ariel-phet
commented
6 years ago @emily-phet we were generally thinking along the lines of the .ai file that we collect with original artwork. Since we know that things will eventually be tweaked, remixed, reused, having the original assets is quite valuable when the original artist has moved on.
It sounds like things are a bit more complicated for sounds. Certainly the .wav file will be important to have, but perhaps there could always be an associated markdown file that helps give a better idea of the source files (as you mention above for documentation). I would suggest making some kind of template markdown file, and putting it in phet-info, and then every .wav file could have an associated *.md file with the same name.
In working with a sound designer contractor on finalizing sound designs for John Travoltage, we ran into some new information we hadn't discussed previously when deciding what sound assets to archive.
Essentially, the sound clips we will be using are more like 'music' (e.g., like hiring a musician to create a song, and this does not come with the rights to all materials used to make the song, or editing files associated with 'tweaking' the song), than they are like artwork created by PhET designers (e.g., artwork is created from scratch in Illustrator, and all original files are kept and available for 'tweaking' or using as a starting point for new artwork in the future).
More specifics here, if you're interested { The sound designer utilizes a certain digital audio workspace named Reaper. The way the contractor made many (all?) of the recorded sounds (presumably this does not apply to sounds synthesized directly in the sim), was to have a starting sound or sounds imported into Reaper. They then manipulated this sound or sounds, sometimes using professional (for fee) manipulations. Once the desired outcome was reached, a new file is generated, which is the final sound clip used by PhET. The input files, manipulations, and Reaper itself all have licenses consistent with our needs, but it is not the case that all source files are CC-BY, or should become CC-BY. As another example, one of the sounds in John Travoltage is essentially the outcome of manipulations of a self-recorded nature sound by the sound designer. The sound designer (reasonably) does not want the nature recording to be open source, or to give rights to us beyond use of the outcome sound file for JT. }
We have decided for the time being to treat the outcome *.wav file as the asset (this is the actual sound clip used within the sim). I have also asked the sound designer to document for each sim sound what the source sounds are, and their origins (e.g., self-recorded, openly licensed database of sounds, etc.). I'll probably follow up and ask the contractor to list the specific licensing for each (e.g., declare a license type for his self-recorded files).
I would like to discuss this in greater detail with whoever is the appropriate person, @kathy-phet, @ariel-phet ? Anyone else? As a related (smaller) topic, this also brought up some questions for me about what assets in general we're keeping public vs private (e.g., assets related to PhET branding, etc.). I'd like to discuss this as well, but again, I think this is a minor topic.