded or the device is saved (and thus reloaded within the Live application). A 1 or 0 will be sent from the rightmost outlet when the Device is enabled or disabled, respectively. Used within Max, live.thisdevice functions essentially like the loadbang object. The rightmost outlet is inactive in this case.”

The [live.thisdevice] helps timing in large devices to avoid sending values before the API has been initialized, etc.

Besides technical improvements to the software, we also want to share our knowledge with Max programmers to avoid common errors such as devices spilling into Live’s undo history or not recalling parameters correctly in a Live Set.

We’ve created a set of guidelines as a result of our own experience and known issues, a long evaluation of community devices, discussions with patch programmers.

Ableton Max for Live production guidelines [Ableton Forum]

I hope that everyone updates their existing Max for Live devices and takes advantage of these improvements as they make MfL devices a lot more reliable and fun to use.

The Production Guidelines offer lots of good ideas, including “pre-flight” checklists for technical details and presentation draw from months of experience with patches, compatibility notes for Mac and Windows, device latency, mapping, and the like. In fact, even if you don’t plan to distribute your work, it’s a great read.

Speaking of Guidelines, What About Licenses?

One issue Ableton have not handled is licensing of patches. This is likely a good topic for another article, but I can summarize my own recommendations, having talked to a range of developers and people familiar with open source software policy.

I would strongly endorse putting some sort of license document in your patches. The most important first step is, whatever your intentions for how your work is used, put it in writing. Legal agreements all begin with simply writing down what you mean; it’s when there’s an absence of information that misunderstandings most often arise. That doesn’t have to mean hiring a lawyer – thinking to yourself, then writing down, “hey, this is how I expect this to be used” is a good starting point.

If you want to release a patch to be shared and incorporated into other people’s work, the other good news is that there are licenses available that are tried and tested and do some of the work for you. That means other users can see a license with which they may already be familiar, and you don’t have to worry (as much) about the legal implications.

I understand the desire to apply “non-commercial” restrictions, but as I’ve written in the past, these provisions tend to be problematic. The problem is the lack of a clear line for what “commercial” is. If you simply don’t want others to reuse your work, you should consider traditional copyright – that’s your right as a creator. If you do want others to reuse your work and are simply afraid of abuse, the “ShareAlike” Creative Commons license and GNU Public License each require others to share any modifications you make. Those rules were created precisely because creators didn’t want to see their work appropriated by others just because you made them free.

The GPL is the license I’d recommend in this case, because it’s a mature, legally-tested license. It’s worth a read-through of the FAQ, because it clears up many misconceptions – for instance, you can charge for your (Max Patch, or other software), you can make commercial software, and the GPL requires others attribute you as well as release any modifications they make to a patch back to the public. That makes a lot of sense for the Max community, since it means the best of both worlds – other people can improve your patch, but they have to then release all those modifications, so you and others can benefit, and you can still sell your patch if you like.

Whatever you choose, I think it’s important to explicitly state your intentions. Then everyone knows the rules by which they’re playing. That doesn’t mean some people won’t disobey those rules, but I also fully expect the community to step in if they feel someone has failed to follow the rules. (We saw that happen on this site recently, of course.)

Disclaimer: these are my own opinions; I’m just adding them here as I think it’s an appropriate time to begin a conversation about this.

In the meantime:

Max Beta

8.2.2b3 is released as of this writing:
Current Beta Version: 8.2.2b3 (updated February 15, 2011) [Ableton Forum]

Changelog

** Improvements and feature changes **

(Note: Some of these changes require an update to the latest version of Max, find a download link above)

- Devices inside Racks can now be accessed via the Max for Live API
- Return tracks can now be observed via the Max for Live API

Live devices and parameters can now be much more easily mapped to controls in Max devices. And devices can safely be moved within a Live Set without breaking any existing mappings. The following
changes make this possible:

- There is now a simple way to observe the selected parameter via the Max for Live API, using “live.path live_set view selected_parameter.” This can be used to, for example, build a custom “map
mode” to quickly map parameters in your Live Set to controls in a Max device.
- Live objects like tracks, clips or parameters retain their identity (id nn) during operations like move, save/restore, cut/paste, delete/undo, the identity is global and can be communicated
via Max’s Send and Receive objects.
- live.object, live.observer and live.remote~ are now able to remember their target objects when Live sets or presets are saved and restored or when objects are moved within the Live set.

** Bugfixes **

- Holding a note while recording a MIDI clip and stopping the transport while the note is held would result in a silent note during play back

Have a test, and let us know what you think.

And I know a number of readers have complained this site has done a poor job of covering all the developments in Max for Live patches – yeah, uh, I am human, as it happens. So do let us know if there are patches you feel are especially important. A terrific resource:
http://maxforlive.com/

To me, a license is a tool: it’s a means to an end. But that means that the tool ought to be doing the job you chose for it.

After news broke that the Canadian public broadcaster CBC was moving away from Creative Commons, we launched on CDM into a somewhat informal (and occasionally heated) discussion of CC licensing and specifically the non-commercial restriction most musicians attach to their music.

Here’s a summary of what I can conclude from those conversations.

• Abuse of non-commercial CC material is rampant. Very often, publishers and broadcasters think Creative Commons material with non-commercial licensing is free for them to use when it isn’t. Almost all publishers fall under the category “commercial” – even “public” broadcasters like the CBC. That’s not to say CC is a bad thing – abuse of copyrighted material is rampant, too – but if well-meaning publishers are abusing the license, it’s an opportunity to educate people.
• The CBC went to the opposite extreme. Tossing all CC music just because “most” is non-commercial doesn’t make any sense. There’s still a large volume of material that is explicitly free for the CBC to use that lacks the non-commercial restriction. It’s not hard to find, and the licensing – unlike NC – is very, very clear.
• Some of you apply “non-commercial” because it’s really what you mean. Great! No problem! (Actually, one problem – see the first point above. While it’s an abuse of the license, you may find people blaze right past your “non-commercial” clause.)
• Some of you apply “non-commercial” and it’s not what you mean. If you’re restricting uses under the license that are cases where you actually want people to be free to share, then the NC requirement probably isn’t a good idea. This is what ultimately prompted me to drop “NC” myself.

Matching the license to what you want people to do is important. It’s like putting up a big “KEEP OFF THE GRASS” sign and then wondering why no one’s dropping by for a picnic. Conversely, if you don’t want people to have a picnic, it’s well within your rights to post a “KEEP OFF THE GRASS SIGN” — and if it’s your lawn, frankly, it’s not my business. It’s the same with your music or images.

