Support Creative Commons October 6, 2007
Creative Commons (CC) is holding their 2007 fundraiser now through Dec 31st and they need your help. Creative Commons licenses enable artists (an artist is you!) to grant some or all of their rights to the public while retaining others as opposed to an “all rights reserved” copyright. For example you can grant your fans the right to download your works for non-commercial uses as long as they give you credit, or not, it’s up to you. Creative Commons was officially launched in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig (wiki). Today there are many millions of works licensed under Creative Commons and that number is growing fast.
There’s a lot more to the Creative Commons web site than just Licenses though. CCmixter “is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons, where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.” There are tens of thousands of samples and tracks from artists and recording labels like the freesound project, Magnatune, Fort Minor and more. All available for download legally, for free.
There are many more projects and tools on their Projects page and while you are there, think about supporting Creative Commons with a donation or buy some geek gear.
Free Download 11, Please Share Labrador’s Summer Sampler August 5, 2007
When a major record label bends even a tiny fraction of an inch away from their old world busyness model the press goes wild. Independent record labels treat their fans much better and they do it all the time but they hardly ever get noticed in the mainstream media. Labrador Records is one of those independent labels giving away their Summer Sampler as a 68 track (mp3) download for free. They tried to release this years free download on their own servers but things didn’t work as planned. Heres how they put it.
“Well, putting the massive 68-track Labrador Summer Sampler 2007 on our server didn’t work quite as smoothly as we’d hoped. I don’t know if we overestimated our server or underestimated the need of good music this summer. Either way, it’s been taken care of now.
Download Labrador Summer Sampler 2007 from Piratebay here!”
You can download the entire sampler via torrent (~350MB ) or listen to full releases from Labrador’s artists here. This is a good example of how P2P file sharing helps connect independent artists and record labels to their fans. And it’s all free and legal! And Please share it on The Pirate Bay!
Big Media=Greed July 14, 2007
Today, July 13, 2007 in Great Britain, Prince slammed Sony BMG UK by making a deal to distribute his new CD “Planet Earth” with Sunday’s newspaper for free…. or just the cost of the paper.
This is a stunt to gain more listeners, but it really goes against what Big Media believes, that they own the music and movies the artists produce. Put into plain, simple terms: “Somebody’s Crazy!!” You decide who. Sure contracts are signed, deals are made, but who produced the music in the first place? Right. You know the answer.
As for Prince, I think he should just tell them to go sit with the demon The Doctor put down that black hole (yes, that Doctor). Prince can sell all the albums he wants online. Maybe he could start distribution via Magnatune or even the likes of PodSafeAudio or just under a Creative Commons license. Whichever comes to pass, I’m sure fans will still want and be willing to pay for his music and concerts. He’ll be the free and clear winner.
nomasteryoda
National Day of Silence for Webcasters June 26, 2007
Today a nation wide protest of new webcasting rates is being observed. Webcasters are turning off their streams for a day of silence. Some are boycotting music registered with the RIAA.
From the WFMU - Beware of the Blog
“Instead of webcasting silence today, WFMU has decided to boycott all music that is registered with the RIAA and/or SoundExchange. Today, you will hear songs from live performances on WFMU, material from the public domain, orphaned works, music from bands and record labels that have signed a waiver releasing WFMU from SoundExchange’s unreasonable royalty scheme, and music from artists that SoundExchange has neglected to pay.”
Visit www.savenetradio.org for more info. Update: Links to more coverage here.
Free Downloads 9, SXSW 2007 February 21, 2007
The South by Southwest Music Festival is coming (March 9-18) but you don’t have to wait to hear some great music. You can download the festivals first torrent of 2007 Showcasing bands. This ginormous collection has 739 free legal mp3’s all in one 3.1 G download, or download just the ones you want . While you wait for the music to download check out the Film, Music, and Interactive Panels Schedule. The panels are packed with interesting people like Terry McBride from the Nettwerk Music Group, an interview with Rickie Lee Jones, and Gilberto Gill (wikipedia). There’s some fun topics as well, like “Music Litigation Update“, “Why Does Today’s Music Sound Like Sh*t?“, and the obligatory Bruce Sterling Rant.
