Aisyk - Dogmazic, Music Libre and the Philosophy of Open Source Music - The Lorenzo's Music Podcast (Transcript)
Listen on:
Tom Ray: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Lorenzo’s Music Podcast. I’m Tom and this is a show where I talk to musicians, people who make music, people who make things for musicians, people who try to help musicians, people who do things, also with a focus on the open source realm, with the federated realm, things like that. And today I have a person who has been helping musicians online for quite some time and has, and just has a service that he does. And you know what? I’m not going to explain it. Why don’t you tell the people who you are and what it is you do?
Aisyk: Hi, I’m Aisyk and I’m former president of Music Libre. it’s an association. French association. Excuse me for my French accent. and this association, born in 1989, have a platform since, 2004, which named dogmazic.net it’s a platform to permit musicians to download and let’s stream their music m. In free publications, like before Creative Commons, and since Creative Commons, many, of them are in Creative Commons licenses.
Tom Ray: Yeah. And so we have. Just to give people some background here, you and I have a slight history together. I used to do a podcast called called Music, Manumit where we, we mainly focused on Creative Commons music. And we had spoken to you and there was actually one of the times we spoke to you, if I’m remembering correctly. I should have checked the show. But if, I remember correctly, we were discussing Dog Dogmazic, which is at the time we were talking about the difference between that and Jamendo because Jamendo had just recently opened up licensing or they were putting radios into public places. They were changing and Jamendo did end up changing. It was one of those things like. No, no, no, no. I’m sure they’re just doing a thing and it’s like oh no, no, no, they, they change their motto completely. There’s still a Creative Commons place, but they’re also not. They got a business model is what it amounts to. And we were talking to you about that and dogmazic and I didn’t know much about it. my co host Doug actually told me about it and then we talked. So explain first a little bit more about Dogmazic and what it is. It’s not just a band camp, it’s not just a host, your music platform. It’s more than that. So yes, explain to me, to people what it is.
Aisyk: It’s a nonprofit association and Jamendo is ah a profitable enterprise.
Tom Ray: yes, in theory I mean. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know how they’re doing these days. I really don’t hear that much about Jamendo anymore.
Aisyk: Yes, that’s it. in fact the non profit association have A little advantage. we have A business model very ah. Equal. We don’t We don’t Take money for musicians to We don’t take money for musicians and we don’t take money from musicians. So the business model is not the musicians. It’s a philosophical model I think. And It’s more than a Platform. It’s an archive of the movement of free music and free licenses and diffusions. we have uh.38 licenses in our site. so we have the first licenses in the movement. were born for Example the French license, Free art license which. Born in 199-… 1999. Yes.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Aisyk: 1999.
Aisyk: in France. so we are Sort of Witness of the movements of the free music and the free diffusion for the artists. we have Plenty of net labels who are On the site and They. They publish Their artists on our site. we have sort of 65 thousand of Musics MP3 or Ogg on our website. So I think we are Different from Jamendo because We don’t have editorial thing. We don’t have Sort of direction. we are welcome for anything and Any artists who want to Make music to Want to make free as our. With free licenses could Distribute their music on the site and I think there is no selection on the site. So we have Traditional music of the south of France. it’s named like Perry Gordin music.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Aisyk: And we have death metal, Indonesian. So we are open by default. So I think Some artists want to be on the dogmazic because the community was huge in the times. A little, a little Less today.
Tom Ray: But
Aisyk: We have Confronted Too many difficulties. because Having a website of the complexity of dogmazic is technically difficult. So we need to have Technicals and administrators who knows the specific part of the dogmazic for instance We have We are today on the software with ampache it took a long day and month to arrive with Ampache because We don’t know very we don’t know sort of software. We can take the needs of the community of dogmazic for example just mention of the licenses in the website is difficult and is an ad from dogmazic to Ampache. and It’s specific things to do with the software. for example Funkwhale with another software to distribute music don’t have specific things for us to see Why to see to use for the community. So it’s difficult to use it.