I still think that the non-commercial rule in CC is vague to a fault, though that’s best left to a separate discussion. And I don’t want to overstate my complaint. I believe the CBC is right – and I’m equally confident that CDM qualifies as “commercial” based on the previous CC study. So, the larger problem with non-commercial may not be that it’s unclear, but that it’s not understood – and that at least some of the musicians who are using it don’t understand the extent to which it restricts use of their work.

As for the CBC, Creative Commons has responded to the story, and have pointed out that there’s nothing stopping them from using CC works that are available for commercial use:

It is good to know that the CBC will continue to use CC-licensed works in some cases, and their explanation of why not in others. And it is true that only a minority of CC-licensed music is released under a license that permits commercial use — for example, about 26% of the nearly 40,000 CC-licensed albums on Jamendo.

However, as Michael Geist, Cory Doctorow, and many others have subsequently pointed out, CC-licensed music that does permit commercial use ought be allowed.

They also have some tips for finding music that’s free for commercial use, in case you’re looking yourself:
Commercial music guide on the CC wiki
Music on SoundCloud, Wikimedia Commons, Libre.fm

Read their full response:
On CBC podcasts and CC-licensed music available for commercial use [Creative Commons blog]
…as written by CC VP Mike Linksvayer. (Thanks, Cameron Parkins!)

Just as with production tools, I believe our role on CDM is to talk about how to best use the tools you want. Copyright, Creative Commons, public domain, open source, commercial, free, non-profit, whatever it may be can be a means to your end. So, I hope we’ll continue to follow this story and find some information that’s useful to musicians.

Someone in comments brought up the question of whether the music is crap. But, you know, as artists, I don’t think you even know the answer to that question. Mostly you want to find a way to do something with your s***, and hope, at least, it’s good s*** someone enjoys. Carry on.

I have no problem with copyrighting music. So I’ll be blunt: my ongoing impression of Creative Commons licensing is that you should either choose a license that allows for commercial use, or opt for traditional copyright and licensing. The popular “non-commercial” restriction is problematic. It does too little to prevent exploitation, and too much to prevent exactly the kind of use that’s the reason you’d choose CC in the first place. That’s not an effective compromise; it’s more like a lose-lose scenario. If you really want people to ask permission to use your work, you can use a standard copyright. (You don’t even have to do anything, under US law.)

Latest case in point: the CBC.

An off-hand comment on the (excellent, by the way) Spark podcast suggested that management had instructed producers to stop using Creative Commons-licensed music. After a blog post by Michael Geist, the story has spread around an angered blogosphere. Some even interpreted a later comment to mean the whole thing was the work of CC opponents, through licensing deals that explicitly forbade CC. (Don’t get excited yet – it seems clear that’s not what happened, and those organizations wouldn’t be able to do that even if they wanted.)

Let’s skip straight to the point. Techdirt’s Mike Masnick got the bottom line of this one, which is that CBC eventually gave up on CC-licensed works because of the prominence of non-commercial restrictions. They note this comment from CBC’s Chris Boyce:

The issue with our use of Creative Commons music is that a lot of our content is readily available on a multitude of platforms, some of which are deemed to be “commercial” in nature (e.g. streaming with pre-roll ads, or pay for download on iTunes) and currently the vast majority of the music available under a Creative Commons license prohibits commercial use.

In order to ensure that we continue to be in line with current Canadian copyright laws, and given the lack of a wide range of music that has a Creative Commons license allowing for commercial use, we made a decision to use music from our production library in our podcasts as this music has the proper usage rights attached.

That seems to me to sum up the story: whatever the wisdom of CBC’s solution, this is a failure of the non-commercial restriction. And that should hardly come as news to anyone who has followed the problems with “NC.” It’s a Saturday, so consider this a hastily-devised rant rather than a fully-researched story. But I’d like to see a more productive conversation start on this whole issue, so I’ll kick it off by sharing my own thoughts on this.

Here’s the problem. The whole idea of Creative Commons licensing is to provide a blanket license before someone has to ask permission. By streamlining the process in this way, the goal is to get wider distribution and reuse of your work. And as everything from samples to Flickr images can demonstrate, it works. Now, naturally, wide distribution will also raise fears about commercial exploitation, and as with any license, you’re the owner – you can provide whatever restrictions you like. People want to share, but they don’t want that sharing to be abused. I think the impulse to look for some sort of “some rights reserved” is a natural one. Unfortunately, using non-commercial restrictions as the solution can create more problems. The non-commercial rules are vaguely worded, implying a very broad definition. It’s never properly defined, and no one really knows what it means. The net result is that works with the restriction attached aren’t free for use. You have to err on the side of caution; if you think there’s any chance you may be violating the license, you shouldn’t use the work.

That’s the crossroads I reached on this very site. Chris Randall of Audio Damage and Analog Industries, who has released a significant amount of CC-licensed music, pointed out to me that CDM was blatantly violating the intent of the non-commercial restriction. Sure enough, I came to the same conclusion, as a survey undertaken by the CC folks found that many of the people using the non-commercial restriction considered use on a site with advertising revenue to be commercial use. CDM readers and Flickr users protested. But it doesn’t matter: I now almost exclusively use works without it, to be safe.

There is more to this story, though.

CBC ought to be able to use CC music. CBC is clearly overreacting if they’re avoiding all CC-licensed work. There is work out there that lacks the non-commercial use restriction.

…but the onus falls on CC advocates to face the non-commercial problem head-on. It seems to me that it’s the responsibility of the CC-using community here to point to work that lacks this restriction, and to build tools that make those works easier to find. (The checkbox pictured here is a great place to start.) It’s also about time to have a serious discussion of the non-commercial restriction, not just in the definition itself but, holistically, why people do want to reserve “some rights,” and how to define those rights. That conversation should be a frank and open one. Commercial exploitation is a real threat. It’s an issue brought up by CC users, by CC advocates, and CC critics alike. It’s something obviously all of us are thinking about. But we should separate the three dimensions of it:

1. A hypothetical problem — the potential exploitation of work in ways that CC users don’t like. (And that means we have to determine what kind of hypothetical exploitation has people scared.)

2. A real-world problem. (There have certainly been instances of what people might consider exploitation, both of copyrighted and CC-licensed works.)