Ampache adds democratic support in the latest release January 27, 2007
The latest stable release of Ampache is out with a new play method called democratic play. Ampache is a web based file manager for audio that lets you access your music from anywhere with a long list of features like play lists, album art, playback via Http, Icecast, Integrated Flash Player Vote based playback, and a zillion other things. From Digg,
“This new method allows users to vote on what songs they want to hear. The songs are then streamed based on the number of votes. So casting a vote directly influences playback by raising it.“
Ampache supports all of the common file formats including M4A/AAC/MP4 (Itunes files) as well as support for any player that support HTTP streams like XMMS. There is a cool demo of Ampache where you can see it in action. The wiki has all the info on installing, configuring, and creating custom themes.
EMI dumps CD DRM January 8, 2007
BoingBoing is reporting that EMI will no longer be crippling their CD’s with digital rights management. The original announcement is in Dutch on NVPI. Could it be true, did some one at EMI finally get a clue?
Free Download 8, Don’t Download This Song! August 22, 2006
Weird Al has released a song about file sharing entitled “Don’t Download this song” (thanks BoingBoing!). You can download it from his MySpace page or from www.dontdownloadthissong.comtracks/DDTS.mp3 when the server recovers from the millions of pirates trying to download it.
The lyrics are a hoot,
“You don’t want to mess with the RI-double-A
They’ll sue you if you burn that CDR
It doesn’t matter if you’re a grandma
Or a seven year old girl
They’ll treat you like
the evil hard-bitten criminal you are…”
and
“…don’t download this song
or you’ll burn in hell
(and you deserve it)…”
It’s good to see artist’s standing up for what they believe in.
Indie artist says DRM is “extremely stupid” July 6, 2006
From technozid.de, BB, the German bitpop group Bodenständig 2000 is done with itunes and DRM. While some members of the band think file sharing may contribute to lost revenue, DRM is most definitely not the answer, at least not for them, and they have finally managed to opt out.
“We know that mp3 is part of our relative
poverty, but Apples proprietary digital rights
management is an extremely stupid answer.”
I have never seen Digital Rights Management used to do anything other then infringe upon the rights granted to the public by law. More and more artists are realizing that DRM is the worst thing you can do to artistic expression, aside from a good old fashioned book burning.
Free Download 7, God Save The Internet! June 24, 2006
The Broadband, three singer/songwriters, Kay Hanley, Jill Sobule, and Michelle Lewis, (with special guest appearance by Michelle’s mom) have released their new hit single for free download at SaveTheInternet.com called God Save The Internet. If the song doesn’t move you to call your reps you could always Ask a Ninja or watch a bunch of cool videos. Download this great new tune by independent artists while you still can!
Tell Your Senators to Kick Out the Flags May 6, 2006
DO IT TODAY - THIS CAN’T WAIT!!!!
This is a direct quote from EFF.orgSenator Stevens has introduced a bill that includes not just the broadcast flag, but the audio flag too. Write to your senators now, and tell them to keep the entertainment industry’s tech mandates off the law books!
“On May 1st, Senator Stevens introduced the “Communications, Consumer’s Choice, and Broadband
Deployment Act” (S.2686). Buried inside this 125 page bill is language that would create a broadcast flag in over-the-air TV transmissions, and give the FCC power to create a similar technology mandate for digital radio.If this bill were to pass, government - and the entertainment industry - would control what you could do with digital media in your home. The broadcast flag would place TV shows in a DRM ghetto, where your right to copy, back-up, sell, time-shift or convert them into formats convenient to you would be at the whim of the broadcasters. The audio flag would give the FCC matching powers over “digital audio broadcasting,” including satellite radio, digital HD radio, and potentially even Internet radio.There’s no benefit here for artists or customers, and for infringing copiers, evading these copy controls will be as easy as ever. No matter how inconvenienced individual users would be by a flag, pirates would be able to bypass it. The bill would usher in a new world of anti-consumer electronics, and a chance for the MPAA’s and RIAA’s member companies to seize even greater control over all media distribution and use.”
