Re: Question about re-use

Responding to both Anthony DiPerro and Toby Bartels... and then
reporting on what Richard Stallman suggested.

1.  Yes, you could distribute the text of the GFDL along with the mp3
in a tar.  But this would significantly limit the audience on gnutella
networks.  I think even zip files would be more difficult to use for
most people, sufficiently more difficult as to really cut down on use.

Also, if *I* share the files in that way, and if they start to get
popular, then other people will just share them as plain old mp3's.
Will we join the RIAA in suing people for violating our license?  ;-)
Obviously not, but they would be in techincal violation for sure.

2.  Toby asks if we could just cut and paste a reading of the license
to the end of the recording.  Yes, I would imagine so, and he's right
that it would mean reading the license only once, if you have access
to that sort of software.

But I wasn't worried about the reading, I was worried about the
listener.  First of all, a reading of the license is not just boring,
but sort of stupid.  An end user would be much better served by being
told where to go read the text.

Many wikipedia articles are shorter than the license!  So I have to
download 5 minutes of article and 10 minutes of blah blah blah?  Yes,
it probably meets the requirements of the license (if reading text is
transparent?) but it's lame.

3.  RMS suggested that the license could be included in the audio
file, if the file format has a specification for text comments.
Brilliant!

Ogg vorbis has the ability to do this, and even has a defined field
for 'license'.  Including this likely meets the requirements of the
license, at least the letter of the license.  Mp3 has a space, too, in
'ID3v2' tags.

However, I think that virtually all mp3 players, both programs and
physical devices, are unable to display all that information, even if
you put it in there.  So I think it's pretty clear that to meet the
spirit of the license, each audio recording should tell people a
little bit about the licensing and tell them a stable url where they
can read more.

--Jimbo