3. A number of potential remedies — of which adding a “non-commercial” CC license is only one, and possibly not even an ample remedy for the kind of exploitation people want to prevent.

Some of the blame I think does fall on CC the organization. They used the non-commercial clause as a way to say, “hey, you can distribute your work for free and get paid by requiring licensing.” You can have your cake and eat it, too — or you can give away your cake, but also sell it. The realities of making that work are much messier than they admitted, and at the same time the organization sent mixed messages. “Here’s the non-commercial clause, which is a remedy to this problem you’re worried about. Oh, but we don’t think you should use it. And actually, we don’t know what it means, so we’ll have to do a research study.”

It’s time to clean up that mess and remedy the problem.

CC users should consider Share Alike. This is a much, much longer conversation, so let me simply quote the plain-English description of Creative Commons’ Share Alike principle:

If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

Unlike the description of non-commercial – there’s never actually a detailed description of what constitutes “commercial” use — Share Alike is very clear. Anyone using your work must license whatever work they make.

Yes, this is an issue for open-source hardware, too. I won’t go there today, because hardware incorporates other issues. It’s tangible, and that means legal licensing is different. The problems of interpreting the definition of “commercial,” however, remain, and there’s a threat that open source hardware makers will recreate some of the problems with Creative Commons-licensed media in the hardware domain by modeling their work on the same license. Consider the can of worms opened, but I’ll deal with that in a separate story.

The podcast’s great.

Anyway, go listen to Spark. It’s a fantastic podcast:
Spark October 3-6

And CC or not, speaking as a journalist here: if you want your music shared, send it to media outlets with an explicit license, CC or otherwise, making it clear they can use it however they wish. If publicity is valuable to you, it may be a worthy investment. (I’ve seen what publicists and PR people charge. “Free” publicity isn’t worth zero; that’s for sure.)

Thanks to Myles Ashley Borins for the tip!

Update – for our Canadian readers:
If you’d like to clarify the CBC’s policy, podcaster and producer Lily Mills tells me via Twitter that Canadian citizens and journalists can submit a formal request for information under Canadian law:
Access to Information Act

(CDM, as a US publication, is unable to do so.) If someone would like to volunteer to do so, shout out in comments. I think it would be useful to know the formal policy and reasoning from CBC.

Open source software has proven itself in technological, economic, and cultural terms – it’s simply a matter of reality. This site runs atop free software nginx, WordPress, MySQL, and (Red Hat Enterprise) Linux; in music, we have Csound, SuperCollider, Pd, Ardour, JACK, Processing, and so on. Csound has even appeared on karaoke machines. These tools run alongside and interoperate with commercial, closed-source solutions. They’re a part of our technological ecosystem, both in general-purpose computing and in music and visuals.

But what about hardware? Facing scarcity and fabrication, hardware combines all of the challenges of software with new problems. And unlike software, open source hardware lacks clear licenses and definitions.

There’s clearly a role open source hardware could play in music. There are already components, like USB chipsets, that are available in open source form that can benefit music projects. And while true open source hardware has been rare or available only in limited runs, there have been hardware projects with open source components. Most notably, the fully open source software that powers the monome has been instrumental in facilitating the passionate community around that device. Here’s what the monome project proclaims on its official site:

we believe that open source is commercially viable and mutually beneficial for our collective and the consumer. in opening our software we eliminate wasteful, redundant coding for ourselves by incorporating proven libraries and frameworks. we in turn provide these same benefits to others who wish to incorporate our development efforts into their projects. we believe distributed development leads to more stable software and more creative application design. we believe open applications provide more flexibility for users to adapt tools to their specific needs, encourage creative use of software and hardware, and produce a greater diversity output from users.

But even given the monome manifesto above, music gear embracing open source hardware has been relatively scarce – even more so if you apply the definition adopted by many advocates. (The monome, for its part, would not meet a number of the criteria of open source hardware drafted for the summit.)

This Thursday in New York, on the eve of Maker Faire, the Open Hardware Summit promises to break new ground. It features a packed schedule of thinkers from NASA to Texas Instruments to the Arduino project, and the introduction of a first working definition of open source hardware.

I spoke to project co-chairs Alicia Gibb and Ayah Bdeir about the origins and goals of the event, and some of the unique challenges of doing open source hardware.

At the same time, I couldn’t help but notice the absence of music and audio figures on the program. That to me suggests that this discussion is not less relevant, but more so – if there is a disconnect between musical creators working with these ideas and the rest of the community, it’s worth exploring why that is, given that musical expression is such a fundamental part of our culture. More on that at the end, as we don’t yet have a good catalog of active, available projects for open source music.

CDM: Can you tell us how this project, and the Summit, came about?

Alicia: About 7 months ago, in January Peter [Semmelhack, of BUG Labs] said to me, “Hey, I’ve been getting a lot of people from hardware companies calling me and asking for advice. We have learned a lot of lessons in producing hardware and others shouldn’t have to make those same mistakes. Is there a way we could get all kinds of people who work with open source hardware together and all share information, a conference or summit – like an Open Hardware Summit or something.” And I replied to him – “Peter, this is going to be epic, consider it done.” I began working and thinking of key players to involve on this Open Hardware Summit.

Separately, in March, Ayah brought many excellent minds together at the Opening Hardware Workshop sponsored by Eyebeam and CC, it was such an impressive collection, to begin forming a definition of what open source hardware entails. (In the first video on the Eyebeam project site, Ayah explains a bit about how that event was brought together.) The definition that you have come across is the definition that was spurred from that workshop. It was there that I began talking to a couple people about the conference and Chris Anderson [Wired] said “Have you thought about doing it around … Maker Faire?”

Sherry Huss, Dale Dougherty and Becky Stern [all of Make] all sat down to chat with me and loved the idea of having it the day before Maker Faire, they invited me along to scope out the space and treated me as family. They got NYSCI on board as our venue sponsor for the New York Hall of Science. They were absolutely instrumental in getting the Summit off the ground. Ayah mentioned that with her new fellowship at Creative Commons, one of the things they wanted to do was a conference around Open Hardware. Becky told her she should come talk to me – and really, the rest is history

I do have to say it is such an honor to plan this with Ayah, I read her work as a grad student and as Peter texted me after our first meeting with all the key players in the Summit, “I think the fact that the first Open Hardware Summit is being chaired by women is a terrific signal”. I feel very fortunate to have a job that allows me to make my dreams happen, and CEO who truly has his heart in the right place when it comes to open source. Peter’s ability to be a successful business man while not forgetting the importance of sharing, giving back, and maintaining transparency in open source projects has been inspirational to me.