Tom Ray: But you’re talking about the hosting music. So you’re using more of a database driven thing that’s community driven which funkwhale in comparison is more of an online I still don’t really understand funkwhale. I know lots of people tell me about it and they say I should check it out. But it reminds me of MP3 locker. I don’t know if you remember that service that was online briefly and then everybody was like this is super illegal because it was just a locker and you could share your music with people. That’s essentially what Funkwhale is. But you have licenses. You also, and I know this from the past and from looking at your site, the second site as well Music Libre, that it’s important that the stuff you use, the stuff for the community and everything else is also open in the way that you see proper to be truly open. Nothing that is like it’s open source. Ish nothing that is like kind of open source or like for the most part it’s built on open source. You’re very. Even to the point that you switched, you have a you had a community board and you just posted recently that you guys had to switch back to. You went all the way back to php, BBB or whatever it is like the very old original bulletin boards that were online because you used vanilla and that one they just shut down and Vanilla itself even went through some transitions. They became more not. They became not as open and then people forked it off to open vanilla and now that is being closed anyway. That’s a long story saying you guys have a history in open source and the fact that your site is meant really just for the people and open to everyone including the licenses. Now before I move on I have a question. I realized I forgot to ask something. So for people who don’t know where you are where are you located in the world right now?
Aisyk: Like my French accent? we are. We are located in France. And, precisely in the city of Lyon. in France.
Tom Ray: Okay. And, now, the thing I wanted to bring up. So you were talking about dogmazic, and Dogmazic really is a site where you can. And the reason you also hinted at that, you know, the popularity. Like, it was. It was a music site, and then it’s still a music site, but maybe the community is different now. Or it. First of all, you’ve been around since the 90s. Second, second, it’s also because it was during a time and when we first met, it was. There were no easy ways to put your music online. There were no easy. Like, there was MySpace at the time, and then, even on Facebook, or even still on Facebook. You can’t just post your music on there. And then Bandcamp came around. I want to say maybe in 2012. Like, it wasn’t even that long ago.
Aisyk: Yes. YouTube is 2005. Facebook 2007 and Bandcamp. Yes. 2012.
Tom Ray: Or. Yeah, something like that. But it was hard for you to get music online. There were old services. Like, we’re just going to talk all about the old Internet. There was the Internet Underground Music Archive. There was. it still is. And I just spoke to recently, archive.org, which is still a great one. But that’s the thing is, as these new services pop up, you forget about these old ones. We just released a single and I’m like, still remembering today. It’s already been out a week. And I’m like, oh, I didn’t upload it here yet. You know, there’s still a bunch of services. but anyway, that was really what this did. And also, when people go there, they can upload their music. It is a lot like a music. I don’t want to say station. It’s a music place. Much like we were saying about funkwhale. It’s. People can upload their music, you can listen to it. It is arranged by genre. Now, the music that gets uploaded there, does the music need to be open? Does it need to choose a license? It cannot be something that people go, I’m going to upload it, but I’m not going to put it under Creative Commons or any other license. Does it have to be that way?
Aisyk: Yes, it has to be Creative Commons or free music license. For instance, we have. I don’t know if you know this license. The. What the fuck? Public license.
Tom Ray: Oh, yes, Yes, I do. Remember m that one? Yes.
Aisyk: So we have these license on our website. So you can contact the community to create your own license if you are a networker or group for artists.
Tom Ray: Oh, okay.
Aisyk: You could do that because the rights you could create the sense of artists should manage their diffusion and their musics, how they can be distributed, how can they hears heard. so it’s a philosophy, of the dogmazic. we have the creation and you create the music with open source software or not. It’s not a problem. but if you are in open source software, it’s good too. Yeah, think it’s better. But it’s a personal point of view. But but sometimes the, the artists forgot the, the, the distribution of their music and they forgot they had powers on that. they forgot the they could distribute with licenses and they have a great sense of how they can distribute their music and why they, and where they distribute their music. And In the early UH2K, there was MySpace, radio, FM radio, televisions and that’s all.
