I think you are right about FAWM in that there is still ownership or shared ownership for collabs.

As far as licensing goes, seems to me it would be a necessary component to do what you are proposing. If there is no ownership at all maybe someone down the line would claim/establish ownership and turn around and prohibit you from ever using the song? Or they decide to make a song you care deeply about the theme for something horrendous. If you have licensed the work you can cover some of these issues in advance.

Open source software can still be owned/copyrighted and often is but it is then licensed with specific requirements as to its usage. Sometimes those requirements are strict such as no commercial use allowed and sometimes they are completely wide open for any sort of use without even attribution. But even in those cases you usually get a license and not ownership of the software.


But that is all the technical/business side of things plus I understand what you are proposing is a bit different. I gave this some thought about the creative side and from my perspective I just don't see how it would work. Creatives tend to be proud of their work and I think it would be very difficult to create songs in this manner. We do it, at least in part, to be able to step back and say "I did that!"

Do you know of anything like this that has been tried? I am not very much in tune with the music, art or literature worlds but would be curious to know if this concept has worked anywhere outside of things like software.


Oh, one other question...I was curious how Craigslist and I Love Bees related to this idea? One is a privately held corporation and the other a viral marketing campaign. Although I guess they both engage(d) tremendous numbers of people.

Last edited by JohnJohnJohn; 08/08/13 04:29 AM.