Ayah and I are the co-chairs of the Summit. However as we plan more and more we hope to bring on other volunteers for help. The other key players that we consider catalysts to this event are: Bug Labs, Creative Commons, littleBits, MAKE, Maker Faire, NYSCI, and Eyebeam.

littleBits intro from ayah bdeir on Vimeo.

Ayah, can you talk a little about your background in this, particularly since Opening Hardware was a project you created at Eyebeam?

Ayah: From my end, i have been working on Open hardware for my own project littleBits (www.littleBits.cc) with advisor John Wilbanks of Creative Commons for a while. Our talks were so interesting that we decided to host a small workshop in March where we would invited interested hardware makers and have a discussion between the open hardware community and creative commons to better understand the issues and licensing options. In the workshop we saw that a license would not be the way to go but rather a community-approved set of norms or definition might work best. Ed.: As noted in comments, littleBits is not yet available for purchase, but “design files, schematics and instructions will be online when we are done manufacturing.” -PK

Who is actively involved in that community effort?

Ayah: The Opening Hardware workshop was organized by me, with eyebeam, ted ullrich and celine assaf, and sponsored by CC. we then set up a mailing list and hosted discussions on the definition, where a bunch of us were actively involved in the drafting (dave mellis prodding people to hash out the version 0.1 draft and Windell did most of the writing for the current (0.3) draft (adopting from the DFSG and the OSI OSS definition)). Although lots of people contributed both comments and text including: Arduino, Adafruit, Buglabs, MakerBot, Chumby as well as Jonathan Kuniholm (Open Prosthetics), Chris Anderson (Wired), Mako Hill (OLPC, Wikipedia), Jon Philips (Qi), Shigeru Kobayashi (Gainer), Becky Stern (Make) and Thinh Nguyen and John Wilbanks (CC) and us (littleBits, Eyebeam), Parallax, Sparkfun, Lilypad.

What drove this effort; what made it come about?

It seemed like so many of us that were interested in porting the open source movement to hardware were struggling with adapting it, and its restrictions and specificities. We believe it is such a worthwile movement to fuel creativity in the world that we really wanted to share it with others.

The most common question I hear asked is by creators, who are concerned that people will simply set up cheap manufacture to clone products, undercutting costs and reducing their ability to invest in support and further development. Is there anything in this definition that would protect against this?

Ayah: From David Mellis, Arduino:

I think the best strategy is to provide good products at a reasonable price, offer good customer service, and establish a brand that people trust. We do mention in the introduction that you can’t imply your products are supported or or sanctioned by another manufacture or use someone else’s trademarks – both intended to help protect a company’s brand and reputation.

Ed.: Okay, there’s quite a lot more to discuss here, I know – so consider this the beginning of this conversation, not the end. I think what David suggests is one compelling answer, but I hope we do have a larger discussion of the issues here, as this a significantly multi-dimensional question. -PK

What’s essential to this definition in your view and what’s up for discussion? For instance, some (though not all) makers believe that some sort of non-commercial
restriction is needed to prevent cloning, but that’s explicitly forbidden in this draft. Is it possible that a future definition might include other tiers, like Creative Commons’ non-commercial license for creative works? Or is that anathema to the definition of open source hardware?

Ayah: We’re trying to define open-source hardware (not create a license). We mostly think non-commercial clauses are antithesis to open source. However, some want a really idealistic application for open source to hardware, but others, (like me) think it’s ok if different companies and individuals have different flavors so that the movement can gain the most traction and people can find their own ways to be sustainable.

What will the role of the hardware summit be?

Ayah: The summit will be a venue to share and discuss issues, problems and solutions in open hardware. This is also an opportunity for us to bring Creative Commons into the discussion with the community.

There will be a very deliberate attempt to remain practical and not too academic/theoretical, and we want to get work done in terms of the movement. We are also hoping to get more comments before the summit and be able to release version 1.0 of the definition to the world!

Where does Creative Commons fit in?

Ayah: CC committed, albeit in an early stage to support the open hardware movement, which can be seen by their awarding me of a fellowship to support the field and focus on open hardware. Even if it will not be throught creating licenses for us, they are interested in being involved in the discussion, and have been very generous supporters.

Are there any usable license models now that someone could look at? Definitions aside, is there a sense of best-practices for someone who has a hardware design now and wants to take the plunge?

Ayah: Again, from David Mellis:

I would recommend people share whatever they feel comfortable with. Open-source hardware doesn’t make sense for all companies or all products, and everyone should decide what makes sense for their own situation. On the other hand, we believe in the value of open-source as applied to hardware in the ways stated in the definition, and so we would encourage its use where possible.

If people want to get involved in the discussion, what’s he best way to do that?

www.openhardwaresummit.org/forum

What are some of the highlights of what you have scheduled for Thursday? What can people expect to hear?

Everything is a highlight for Thursday! The response and interest to the summit has been so incredible that we really tried to pack the best in. The panels are particularly going to be interesting, with such great participants from various fields, we expect to get lots of great questions and answers.
TOne of our most important goals for the Summit is to keep the event very action-driven and solution-driven. This means talking about best practices, advice on how to better make open hardware, and staying away from the theoretical jargon and bikeshedding. We expect there to be a lot of young makers and companies starting out in open hardware, so the more specific/real-world experiences and advice we can give them the better! Another particular highlight we are selfishly hoping for is to hash out the Open Hardware definition and take it from version 0.3 to version 1.0!

Since we’re talking to a music/sound (and on motion, visual) audience, anything likely to be specifically relevant to them?

The sprint talks will be specifically interesting to them. The speakers are showing their projects, in space research, art, design and education. We think it will be particularly interesting eye candy for your audience, as well as have a lot of value in terms of relating to the speakers and the problems/opportunities they face with their work.

(CDM) Call for Open Source Music Hardware

My read of the situation is that this is the beginning (or even a prelude) rather than the end of the story. So that means, since there really isn’t much, if any, representation of audio and music platforms at the summit (unless you count Arduino, or a possible cameo by a x0xb0x), maybe it’s time to do a tally of those platforms.

What projects do you consider “open source hardware” for music? Are there any you’ve seen recently, or use actively?

What would you want in an open source hardware platform?

