Comments for R.E.M. Releases New Videos Under Open Source License

R.E.M. Releases New Videos Under Open Source License

2008-02-14T07:44:21Z

R.E.M. today released 11 videos for the first song from their forthcoming album, all in MP4 format in HD and under an open source license. "Supernatural Serious," is the first single from the band's next album, "Accelerate," due to be released April 1st.

Viewers are encouraged to remix the videos and share them on the song's YouTube page. The band will not be doing a Radiohead and offering the album for free, but this is an interesting twist somewhere in between that approach and the standard industry practice.

]]> The HD format will allow remixers to pan and scan within the video, but it also makes for a monster file size to work with. R.E.M. is big-time stuff though, so presumably there's a healthy number of production artists just waiting to work their magic on the file.

R.E.M.'s primary site is here, where you can - as they say - "Hear the Song/Buy the Ringtone."

The license selected for the project seems a bit unclear. It's from the Open Source Initiative, typically a software milieu, not Creative Commons where content most commonly goes open these days. The license says fairly clearly that "You are permitted to use the Standard Version and create and use Modified Versions for any purpose without restriction, provided that you do not Distribute the Modified Version." Yet the (beautiful) website encourages people to upload their remixed versions to YouTube. Does that not constitute distribution?

I don't know what to make of it yet, but I do know that a whole lot of people swoon over R.E.M. so perhaps this effort will find some legs. Remixing campaigns can be real flops but perhaps this one will hit the sweet spot of popular content plus open standards and licensing.

Comment from Roy on 2008-02-14

2008-02-14T08:49:55Z

Marshall - in regards to the license, you can argue that distribution over a network does not constitute a distribution (as is the case in GPL).

Roy

Comment from Marcin Grodzicki on 2008-02-14

2008-02-14T12:30:35Z

I wouldn't say it's similiar to Radiohead's move. It's just a different way of promotion. I think labels always distributed first singles to radio stations and tv's free of charge to spread news of a new album faster. This is the same thing, just utilising new medium (Youtube) and cosourcing consumers to do that. By the distribution they probably meant being paid for it. It's nice to be able to listen to them (legally) though ;)

Comment from Emre Sokullu on 2008-02-14

2008-02-14T15:52:22Z

Reminds me Cloverfield's marketing strategy.

Comment from Taran Rampersad on 2008-02-14

2008-02-14T17:43:08Z

This would be an 'Open Content License', not an 'Open Source License'. There is a big difference. For example, I don't see the source code being distributed with the video.

There's a reason that there are two separate phrases, you know...

Comment from zcat on 2008-02-14

2008-02-15T02:30:30Z

For it to qualify as an OSI "open source" license you have to be able to freely redistribute the original or modified 'content'. If there's any clause that restricts redistribution, even just 'you can't charge money for copies', it's not OSI-compliant.

Comment from chuck on 2008-02-14

2008-02-15T05:38:38Z

Reread the license

(6) You may Distribute a Modified Version in Compiled form without the Source, provided that you comply with Section 4 with respect to the Source of the Modified Version.

Comment from Quadduc on 2008-02-15

2008-02-15T19:19:34Z

The license is not from the Open Source Initiative, it's from The Perl Foundation, see http://www.perlfoundation.org/artistic_license_2_0 . The OSI has just approved the license. It is also a GPL-compatible Free Software license, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html .

Comment from Matthew Burnett on 2008-02-15

2008-02-15T20:15:36Z

Kristin Hersh has been doing something similar for a few months now:

http://cashmusic.org/

Comment from Rudolf Olah on 2008-02-16

2008-02-16T19:14:04Z

Apparently R.E.M. can't hire a lawyer.

From the license:
"This license establishes the terms under which a given free software Package may be copied, modified, distributed, and/or redistributed.

How are music videos considered free software Packages?

There's a reason the Creative Commons licenses were created. To avoid precisely this type of unclear crap. With legal matters, it pays to be one of the crowd using a solid legal license.

Comment from Allison Randal on 2008-02-16

2008-02-17T06:12:10Z

Actually, even though it mentions "free software", the license as a whole is appropriate for many digital forms of artistic content. "Package" is defined as "the collection of files distributed by the Copyright Holder, and derivatives of that collection and/or of those files." That fits video files just as well as code or documentation files.

What makes it seem highly appropriate is the second line: "The intent is that the Copyright Holder maintains some artistic control over the development of that Package while still keeping the Package available as open source and free software."

Comment from Garrett Goebel on 2008-02-17

2008-02-17T15:55:33Z

I'd have to say that this is a pretty successful and high profile endorsement of the recently revised Artistic License. Thank you Allison for your work and follow through on this.

Comment from William Weberer on 2008-02-19

2008-02-19T11:15:42Z

I am sure, I think it's a great idea - their are marekting angles for the band and for the individual and there is great quality content created for a community of people to come together and do something original and differnet. Love it.

P.S. I am one of those people who 'swoon' over R.E.M

Comment from Osma Ahvenlampi on 2008-02-19

2008-02-19T15:48:42Z

If it's being distributed as Open Content, never mind Open Source, I'd like to understand where the master material, ie the source content is. This is like releasing a program binary under an Open Source license and asking people to make new versions without giving the source code to them.

Sure, the HD video helps, but it's not what the director and editor originally created their material with.

Comment from Tom Bassford on 2008-02-24

2008-02-24T14:40:33Z

Yeah it's great and everything that they are trying to jump on the open source bandwagon but really these ideas need a lot more work!

It is not "Open Source" to provide the binary for free (that is called freeware)

It is not "Open Source" to provide the binary and then say that people can reverse engineer it (that's weird so we don't have a name for it)

"Open Source" means that you provide the source files (in film terms the "rushes") really to make a music video "open source" would require you to provide all the rushes (well at least the rushes that made the cut) as well as the project files from your compositing / editing application - most editing apps have the ability to export the project file with trimmed media source files so there is no huge technical reason to prevent people from producing an opensource music video (or feature film or whatever).

However I suspect that the majority of efforts in this area are designed to generate publicity rather than actually provide creative opportunities to remix and reuse components of the film. The adoption of the perl foundation license is a case in point - this is not an appropriate license for a film work to be released under. It has too many references to software terminology and it is not clear how a court would interpret the license when applied to non-software items.

The Creative Commons Licenses were specifically setup to enable the sharing and licensing for remix / reuse of creative works (such as film, music etc) If R.E.M really wanted to encourage remixes and reuse of their muisc video then they should of chosen the appropriate Creative Commons license.

So I say boo to R.E.M for trying to cash in on publicity by claiming to be open source when they clearly have made little or no effort to workout what open source actually means.