Tom Ray: Yeah, exactly.
Aisyk: Internet it was ipod with $1 to one song. and the downloads was not permitted because it was Still.
Tom Ray: Right, exactly. And that was really what started the Creative Commons thing is because for people like me, Napster was great because I would go on Napster, go in the chat rooms and then just promote my music and go check it out and they would download it and it would get shared and all that kind of stuff. I could care. Well I mean I did care about getting some of the music that I did want to download, but still that’s not my point. My point is it was also good for that. And then Creative Commons people were like, you can download our music. And that’s what started the whole thing. And also with. Back in the day when podcasts were essentially just college radio stations, everybody played music on their podcasts. They wanted to have legal music to do. They don’t really do that anymore. There are no real No, that’s not true. There are still music podcasts. I’m just saying people don’t understand it as that anymore. Whereas podcasts used to just mean you played music. now I forgot all about the. I’m glad you brought that up. The do what the fuck you want license. Forgot all about that license. It’s a fantastic license and it’s probably one of the shortest licenses I’ve ever seen. I got to try and remember to link to that in the show notes because it’s a great one one but I forgot all about it. now the other thing too is on Dogmazic You can listen on there. and first of all how have you been maintaining. Hosting all of this music for all of these years? How do you keep something like that running?
Aisyk: Oh we have some servers and Ah I think it’s a sort of miracle. I’m former president of the association since 20 11 and before me there was others and foundators and others peoples. I think m The statute of non profit association is good to have a service who can have a longer. Longest survive because some corporations born and dead or dead today and Jamendo we don’t, we don’t see where they are and They were born a little year after dugmazik 2005 and 2004 forest. And it’s a thing of it’s like a comparison of us between us. But There are two projects. Two different projects and two philosophies. Different philosophy for the music. and Jamendo is more a commercial structure and we are not a commercial structure. We have a budget which Jamendo didn’t
Tom Ray: start out that way.
Aisyk: Yes.
Tom Ray: I’m really curious what happened, why it did go that way. Also just for people listening. We’re not just bashing on Jamendo because that’s someone we’re talking about. Jamendo is also a. A France based music company that started out as a Creative Commons service and and that’s why we keep bringing it up. We’re not just like going Jamendo bad. We’re literally there’s a history here.
Aisyk: We, we have a brotherhood in uk it was a free music archive Archive which is ah for now under a Tribe of noise corporation.
Tom Ray: Yes.
Aisyk: And It was a good, A good brother of the. The movement of the music and free music. Jamendo is not French is it? Is a Luxembourg
Tom Ray: is it? I thought it was originally French. Okay.
Aisyk: They are French speaking but oh see that’s just.
Tom Ray: I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m, I’m, I’m in the middle of America, I’m in the Midwest. I, I know what I know from television. You know I don’t know the world.
Aisyk: It’s not problem Luxembourg is a, is a tax free specific country. So it’s a little country but with insurances and banks and And free.
Tom Ray: Good to know. Bank that. Tax free country. All right, so. But So you’ve been hosting this music now I noticed another thing today too. So I was of course looking at the site again, getting ready for the interview today and on the top you have a. I’m going to actually switch over the tab here for a second. Mobile apps. You have a button that says mobile apps and when you click on that it says this site is compatible with Subsonic and Ampache. so explain that to me because I looked at it and I’m like I don’t know what that means. And the funny thing is is I’m literally before we started, there is a conversation going on on Mastodon between a person that listens to this podcast and some of the other people I’ve interviewed on the show talking about open Subsonic and things like that and the capabilities of them. And so when I clicked on that it says it’s compatible with these. So tell me what that means because I literally didn’t know when I clicked on that. I’m like okay, what do I do from here?