And do you have a project you’ve considered for an open source license yourself?

I’ve actually seen a few projects recently that I’m excited about, either available now or coming soon, so I’ll be covering those, but at the risk of proposing a list that’s incomplete, I’ll leave them out for now and listen to what you think.

The Summit…

http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/

Finding samples and remix-able music — or advertising the availability of tracks you want to release for that purpose — has just gotten a lot easier. As part of a raft of improvements to the SoundCloud service – including some nice non-CC enhancements to search and tag browsing – the service has boosted integration with free licenses. You can now search for CC content, and the license is visible directly in the player, going beyond what even services like Flickr and Vimeo have done.

You can add SoundCloud to CC-focused sites like ccMixter and the Freesound Project as tools in your freely-licensed arsenal.

I spoke to the folks at SoundCloud about the changes, and about how they see Creative Commons fitting into a larger picture. Henrik Lenberg, Business Developer at SoundCloud responds.

CDM: Can you detail exactly what’s changed?

SC: As far as Creative Commons features are concerned, the biggest changes in this release have been the introduction of a CC landing and discovery page, prominent placement of license information on track players and pages, and advanced search by license type. The basic features before provided a really simple way to select a license, and these changes make it more straightforward to find and identify Creative Commons-licensed material on the site. SoundCloud is geared particularly towards audio creators, and this release should make it much simpler to find samples, sounds, and tracks that can be used for remixes, mashups, and other compositions.

What have been some of your favorite uses of CC so far on SoundCloud?

We’re just wrapping up a series of blog posts with some of our favorite CC users on the site, which can be seen at http://blog.soundcloud.com/tag/ccinterviews. You can see there we’re getting all kinds of music under CC licenses on SoundCloud, but also field recordings, audiobooks, and plenty of other sounds. As far as samples are concerned, we’ve got the OLPC Sample collection online, which is over 6000 CC-BY samples, as well as really interesting collections, like the Stretta Samples and Karmadrums who makes on-demand drum loops on real drums. We’ve also got all kinds of sample-making companies, including Twisted Tools and Sample Magic.

How do you hope the new functionality might be used? What do you think might come out of it artistically?

I’m sure that some of the uses will surprise even us, but I’m expecting to see the same kind of outpouring of creativity that has accompanied Creative Commons licenses on other platforms. I hope there’s an uptick in remixes of CC licensed material on the site, and I imagine that video creators, podcasters, independent video game makers, and other people who need to find music for their works will begin to discover SoundCloud as a resource.

With more Music Hack Days coming up, what does this release mean for the developer community?

We’ve included Creative Commons filtering in our API so now you can build apps that let you find and use CC content in various ways. For example, one thing we expect to see is the possibility to search and browse samples and sound effects within your favorite sequencer or audio editor, then preview the results and drag and drop the sounds you prefer right into your arrangement. We believe that bringing tools and content closer together really can change how audio is shared and reused, and Creative Commons is an important piece of getting this puzzle together. We’re big music hack day fans, and glad to offer developers an easy-to-use resource for any type of CC content.

We hear regularly from the Creative Commons organization about how they perceive the business potential of artists, and why it isn’t simply creators giving their work away for free with no reciprocal benefit. We also hear from naysayers who, very often, seem to have little understanding or experience of CC. Coming at this from the perspective of a third party, what do you think the value might be for independent artists?

Well, first off, it’s absolutely true that Creative Commons licenses aren’t for every artist, and they’re not a magic bullet to finding a business model or getting your music heard. But it’s also important to note that every CC license requires at least attribution to the original artist. While there are certainly some artists who have the problem of too many fans trying to listen to their music free, many more are grappling with the issue of getting their name out there, and all of the CC licenses make sure that if your material is being used you’re still getting credit.

Ultimately, there are a lot of musicians and other artists who actually want to allow people to copy music for their friends, or to sample it or remix it, or use it in an independent film or game. Creative Commons is just about letting artists and users make that agreement in a simple and straightforward way, by granting permission in advance, and reserving the rights that artists do want to hold on to. Again, not everybody sees things the same way, and we’re not trying to make everybody use one license or another. For users who do want to use these, we’re simply giving them the freedom to do so.

What about labels, who have tended (with the exception of the various netlabels who focus on CC) not to use the technology? Is there a place to demonstrate some use to that crowd?

There may be a way to convince labels to use Creative Commons, but it’s not really something we’re focusing on at SoundCloud. Netlabels using CC have gotten increasingly popular, and there are many very high-quality ones on SoundCloud now. There have also been a few high-profile artists who have broken from their labels in order to pursue alternate distribution methods, including releasing under Creative Commons licenses, but those are still a bit rare. Maybe as more examples pop up of artists releasing profitable CC-licensed music, that will convince the major labels to experiment a bit more. We’re not here to push one business model or another, but if it ends up being something they want to explore, we’re ready for them with the features!

If you’re ready to check out SoundCloud’s Creative Commons implementation, have a look here:

http://soundcloud.com/creativecommons/samples
Find, Remix and Reuse – SoundCloud Style [SoundCloud blog]

Mobile devices are here, they’re powerful — get used to them. Now, could they just connect to the rest of your noisemakers and studio rigs? That’s the potential of new iOS SDKs for MIDI I/O and keyboard docking. But aside from some restrictions imposed by hardware support on iOS, what many developers are publicly wondering is whether a different path entirely will be most productive.

Hot on the heels of Line 6′s SDK for their MIDI Mobilizer, a MIDI input and output connector for iOS devices, Akai is courting developers for its own music accessory. The SynthStation 25 is a standard 25-key music keyboard with a dock for an iPhone or iPod touch inside.

The proposition for developers: now your sequencer or controller can connect to MIDI gear (with MIDI Mobilizer), or your synth can actually be inside something that looks like a synth, with a real keyboard.

Changes to Apple’s developer agreement have facilitated just this change. But while this is a step forward for developer flexibility, there are still some limitations on what developers can do, and what they can talk about, imposed by the makers of the accessories. Those restrictions won’t discourage all developers, but they’re worth noting, especially as mobile music gear is in early days.

There’s another discussion brewing among developers, too, which is whether the kinds of hardware assumptions upon which these two products are built even belong in the mobile age.

Here’s a look at where we are and how we got there, whether you’re an intrigued developer or just wish to consider how this fits into a larger picture of music gear in 2010.

