Hi [firstname],

And welcome to the Open Source Songs global worship
songwriting community.

So How Does Open Source Songwriting Work Then?

Well, I'm glad you asked - there are 3 simple steps...

1. Share your song idea on the 'Songs Under Construction'
section of the 'lab' (I'll be sending that link shortly when
I've finished tinkering with it) and invite others to contribute
suggestions. Perhaps you have a lyric and a bit of a melody or
maybe a couple of complete verses but no chorus.

2. Others add their creativity. Registered members of the
community take what's on the table, and add their creativity
to the original idea and share their suggested ideas and
changes.

3. This process gets repeated as often as necessary until the
originator of the idea is happy with the final version of the
song.

Simple as that!

Here are some answers to frequently asked questions.

Who decides on what goes into the final song?

The person who initiates an idea always retains the right to
accept or 'pass' on others contributions. For example, if you
launched a song idea then it's you who gets to decide whose
contributions you'd like to accept and you get to decide when
the song is finished.

Open source songwriting works on the basis that there's a
wealth of creativity and ideas that can be tapped into when we
make the process based on shared and open participation.

OK, so who owns the final song?

The default suggestion is that the person who initiated the
project owns 50% of the song.

The other 50% is equally owned by whatever number of other
contributors work was accepted. For example, if the suggestions
of two other writers were used in the final song then they each
own 25% (50% divided by two) and the song becomes a co-write
between three people - the initiator and the two other
contributors.

How does the Creative Commons License work?

The beauty is this allows it to be win-win for all parties as
contributions are covered by the Creative Commons licensing
process (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)
which allows free sharing of ideas as long as they are not used
for commercial gain without permission of the owner. This means
that ideas contributed, whether used or not, still belong to the
person who came up with them - yet by contributing them to a
project they help create something greater than the sum of
it's parts!

I'm not really a song writer, what can I do?

Great question!

When I originally tested this idea at http://blog.andyrogersmusic.com
some really great suggestions came from folks who didn't consider
themselves to be songwriters. Yet they had lyric and theme
suggestions that added value to the process.

Don't rule yourself out from contributing.

Any other questions? - Please let me know, because if you're
thinking it there are probably others who would love to know the
answer too.

Ask and you shall receive!

I'll be sending you the link to the 'Lab' as soon as I've
finished tinkering.

Cheers - Andy
http://www.OpenSourceSongs.com
http://www.AndyRogersMusic.com