Aisyk: Okay, I’ll do some little historical development of Dogmazic.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Aisyk: in its first early stages Dogmazic was ah published with a software NPDS. It was a PHP program and It was handcrafted by two administrators. and it was a little project but before WordPress and before the website NPDS was a good solution in the early 2K. Okay, when I and my team go through Dogmazic and begin to understand the technicals. Under Dogmazic we had a ah very big problem because administrators go out and we are alone with software we don’t understand because npds in the early 2k, 10 or 11 or 12 is an old product, old software and the handcrafted patches from the administrators don’t function with the npds release and the. The rare release of nbts. So when we decide to upgrade the website so websites crashed. So we decided to have ah a new philosophy about our software. first when we choose a software we don’t make a fork, we don’t fork the software. Second we participate to the development of the software to have a perennity of the development and of the platform. And third We try to choose a software with the best features for us With these three priorities. We had I think a dark age of Dogmazic in 2012 and Yes 2012 when Dogmazic was out and we have only a forum and a website and a blog and archive. were not online. were offline. and In this time we test Media Goblin software. Media Goblin. But it’s not very conclusive. it still exists but it’s not the.
Tom Ray: I’ve never heard of it.
Aisyk: Yes, it’s not the problem.
Tom Ray: Okay,
Aisyk: And we heard of Ampache and Ampache was Brought to us by an ancient administrator who knows The needs of Dogmazic. And Tells of the community of Apache or Ampache
Tom Ray: I’ve been saying it wrong. Ampache is. I like that better. I was saying Ampachy but I like Ampache. That’s better.
Aisyk: And We have discussion about developer and community of mpech and We could Adapt Ampache and propose patches and propose Some enhancements of Ampache And we are today the first and there biggest archive who have Ampache really like software. So if you go to through ampache .org which is their website you can see screenshots of Dogmazic as examples of
Aisyk: Good implementation.
Tom Ray: Here’s what you can do with it. People look what they did. Yes, like that.
Aisyk: Okay, so The main philosophy Is To don’t have a fork so to participate to contribute to Ampache, to Have ameliorations, upgrades of performances to Ampache Ampache designed to Be software which you can install it on your own server to Stream your music, your photos, your film etc. So We modified Ampache to have multiple users and it was A very big improvement of Ampache So there are However 28000 okay.
Tom Ray: 2800
Aisyk: Thank you. of users could use Ampache to have an account and Upload their music. So It’s a big thing like a big link between us Ampache and dogmazic And Early today we accelerate the development of Ampache and We propose many of patches for quality of Ampache and For example the last patch 8 will have a patch for us. Our I Search My words in English, in French is basse de donnet. But like my SQL, and others, so the basse donee in French that’s fine. Is less than today. So we continue to improve Ampache and it’s a link like that.
Tom Ray: Yeah, it’s reciprocal. You are also while you’re working on it, sharing back to the people that created what you’re using. So by you using it on your site in a manner in which you need to use it, you also share the improvements, therefore being kind of what Open Source is.
Aisyk: Yes, I think it’s the best model you could have. And your second question about Subsonic and Open Subsonic.
Tom Ray: Yes.
Aisyk: Is that Ampache is linked with an API named Subsonic and Subsonic, don’t support their primary API. It’s like Subsonic. So a new API open Subsonic, born and could be interfaced with mpech. Subsonic is an API, which you can find in many other softwares. like in Linux you have plenty of software who knows what is Subsonic, and can discuss with it. And I think there are plenty of softwares in Windows and in Mac who could learn and discuss with the API Subsonic.
Tom Ray: So you’re saying with the Subsonic I could essentially use the Subsonic, ampage. I love saying that now. I’m so glad that I heard you say it that way. Ampache, API and use Dogmazic to create a library of music that would be usable or shareable for people. Or say like a phone app that is like I could build my own Dogmazic phone app is what you’re saying.