Why Third-Party Apps for Third-Party Hardware is Now Available on iOS

In April, I wrote an editorial on the direction of hardware support on iOS, which has been a remnant of Apple’s tightly-controlled iPod accessory program, long before their mobile gadgets became real pocket computers. Line 6′s MIDI Mobilizer was the catalyst for the piece:
Of MIDI, iPhones and iPads, and a Restrictive Future for Hardware?

What hasn’t changed since then: Apple’s Dock Connector is not only a non-standard, proprietary adapter specific to their phones, but one for which you must ask permission if you wish to make your own hardware accessories.

What has changed: because of an adjustment to Apple’s legal writing, you can now let developers write apps for your hardware accessories.

Line 6 and Akai, as Apple developers, are not allowed to comment on Apple’s user agreement. (Insert Fight Club reference here.) But the changes to Apple’s Program Agreement are available publicly.

The old agreement

3.3.24 Your Application may interface, communicate, or otherwise interoperate with or control an iPhone Accessory (as defined above) through Bluetooth or Apple’s 30-pin dock connector only if You have obtained a license for such iPhone Accessory under Apple’s MFi Program.

The new agreement

3.3.25 Your Application may interface, communicate, or otherwise interoperate with or control an iPhone Accessory (as defined above) through Bluetooth or Apple’s 30-pin dock connector only if (i) such iPhone Accessory is licensed under Apple’s MFi Program at the time that You initially submit Your Application, (ii) the MFi Licensee has added Your Application to a list of those approved for interoperability with their iPhone Accessory, and (iii) the MFi Licensee has received approval from the Apple MFi Program for such addition.

Source: Twitter user beweeet

Spot the difference?

Apple is now allowing third-party apps to support those hardware accessories – provided Apple approves both the accessory itself, and via the accessory’s maker, the app.

Requirements for Developing for Akai, Line 6 iOS Hardware

Akai and Line 6 deserve some kudos for mediating between Apple and the third-party developer. Again, these developers are not able to talk about their agreement with Apple. But they were extremely cooperative in sharing their policy for working with developers. (In fact, basically, to get started all any interested developer has to do is email them.)

Line 6

A copy of the developer agreement obtained by CDM reveals what’s necessary to become a MIDI Mobilizer developer. At its most fundamental level, that means proposing an application plan to be approved by Line 6 as compatible (as per Apple’s own requirements), and agreeing to non-disclosure regarding any confidential information with which you’re providing (including documentation).

Marcus Ryle at Line 6 confirms with CDM that an additional requirement is sales reporting, though it appears this shouldn’t be a deal-breaker:

We do request reporting on the unit sales of the applications that use the MIDI Mobilizer. This information is kept confidential, and the purpose is so that we can have visibility into which apps are being most widely used by the MIDI Mobilizer. If we were to make any new versions of hardware in the future, we want to be sure that we can continue to meet the needs of our users by understanding what is important to them, and this requires us to know what is being used. We also understand that for some developers this is information that they do not want to share, and we are happy to discuss this directly with them to come to an amicable resolution.

With the SDK itself under non-disclosure, I asked Marcus what this might mean for someone developing an open source app (several of which have already appeared on the App Store):

We do have some limitations with regard to open source usage in our agreement. Specifically, we do not allow the use of open source if our SDK is used in a way that would cause our code to become part of the open source license obligations (unless we have provided written consent), since this typically results in the requirement that our source code would have to be released publicly. If the open source code can be used in a way that does not cause our code to be connected to the open source licensing, then this would be ok.

Akai

Glen Darcey, product manager at Akai, confirmed to me that the SynthStation SDK has some similar requirements in order to maintain their proprietary SDK. But unlike Line 6, Akai is not requesting any sales reporting.

Darcey also downplays the requirements. “Your product is your product,” he says. “Our code is our code. It cannot be redistributed. It can be in your app… Anyone who wants to add support for our hardware can but they have to go through our developers SDK process which is minimal.”

“There are requirements for adding our logos that say the app is compatible with our hardware,” he adds; that appears to me to come from Apple’s program.

As for the NDA, in this case, says Darcey, it’s nothing out of the ordinary: “The NDA is a standard NDA. It basically states that anything we say will be confident as will anything you say to us.”

Will this discourage developers?

Short answer: no – that is, if the developer has the desire to develop for this SDK in the first place.

Developers I’ve spoken to had some concerns about these requirements, but they also didn’t appear to change anyone’s mind one way or the other. That is, those wanting to develop for these accessories found the requirements workable. Those who don’t care … well, don’t care.

I think these restrictions are a deal-breaker for truly open source development on mobile, but for those projects, support for proprietary hardware accessories is generally less appealing anyway.

(If you disagree, of course, you can make yourself heard in comments.)

More than the issues of restrictions on the platform, though, the conversation I’m hearing is one that’s more fundamental.

Time to Move Beyond MIDI (or Wires)?

Line 6 and Akai each promise some exciting applications. But as comments recently demonstrated, many users and developers alike are treating the announcement with skepticism.

First off, even if the requirements for the proprietary SDK are modest, the issue is their competition. A $200 netbook (or a $400 used Mac laptop, if you like) can plug into a $30 MIDI interface without drivers. A variety of free development tools on any platform can then talk to that interface, or you could write your own – we’re talking serial communication, which is hardly brain surgery. And the reality is, a lot of people who use MIDI gear also own these other devices.

Once you add MIDI gear to an iPhone or iPad, you limit some of the device’s elegance and portability. You can also connect only one device at a time, meaning adding a MIDI Mobilizer gives you MIDI but no external audio – and since there are now things sticking out of your iPad, your laptop is suddenly just about as mobile as it is.

I think some of the skepticism here is undue; I still like the idea of a portable, pocketable recorder for MIDI sketching or library backup. But developers like Christopher Penrose, creator of Cosmovox, aren’t necessarily criticizing the availability of these SDKs. They’re saying that energy could be directed somewhere else. From comments, Christopher writes:

It is important to consider the benefits of Open Sound Control and other alternative communication protocols. I don’t believe the future of music entirely belongs to people who have an interest in protecting and extending their hardware investment. But I will say I would consider supporting the MIDImobilizer in some/all of our iOS products if the demand was significant, the API is well designed enough, and the licensing terms are acceptable. But I think developers should be putting their limited energies into viable communication protocols that extend and enrich the music we can make, rather than being bogged down by outdated, replacement-ripe legacy standards…

For independent developers, it may very well be an either/or situation. Time is finite. I have Open Sound Control support well under way and it works without an additional hardware investment.

