Funkwhale - A platform for all your audio
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Ngl, I thought the name was ‘Fuckwhale’
And possible federation as well, very nice. Is this using SolidPods or did they just name their* server similarly?
It is federated, but no, it isn’t connected to Solid pods. Pods are just the term for flocks of whales 🙂
I know it’s not the intention, but can you use this to host copyrighted music?
Yes, but if you put it a public library you will be opening yourself for all sorts of copyright trolls trying to sue you for file sharing.
The website looks like it’s trying to sell me something
I have no idea why open source projects would want to use illustrations with this big tech corporate artstyle in their apps and documetation pages.
They seem to get them from https://undraw.co
It looks clean, maybe not very original but better than a early 2000s looking-ass website
I had more fun in the 2000
No it’s an open-source service to host your audio.
What if we added a P2P element so we could share our music and own it instead of streaming it? Oh wait, that’s soulseek.
Who keeps posting this? This feels inches away from a monetized subscription service.
I don’t think you’re supposed to host music you don’t have the rights to. I think you’re supposed to post your own music
That’s fair enough, so who handles licensing. How do you protect the copy left aspect of your music? How do you prevent your work from being freebooted?
You can disable downloading if your music is copyrighted. Or a layer for copy left of someone tries to take credit.
Where’s that in the documentation?
What are you saying? This is an open source project that is connected to the fediverse. It aims to be something comparable to soundcloud where people can share their music. What about this is says monetization?
The publishing referenced in the ad 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.
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.
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.
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.
AFAIK, the songs do not get distributed across the Fediverse, only the link to the original server.
Someone in the fediverse likes my song and they download it. Who then protects my license and attribution rights beside myself?
How is it different from you hosting your songs on your own website?
How is it different from songs you made available through Bandcamp? Does Bandcamp go chasing people pirating your work and/or using in unlicensed cases (e.g, playing in a commercial setting)?
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.
