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I live in Philly, and the indie band craze has really taken storm here. The days of going to a bar and listening to recorded music is now left to just the gay dance clubs. Everything opening up here is bohemian in nature, they all are blogged and Myspaced to death, and their music videos go up on YouTube, not on MTV.

It's been going this way for the last 4 years, perhaps longer. Philadelphia lost the landmark flagship Tower Records store, which REALLY put a damper on people going out to buy CDs (it has been replaced by FYE, which is more known for its DVD selection XBOX/PS2 games).

The Tower Records location on South Street, which was the analog to the Virgin Records megastore in Chelsea (Manhattan)--the epicenter of what is "hip and cool" closed. Now it's iPods and live bands. Philly has more college kids living in it than Boston--we tend to stay way ahead of the music than most cities with plastic wrap CD stores and recycled Clear Channel/XM radio. It's one of the perks about living in the murder capital of the United States. :-)

I happen to love it.

Sony is capturing some of this vibe with Acidplanet

By entering your Remix in the Contest, you acknowledge and agree that: (a) Astralwerks will maintain ownership of the Master and the Loops, and will own all Remixes entered by you in the Contest or otherwise uploaded to the Website (the Master, the Loops and the Remixes being collectively referred to herein as the "Materials"), and (b) as between you and 2004 Virgin Records, 2004 Virgin Records will own all publishing rights in and to the Materials. Each entrant into the Contest hereby grants, sells, transfers, assigns and conveys to Astralwerks, its successors and assigns, all present and future right, title and interest of every kind and nature whatsoever, including, without limitation, all copyrights, all music and music publishing rights, and all rights incidental, subsidiary, ancillary or allied thereto (including, without limitation, all derivative rights) in and to the Remix(es) for exploitation throughout the universe, in perpetuity, by means of any and all media and devices whether now known or hereafter devised (the "Rights"). Sponsors shall have the right, in their sole discretion, to edit, composite, morph, scan, duplicate, or alter, the Remix(es) for any purpose which Sponsors deems necessary or desirable, and each entrant irrevocably waives any and all so-called moral rights they may have in the Remix(es) submitted by him or her. Each entrant hereby acknowledges that such entrant does not reserve any rights in and to the Remixes. Notwithstanding the forgoing, an entrant will retain whatever rights such entrant had in and to any Additional Elements that may be incorporated into a particular Remix, subject to an irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide, non-exclusive license to use such Additional Elements throughout the universe in perpetuity in any and all media now known or hereafter devised.

Essentially they let you borrow the loop, and if you enter the contest, whatever you create is theirs. So Sony owns anything you come up with and can do whatever they want with it, forever and ever, throughout the universe. The creative effort you put into transforming the loop is owned by Sony. You can't distribute it - in fact, you even waive all "so called moral rights." If that's not covering your legal bases, I don't know what is.

Interscope's agreement on the Reznor download is much more agreeable. They basically tell you that you can't make money by selling any alterations you make to the loop.

By entering your Remix in the Contest, you acknowledge and agree that: (a) Astralwerks will maintain ownership of the Master and the Loops, and will own all Remixes entered by you in the Contest or otherwise uploaded to the Website (the Master, the Loops and the Remixes being collectively referred to herein as the "Materials"), and (b) as between you and 2004 Virgin Records, 2004 Virgin Records will own all publishing rights in and to the Materials. Each entrant into the Contest hereby grants, sells, transfers, assigns and conveys to Astralwerks, its successors and assigns, all present and future right, title and interest of every kind and nature whatsoever, including, without limitation, all copyrights, all music and music publishing rights, and all rights incidental, subsidiary, ancillary or allied thereto (including, without limitation, all derivative rights) in and to the Remix(es) for exploitation throughout the universe, in perpetuity, by means of any and all media and devices whether now known or hereafter devised (the "Rights"). Sponsors shall have the right, in their sole discretion, to edit, composite, morph, scan, duplicate, or alter, the Remix(es) for any purpose which Sponsors deems necessary or desirable, and each entrant irrevocably waives any and all so-called moral rights they may have in the Remix(es) submitted by him or her. Each entrant hereby acknowledges that such entrant does not reserve any rights in and to the Remixes. Notwithstanding the forgoing, an entrant will retain whatever rights such entrant had in and to any Additional Elements that may be incorporated into a particular Remix, subject to an irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide, non-exclusive license to use such Additional Elements throughout the universe in perpetuity in any and all media now known or hereafter devised.

Essentially they let you borrow the loop, and if you enter the contest, whatever you create is theirs. So Sony owns anything you come up with and can do whatever they want with it, forever and ever, throughout the universe. The creative effort you put into transforming the loop is owned by Sony. You can't distribute it - in fact, you even waive all "so called moral rights." If that's not covering your legal bases, I don't know what is.