The other advantage of wireless communication is that it keeps mobile devices mobile. And incidentally, there’s no reason you can’t use a protocol like Bluetooth to do MIDI, as well as implemented OSC wirelessly over a network. It is possible to achieve accurate timing and low latency wirelessly, too, though that’s a discussion I hope we have in greater detail on CDM, so I won’t do it an injustice by faking it now.

I actually had a dream last night in which I was using Bluetooth to do MIDI, so I’m obviously supposed to be getting on this instead of writing lengthy investigations of Apple developer agreements. And I’ll leave it at that.

In the end, I don’t doubt that we’ll see a handful of interesting apps for the Akai and Line 6 gear. And MIDI hardware is something with which we’ll want to interoperate for a long time to come. The question now is, what’s the best path for the future?

Sampling and online reuse are enormously common in our culture today. But if you really believe in making some of that culture freely accessible, it follows you must also make free licenses explicit. Simply taking something because it’s there isn’t fair to the person who created the content, whose rights should come first, and it doesn’t help advance the cause of free content. If we want content to be more freely accessible, we need to give first priority to those materials explicitly licensed for free use.

All of that is to say, we need to obey the law. And that’s generally been the goal on CDM.

Here’s the rub: while Creative Commons licenses show a lot of promise, they also have occasionally run up against vague definitions or not-quite-airtight license variants. Case in point: the “non-commercial” restriction commonly used by creators. Let’s say you upload an image to Flickr. Adding a “non-commercial” restriction seems logical enough as a way to protect yourself against your image being abused, right?

The problem is, when looking at the actual language of the license, the definition of non-commercial use is not clear. Here’s what the license says:

“You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. “

Source: the current full text of the license (3.0)

Is CDM’s usage of Flickr images with non-commercial Creative Commons licenses a violation of that license? It’s not entirely clear. While the site uses those images for illustrative purposes, and while the site carries ads from which we gather revenue, it’d be a stretch to say the use of the images themselves was directed toward monetary gain.

Ultimately, though, an ambiguous license isn’t good enough. To be able to use images without contacting photographers for their permission, we need confidence that the license is clear. And even if we were on legally good standing – and it’s unclear that we are – we would want to obey the intentions of the content creators.

The question of commercial status and the Creative Commons license led to a prolonged Twitter discussion between me and Chris Randall of Analog Industries and plug-in maker Audio Damage. Unlike CDM, the Analog Industries blog is copyrighted, not under a Creative Commons license, but Chris has used CC licenses in the past for his music. Chris’ argument was, in short, that CDM was in violation of the CC-NC license as the use constituted a commercial use. The obligation lies with me to prove otherwise, and based on the survey results, I don’t think I can.

I’m not the only person bothered by the ambiguity. Creative Commons has conceded that questions about commercial or non-commercial are some of the most common queries they receive. And the situation was ambiguous enough for CC to undertake a full survey of CC users and creators.

The results of this survey were published in September:
Defining Noncommercial

Read through the complete results, however, and the question of non-commercial status is murkier than ever. The most significant question for publishers (and many content creators) is at what point a site with ads becomes a commercial use. You’ll see the answers can vary wildly depending on how the question is asked, and what the respondent understands to be the usage case.

That said, now having fully read through the results, I think I have to change the policy on CDM. Having some people disagree isn’t good enough, and no matter how you ask the question, a significant number of content creators view sites with ads as commercial – no discussion. (Some even would classify sites by non-profits using ads to recoup hosting costs in this way!)

I’ve found Flickr users have actually been really enthusiastic to discover their work on the site; those are the comments I’ve gotten. Unfortunately, I have to balance that enthusiasm against the larger perception of the policy.

In short, if you’re placing images under an NC license, don’t expect to see them on CDM any more.

New CDM policy

From here on out, I will only make use of images that fit one of the following conditions:

• Creative Commons licenses with BY, SA, or ND restrictions, but not NC
• Public domain images
• Images used as implied (such as press images, etc.)
• Images used by specific permission

Videos are, of course, a different story, as the ability to embed these materials is assumed to mean an implied license, and I’ve never seen otherwise. Likewise, it seems that the use of Flickr tag slideshows and badges containing images – even copyrighted images – does not violate Flickr’s terms of service or the wishes of the copyright holder; this is in essence a view of the Flickr site itself, and should not diminish the value of a photographer’s work nor conflict with their likely intentions when they upload to Flickr.

There’s really no way to operate on the Internet without coming across some of these gray areas, but to me the spirit of the law and the intentions of the creators remains paramount.

How to protect your work without Non-Commercial restrictions

This may raise the question, how do you prevent your work from being exploited while at the same time allowing a site like CDM to republish it? One of the “commercial” uses cited in the survey results is the rather nasty scenario of the spam blog re-purposing stories via RSS. There have been cases of CC-licensed Flickr images being used for ads in bus stops. (See the instance of Virgin’s ads, taken from CC-licensed Flickr images. Note, however, the controversy there – aside from whether they actually complied with the CC licenses – was whether they had the rights to the likenesses of people in those images, which is a different legal area.)

My answer, and the answer on which I’ve settled for CDM’s content: use a ShareAlike license.

What makes ShareAlike unique is that it requires any distribution or repurposing of your content to have the “resulting work only under the same, similar or a compatible license.” That means you couldn’t, say, make an ad out of your photo without placing the ad under the same license — effectively preventing some of the more nefarious uses of CC-licensed works.

I do think that Creative Commons needs to present more explicit, clear, legally-binding documentation for the Non-Commercial restriction in the actual license. But until then, if you’re bothered by this ambiguity, you can resort to the more unambiguous ShareAlike license term.

Note that CDM itself is under a ShareAlike license. Because it’s compatible with any of the other CC SA licenses, that also gives us the right to use SA-licensed content – and, incidentally, were we not licensed that way, we should not have that ability.

HELP US!

To bring CDM into compliance with the non-commercial license, I need your help.

Got some regex skills? A regular expression should be able to purge all the images in CDM’s story database with non-commercial CC licenses, because images link to the specific license used. It’s simply a matter of then pulling the img src, anchor, and image caption div code around that license link.

Get in touch or respond in comments.

