Can there be open source music?

What is "Variations On A Theme By Paganini" but OpenSource music? Barry Manilow using one Chopin's themes for "Could It Be Magic", or, IF he actually did use it as a model, George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" and its aparent similarity to "He's So Fine".

Or the Goldberg Variations by Bach, the bass line of which is someone else's folk song. There's also the tradition of "covers", redoing someone else's music openly, giving credit where credit is due, and trying to make it better.

Learning from those who came before, "fixing" things that don't work, reusing and building on themes, and releasing it back to the world. I'd say music is and always has been "Open Source" in its spirit and application, except where prohibited by law.

> I'd say music is and always has been "Open Source" in its spirit

Agreed.

I think the author was jes exercising his brain and mumbling out loud on this one. Merely trying to view music in relationship to computers.

A musician, by definition, is one who utilizes the open source fundamentals of music. I started reading the piece looking to discredit it, but it's pointless. All music is, and always has been and always will be open source. Only in the confines of the recording and distribution industry does it become closed and that is ending. Like proprietary software, copyrighted music is a dying breed.

Couldn't agree more. I look forward to a return to the fundamental reality of music that it is a community medium open to all, available to all.

At one time, music was experienced and performed by everybody and passed down freely through the generations. Somewhere along the way we forgot that, and as a society we are the poorer for it.

> I'd say music is and always has been "Open Source" in its spirit

There is something badly wrong with the very notion that music might not be "open source". Music is -- always has been, since before we invented stone tools -- a facet of culture, and culture should not "belong" (in the proprietary sense) to anybody.