Do I need a commercial license?

[modularsamples]

I could use a little clarification regarding licensing, please. The legal stuff makes my head spin.

I’m currently working on a GPL3 licensed project, the code is publicly available and binaries and sample content (ch1 files) are provided alongside it. The samples were adapted from existing CC0/public domain works. With that said, my questions are:

What happens to a public domain sample legally, once it has been converted to a HISE format? Is it still public domain, or does the conversion process change that?

Once the instrument is a bit more polished, I’d might like to sell some expansion packs for it. The samples used in the expansions would also be public domain and publicly available, meaning someone could download these, build the instrument and have exactly the same instrument and content. The only thing being withheld would be built versions of the expansion. Would I need a commercial license in this scenario? My interpretation of other posts on the subject suggests it isn’t required ‘cos all assets are publicly available.

Finally, if it is legally okay to proceed without a commercial license, are there any ethical considerations here? Any personal objections? Building instruments with HISE has brought me many moments of joy over the last year, I wouldn’t proceed with the expansion it was seen as objectionable by Christoph, or the community.

Thanks :)

[Christoph Hart]

@modularsamples This is indeed a complicated topic because one could make a legal argument that the GPL license is "viral" in a sense that everything it touches also becomes GPLed which would apply to the public domain samples.

On the other hand you can argue that GPL is only a source code license and that exclude assets like textures for games (or in our case, samples) entirely from the GPL license.

I for myself went with a middle-ground approach and stopped caring about the legal details as long as I don't perceive any foul play: as long as the samples are available to the user so that a capable end user can compile and use your library from the source code I consider it fair game - so you could even use a more restrictive license à la "you can use these samples for my project here but not repackage them and resell them" and I would still think it's fair.

The only thing being withheld would be built versions of the expansion. Would I need a commercial license in this scenario?

You're not obligated to share a compiled version of your work, only make the source code (and the assets required to build and use your work) available, however this would include the artwork and sample maps of the expansion too.

Charging a price for the compiled binary is totally fine and doesn't require a commercial license.

[modularsamples]

@Christoph-Hart
It's quite an interesting subject, it seems like this is a flaw in the license, but maybe it's naive to expect legal agreements to be unambiguous. It's similar to the issues with most of the CC licenses when applied to sample content. if an artist uses a sample in a song they need to credit the creator. But when? where? do I get a shout at their next gig? a note in the mp3 metadata?

Thanks for the detailed reply, it's great to know I can proceed as planned.

[d.healey]

I think this statement from the GNU GPL FAQ is probably applicable here:

[modularsamples]

@d-healey This seems pretty clear cut, thanks for sharing.

This is totally off topic, but I recently had someone compliment "my" filters (scriptnode SVF), since I had nothing to do with it thought I'd pass it on. They loved the resonance and compared it to the Make noise QPAS. High praise imo.