Got an image you don’t want to see lost? You can search CDM easily by your name and/or Flickr userid and find your image. Then let us know:

Provide permissions for a CC-NC-licensed image [Google Docs form]

Correction: I can actually observe a number of images I’ve used over the years with links back to CDM from the Flickr pages. So this would actually be the worst possible thing I could do, to remove those images. Obviously, the better solution is to wait and see if someone requests that an archived image be taken down. The Creative Commons license itself is non-revocable, but since this falls into a gray area in which we may not even been in compliance with someone’s license, that’s a moot point. And since those images are clearly marked by license, any derivative work based on them could check first if the license permits derivations. (That’s something you’d have to do anyway, as some images on CDM are copyrighted and used exclusively on CDM by permission.)

As a separate note, I’m now going to go through my own Flickr accounts and remove the non-commercial requirement, because my sense is that ShareAlike will prevent the unlikely event of them being abused within the license terms.

Disclaimer: This story is an editorial, an opinion piece. It does not constitute a legal statement (I’m not a lawyer) or official, binding statement of Create Digital Music’s policy. It expresses only the opinions of its author.

With the weakened world economy, content in general faces plenty of gloom and doom. Advertising models are severely weakened. But, oddly, in the world of music, there are some positive signs that the shift to decentralized, online distribution might actually be going well — and maybe economic pressures are simply ensuring the parties involved find some way to make the adjustment.

And music distribution is becoming wonderfully weird and diverse – maybe far more so than in recording’s so-called golden age, an era in the past dominated by racial division, predatory labels, and a few dominant big businesses. (Money is tough as always, but it does make you wonder why we complain so.)

One sign of the shifting landscape: online streaming site Pandora is now actually calling for more performance fees — for terrestrial (AM/FM) radio, anyway. Ars Technica has been doing a great job of following the issue:

Pandora now pushing radio to pay for music, too

It seems Pandora – along with other webcasters – was able to cut a deal on webcasting rates, in a battle that put music listeners and makers at the center of a legislative struggle. Legislators had been the ones to intervene and save webcasting, under pressure from listener constituents and even musicians. Pandora founder Tim Westergren told CDM how dire a failure on these rates could be.

What the deal means is that we can return to the rosier vision of how online streaming could help promote indie musicians, something Westergren put eloquently in a 2007 interview with CDM. But looking back at Tim’s arguments from two years ago, a central tenant was fairness — meaning big, corporate radio broadcasters really ought to face a level playing field and start paying musical rights owners. (Public radio in the US, by contrast, is likely to benefit from the online deal, as public stations increasingly rely upon wider online distribution and even pledges from loyal online listeners. Moved from Omaha to Montreal? You can still listen to your favorite station.)

There are signs that not only have online music pirates moved to download stores like iTunes, eMusic, and Amazon, but to streaming solutions, as well. In one of a number of recent studies, for instance, the UK is showing online file sharing down markedly as legal streaming grows. To me, the most interesting thing about this is that it disproves a long-held industry assumption that habits, once set, wouldn’t change. For better or worse, the online world doesn’t seem to work that way.

Meanwhile, the lines between “indie” and “major” are blurring quickly. Again, Ars Technica:

Universal/TuneCore deal opens major doors for indie artists

The surprise there is that it’s not so much about distributing Universal artists exclusively – online artist services firm TuneCore is now opening its membership base to Universal and visa versa, so that Universal can discover new artists and artists get licensing and mastering services from UMG without the need for exclusive contracts with the major label. In fact, if there’s one word that sums up the future of music deals, “non-exclusivity” seems to be it.

(clarification) As kj notes in comments, I think saying this opens “major doors” is a bit of a stretch. It opens a small door at a major. But on the other hand, the idea of a label becoming an open service shop for artists – for offering, say, mastering for a fee as part of their revenue – is new and, provided it actually works, interesting. And it’s clearly part of a larger trend.

But I think the best news is the spread of unusual means of musical distribution. Eliot Van Buskirk writes a round-up of favorites for Wired Magazine. (And yes, while top ten lists are overused, they’re brilliantly appropriate when you actually have ten really awesome things.)

10 Weird Ways to Distribute Music

From soup cans to music boxes to iPhone apps, there are a few underlying trends in there. One is experimentation in the delivery mechanism itself (including 8-tracks and cassettes, really). The other is in what you can do with the media, as with the interactive remixable iTunes album, or even art books that extend what an album actually is.

As these spread, though, I have to optimistically think that this is more than desperation or brief novelty. Distribution media haven’t just shifted from one popular form to another; they’ve imploded. We’re rapidly approaching a “minority majority” situation in which no one format dominates the others. We haven’t gone from the compact cassette to the CD to the MP3. We’ve gone from the CD to MP3s, MP4s, lossless files for aficionados and lossy streams for kids who love on-demand, vintage formats, physical media and art books and software. Instead of being strange anomalies, these other formats may actually be the new normal. I think in a way the business model doesn’t matter, because, let’s face it, a lot of art making is about losing money. What drives artists is loving sharing the thing they’re making, and finding someone who wants to love it, too. Some people will make a great business model around that, while others won’t.

But if you’re a music lover, we could be facing a new golden age. And if you missed compact cassettes, good news – they’re back.

Sure, many issues around intellectual property are gray. But contributor Jo Ardalan has a disturbing story: what happens when a fundraising album gets pirated? Did illegal file sharing users know what they were doing — is there a need for a donation mechanism for these services — or is it really this bad? Apologies if this is old news – catching up during travel – but a question well worth considering. -Ed.

We all know piracy forces labels, artists and developers to incur a huge cost. Recently, however, illegal file-sharing cost a bundle for the fundraising efforts aimed to raise money for reconstructing parts of Italy after a recent and devastating April quake. Universal Music and Italian pop artists collaborated on a track entitled “Domani 21/4/09″ that sells digitally for 2 Euros and will later be sold in stores for 5 Euros. According to Variety, the track has been downloaded illegally 2 million times.

Caterina Caselli, who produced the track for free says that this project is (translated from Italian) “sort of ‘mission impossible’: in one project between eighty artists and musicians doing almost everything in one day. All have dealt with air travel at their own expense, technicians and porters have worked for free, as do the catering…Universal does not gain anything.”

Artists inovled are Jovanotti, Ligabue, Zucchero and Elisa and many others.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118003748.html?categoryid=19&cs=1
http://discomania2.myblog.it/archive/2009/05/09/domani-21-4-09-con-jovanotti-e-altri-60-artisti-serve-a-racc.html [Italian]