Aisyk: Yes, yes.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Aisyk: You could do that with anything which supports the Subsonic API.
Tom Ray: Okay, gotcha. All right.
Aisyk: And many of API of which support many of softwares or application which support Subsonic still exist and you just to enter your server for us is play. Diagnostic.net yes. you have the user, you have your own user on the Dogmazic site and you have your password and you could listen the entire Dogmazic files and Dogmazic Music.
Tom Ray: Okay. And the reason I asked that is just because from the button itself that was on the website and then it was that pop up going basically because of Subsonic and you can use this site. And I was confused in the sense where I thought it was going to take me to a mobile version but the site itself is mobile. That’s the thing is it also is. If you go to dogmazic on the phone, it really is mobile. It is laid out like an app. It has search functions, it has a player bar at the bottom if you choose the music and all this kind of stuff. So it is mobile. Ready already. I was just. When I saw that button, I’m like what’s this button here for? And I’m on the desktop. Why would I need to use a mobile app on there? But you’re saying here, make a mobile app.
Aisyk: We have a mobile app.
Tom Ray: Which you did recently. That’s right. I forgot about that.
Aisyk: Power and patch, for Dogmazic. And it’s a community project. It’s a ah, developer. Who says, who asks? hello. I developed a little app. could you be pleased if I could have support for Subsonic API and link to your library. And we say yes, it’s a good thing to have a mobile application.
Tom Ray: Of course you can do that.
Aisyk: Yes. So we program You don’t have to build it. You are.
Tom Ray: Okay, fine, go.
Aisyk: It’s open source. Go. Yeah, you could do it. So there are two versions. One with F Droid, ah, store.
Tom Ray: Okay. On F Droid, yeah.
Aisyk: for the flows, applications, which have no limitations and by default you have dogmazic, directory implemented on that and you have second version on Google Play stores, which have two versions, one free and one with payment, the free version have dogmazic in the free version.
Tom Ray: Okay, gotcha. All right. And then when you talked about this person contacting you, this will lead me onto the next question I would have for you. So on top of this and the way that I discovered you again is because on Mastodon you are posting Music Libre, you are linking to Music Libre. Now from my understanding of this is it’s essentially just an open source music blog, but also connected to Dogmazic That’s my understanding. What is. Explain to me exactly what you are doing with Music Libre.
Aisyk: with archive.org or our music library.
Tom Ray: I don’t know. That’s what I’m asking. So on Mastodon you have a banner that says Music Libre.
Aisyk: Yes.
Tom Ray: And you share links to that. And then there’s a website called music-libre.org and so I’m asking what’s that? What are you doing there? What’s that all about?
Aisyk: Music, Libre is the association, is the Name of the association, with Dogma is a project of the association of Music Clip. I’m president of MusicLib Association.
Tom Ray: Gotcha.
Aisyk: For instance, so MusicLib is a blog of the association which publish sometimes news of the association like hello, we have a stand in a music festival in France. So hello, we have a documentation with sometimes interviews and the text of the licenses which we have in Dogmazic. And sometimes we publish some reflections and philosophy about digital rights and author rights in France. In the French context.
Tom Ray: Yes.
Aisyk: so the music label association is far more developed than Dogmazic. Dogmazic is a project of the association and Dogmazic is the emanation of the philosophy of this association.
Tom Ray: Okay, how long has it been around?
Aisyk: association is 1989.
Tom Ray: So still all the way back there. That was part of all this?
Aisyk: Yes. And dogmazic to 2004.
Tom Ray: Sorry. I love the noise that you just made. That was fantastic. But Okay, so that’s what I was wondering. For some reason that whole site, I feel like either I knew about it and forgot it or for some reason when I saw that’s what you were sharing links to and when I saw somebody shared a post of that and I was like wait a minute, I know that logo. That’s the dogmazic logo. And I went over there and I was like oh, okay. That’s the fun about being on Mastodon. Now a lot of the people that were in the open source Creative Commons music sort of realm, I still to this day randomly go, oh, that’s that person. You know, it’s in. In connect with them again on there. So that’s what happened here. And I’m like I gotta, I gotta have him on the show and talk about dogmazic So let me ask you one more thing. The Dogmazic What plans do you have coming up? What are some things that people can expect from it in the future?
