Comment on Funkwhale - A platform for all your audio
aodhsishaj@lemmy.world 2 months agoThe publishing in the add copy. There’s no talk of how licensing is handled or who hosts what where. Just because it starts off as OSS and self hosted does not mean it stays that way.
chris@l.roofo.cc 2 months ago
I am unsure if I understand you correctly. Funkwhale is for you to publish music or other audio you make yourself. Not for your commercial music library. And the software itself is under the GNU AGPLv3. You can host the software yourself on your own server or you join an instance of someone else. Just like lemmy, mastodon or all the other fediverse projects.
aodhsishaj@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Correct, so when I post my song I created to Funkwhale, it’s then federated across the fediverse, living on other servers and able to be downloaded.
Let’s say I use the wikimedia license and allow reproduction of my music as long as I’m credited.
Someone in the fediverse likes my song and they download it. Then use it in their licensed DRM enabled media and give me no credit.
Who then protects my license and attribution rights beside myself? Does this open up others in the fediverse who hosted my media and allowed download to suit? The courts that would hear the case are unlikely to provide a distinction between the user who stole my media and those hosting it.
What prevents Funkwhale from charging a fee for their streaming app and profiting from my song and cutting me out of profit share? Which is exactly what digital distributors do all the time?
How does Funkwhale prevent the upload and sharing of licensed music by unlicensed parties?
None of this is referenced in the documentation or ad copy on the site.
I’ve seen funkwhale posted here multiple times, and these questions are never addressed.
chris@l.roofo.cc 2 months ago
Depending on your jurisdiction it is probably your responsibility to enforce your copyright. I can always just record your music off a streaming platform. You can attach a license to your song in funkwhale (see this). If you want DRM for your music then funkwhale is probably also not for your. You still have to enforce your self that nobody monetizes your works if you don’t allow it. You can delete things from the fediverse if you know the source but I don’t think funkwhale allows DRM protected music.
If you attach a license to your works that doesn’t allow monetization and they monetize the app you can sue them. I doubt they will though. And they probably wouldn’t be very successful because the app and the server are open source. You could just build the app without monetization. And someone probably would.
The upload and sharing copyrighted music probably falls into the hands of the instance admin. As with PeerTube it is probably not a good idea to have open signups. But everyone has to make sure that doesn’t happen.
The fediverse is an open and very liberal space. If you want full control over your works it is probably not for you. No software with federation probably is. If you want and need to control over your works (which is legitimate) you need something with a tighter grip, maybe host the things yourself on your server with DRM. That doesn’t mean it is bad for everyone.