More info:
Video Flag (Digital TV)
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/
Radio Flag
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/?f=digitalradioflag.html
nomasteryoda - wanting to keep my rights and everyone elses!!
Net Neutrality April 28, 2006
The US Congress caved to big media again. “Net Neutrality” was given a death blow by Congress. The issue has been hotly debated by groups such as Save the Internet. People tried to get Congress to pass this legislation, but their efforts have failed.
The Internet has made things much more volitale for media and you should expect things to get much worse during the next 5 years, especially if our Governments do not care about our rights. I received a letter from my US House (more…)
Media Controls
Media Controls
There is a disturbing new technology we should all be concerned about just patented by Philips. Thought you could watch TV and skip the commercials? Well think again. The US Patent office issued a patent to Philips which would allow broadcasters of Digital TV, the new FCC mandated standard, to force consumers to either pay to skip (more…)
Free Downloads 6, new album-mix-type-thingy March 28, 2006
The Kleptones announced the release of their new 2-CD album “24 Hours”. I am only half way through this amazingly cool collection of mash-ups but I will definitely be checking out their other 4 albums later. Thanks to BoingBoing for pointing us to this free download. You can download individual tracks, the whole album as one file, or all the tracks in one zip file.
While I was poking around at the Kleptones blog I came across a link to “Introduction to Copyfighting“, “a brief but informative introduction to the current on-line war of intellectual property rights” by Scott Kleper. It’s a good read while you are listening to some great tunes.
Save the music fan March 18, 2006
The EFF miniLink says it all, “Music label launches campaign to stop the RIAA suits.” The CEO of Nettwerk Music Group, Terry McBride, is offering to pay legal fees and fines for a family being sued by the RIAA. The web site is here.
You really should watch the video clip of the interview with McBride who’s label is home to artists like Avril Lavigne and MC Lars. The 15-year-old daughter of the family being sued heard the MC Lars song “Download This Song” which slams the recording industry with lyrics like “Hey Mr. Record Man, your system can’t compete/It’s the new artist model, file transfer complete,” and emailed Lars who passed it on to McBride.
Edit: More coverage here.
Free downloads 5, South by Southwest
From their about page “the 2006 SXSW Music and Media Conference showcases hundreds of musical acts from around the globe on over fifty stages in downtown Austin…” and you don’t have to go there to enjoy the music. Presently, they have released two torrent files to download with almost 1000 free mp3’s. I have been listening to these two collections for over a week and the music is great. I’ve found several new favorites to add to my play list.
Free downloads 4, Evil free music March 3, 2006
I want to tell you about a record label that lets you listen to their entire catalog for free, Magnatune.com . I’m serious! They actually want you to listen to their stuff for free, no DRM, no time limits, no restrictions. And get this, you are not gonna believe this, they want you to share the mp3’s you get from them. They don’t mind. If all this were not insane enough they go right over the edge and let you use the music from their artists to create derivative works. They call it “Open Music” and describe it like this
“Open Music is music that is shareable, available in “source code” form, allows derivative works and is free of cost for non-commercial use. It is the concept of “open source” computer software applied to music.”
Free downloads 3, Legal Torrents for all February 24, 2006
Here is a site with loads of content under the Creative Commons license with the full permission of the rights holders to download for free. As LegalTorrents.com puts it,
“LegalTorrents is a collection of Creative Commons-licensed, legally downloadable, freely distributable creator-approved files, from electronic/indie music to movies and books, which we have made available via BitTorrent”
If music is what you are after, some of these archives are the better part of a gigabyte in size and some contain hundreds of mp3’s from a great number of artists. There is more than just music though, go explore this pocket of fair use friendly media. Happy downloading!
Free downloads 2, no law suits February 20, 2006
There are a tremendous number of artists out there who want you to download their work (for free), listen to it, and even use it to create new works. Opsound.org has a large collection of DRM-free music you can download.
Free downloads 1, no law suits February 16, 2006
I’m sure this service is way underused. On CreativeCommons.org there is a very large, very simple button that allows you to “search for Creative Commons audio, images, text, video, and other formats that are free to share on line.” It’s big and square and it has the word “Find” on it. you can’t miss it.