Aisyk: Oh, in the future of Dogmazic it’s I think we have a long We don’t have a project with things. We have We are centers in France. Our activity is in France. So maybe we could expect to more participate for international events. For instance, Netlabel Day, is a good thing to do that. But we have also artists who participate on Net Label Day. Artists are in. dogmazic could participate on Belle Day and they participate on Label Day. I don’t think I. Because I am sort of musician too. a little. But I don’t have plenty of activities recently. But it’s a good thing to do to have a return on then cloud by day, make queries and sort of things. But the activities on Dogmazic for instance we, we like to develop more the graphical appearances of Dogmazic and music Lab sessions like the Forum actually which is new with old software. it’s very old software but only here and always here. It’s good thing to have software which are built on big foundations and used today because vanilla was a good thing. But
Tom Ray: Right. No, that was a big part of when I was in software development. I was a front end developer and basically it was companies going, we have this database and like ext JS or something like that, like some ridiculously table driven sort of website. And they’d go we want to make a mobile version of the site but nobody wants to switch the software. Can you do that? And I’m like I don’t know, I’ll give it a try. So yeah, I understand the like okay, it functions great but nobody ever goes now we should make it look like it wasn’t built you know, 30 years ago. We should make it look like a good design that people will like. So I understand the. Yes, you’re always updating the new site. Is it is, it is a good improvement. I remember the site from quite a while ago and it was a pretty. No, it was a good site then. But I get what you’re saying. Like it is more functionality and back end now and usually you get what you’re given when it comes to switching over to that type of software is my point. So yeah, improving the graphics is always a constant battle. I get that. So okay.
Aisyk: Ah, for instance Ampache, which are ours is for mobile, to have mobile functionalities on the website. which wasn’t here with early versions of Ampache So we constantly improve and recently we launched our radio. it’s our playlist with plenty of music. also the Dogmazic.
Tom Ray: I didn’t see that.
Aisyk: Okay, yes you should, okay, yeah, you should go on radio dogmatic.net I think it’s a good thing. It’s HTML5, web page, other technology, other design.
Tom Ray: All right, all right.
Aisyk: But I, I think we need to, to improve this and we need to to have coherence and graphical coherence. But projects are here, activity is here, and it’s the essential.
Tom Ray: Great. All right. And, also, if people wanted to check out dogmazic if they wanted to connect with you or dogmazic online, where could they find it and where could they learn more about it?
Aisyk: on our Mastodon account. dogmazic. I don’t think, you’re, in French. yes, yes.
Tom Ray: I’m actually looking up right now. Yes. fram A P I, A F. Yes, Fram ap. I don’t know how to pronounce that.
Aisyk: Yes, it’s a French association, which knows, Frameasoft.
Tom Ray: Okay.
Aisyk: It’s like, an old French association, who provides, plenty of server size and open source, server size for French people, but other people could use them. so, Dogmazic Dot, Dogmazic from ipf dot org for Mastodon account. we have, Recently we have a Blue sky, account.
Tom Ray: I saw that. Yeah. You guys were like, I guess we should go on there.
Aisyk: Okay, so it’s a recent, decision. We will see where it, Where we are and where. Ah. it, improve, our communication. But it exists.
Tom Ray: Yes.
Aisyk: We have our website and forum. website. Music Theory. The theory. The six. Yes, thank you. The music libre.org or dogmatic.net it’s our website and forum,
Tom Ray: And also I want to thank you so much for talking to me today. It’s been great to catch up and talk with you again.
Aisyk: Yes, great to Thank you for invitation.