Interscope's agreement on the Reznor download is much more agreeable. They basically tell you that you can't make money by selling any alterations you make to the loop.

it's not my fault you don't know who the Baldwin Brothers are. Shall I name some other groups who's music was available for re-mix on AcidPlanet? I'm sure there's at least one or two you've heard of:

Alex Gordon / Anevis / Baldwin Brothers Remix / Beck Remix Contest / Becky Baeling / Berlin Remix Contest / Better Living Through Circuitry / Black Eyed Peas / Blue Man Group / Boz Scaggs / Bran Van 3000 / Brookville / Bumblebeez 81 / BWB / Caroline Lavelle / chainsaws.and.children / Charlie Louvin / Chemical Brothers / Cirrus / Cirrus 2 / D:FUSE / Daisy Rock / David Bowie / De La Soul / Debra Soule / Depeche Mode / Dierdre / Fiction Plane / Frou Frou / Gene Simmons / Geri King / Groove-a-licious / Hangmen3 / Harland / Herman Brood / Holmes Ives / Illegal Substance / ILONA! / Jackyl / John Oszajca / Joshua Redman / Jungle Brothers / Kelli Ali / Kenny Garrett / kidneythieves / La mezcla total! / Lenny Kravitz / Lil Jon / Lola Dutronic / Lounge / Low Frequency Occupation / Madonna / Mando Diao / Marillion / Meredith Monk / Mint Royale / New Order / Nuendo Music Group / Oleander / Panurge / PitchShifter / Plus 8 / Richard Humpty Vission / RoninRiders / Schneider TM / Serart / Seven Heads / Slum Village / Sonata 2:49 / sonicanimation / Soren LaRue / Static-X / Steve Tibbetts / Stockhausen / Take Out Music / The HERMIT / The Project / The Real Tuesday Weld / The Sea and Cake / Thump Radio / Thump Radio 2 / Tommy Lee / Toxic Grind / tweaker / tweaker 2 / Venus Hum / WB Old Kool ReMix / Wicked Beat Sound System

http://www.acidplanet.com/contests/

Hi, I've been downloading loops from these guys for years. I've been bugging them to port Acid to the Mac since, oh, 1999? Recently, Mike told me they weren't gonna port it -- because their lead programmer moved over to Apple to write SoundTrack and GarageBand.

They put out an 8pack of loops every two weeks usually. I've got like 1000 loops now, and I've been thinking of writing a Konfabulator widget to automate the downloading, organizing, etc. of my loops.

www.acidplanet.com/loops/8packs/

1) You can already do this now, and you don't need the RIAA to change their business practices to do it. Great sites like Acid Planet and MP3.com have tons of great music available. Like this shameless self promotion I collaborated with a buddy on.

2) I've always said if they're going to do this they should charge by the megabyte, not the song.

3) The problem is that it would completely change the landscape. People would stop thinking in terms of "Albums" and start thinking in terms of "Songs". The whole concept of making an album would go out the window. As soon as a song was done it would go up on the internet for sale. To sit on it would be costing them money.

1) You can already do this now, and you don't need the RIAA to change their business practices to do it. Great sites like Acid Planet and MP3.com have tons of great music available. Like this shameless self promotion I collaborated with a buddy on.

2) I've always said if they're going to do this they should charge by the megabyte, not the song.

3) The problem is that it would completely change the landscape. People would stop thinking in terms of "Albums" and start thinking in terms of "Songs". The whole concept of making an album would go out the window. As soon as a song was done it would go up on the internet for sale. To sit on it would be costing them money.

Ok, this is both karma-whoring and shameless plugging. All in just one comment! :-)

I did some kind of "music CD" by myself too, which I called Random Stuff. It's me playing guitar (no, it's not shred) and using samples for the backings. And it's free (as in beer and as in speech) for everyone to download (mp3 format now, but ogg are in the works) and use. So you could say, to some extent, that it's "open source music". It has some limitations, anyway:

• You can download my music and redistribute it freely, but you can't sell it.
• If you use part of it in your music, you have to give me credit.

Those are really the only limitations. IANAL, so I may be forgetting something extremely important :-) I use samples from free sites (as Loopasonic or Acid Planet), so I guess there's no problem on that part.

But then, of course, that's not all. I also sell self-burnt CDs to my friends, or anyone that wants one :-) The CDs have a data track and several audio tracks (the songs). In the data part there are HTML pages explaining who I am and what I used (software, hardware, etc.) and mp3 of the songs in the CD plus some rarities that have so bad quality that I didn't dare to put them as audio tracks. I made a cover for it using Kover and The Gimp. As a finishing touch, I sign each CD (all 7 of them, by the moment O:-)). It's a pity, but the central part of it, the music, was made using Sonic Foundry's Acid Music. I'd like to use an OSs app for Linux (or Windows, but OSS), but I found none as simple and useful as Acid Music. Maybe Ardour, but I hadn't tried it yet.

It's quite an amateurish attempt, but the secret aim behind it is not money, nor fame, nor critical acclaim; it's chicks! :-P ;-)

If all you're looking to do is some sound tracking and live playing, you'd probably be better off with something like FruityLoops. It's a $99 software package (without all the frills) that does a excellent job as a production tool and a decent job at MIDI.

My setup consists of a bunch of effects modules, some tone modules, a professional-grade sound card, Fruity Loops 3.56, ACID 4, Sound Forge and Cakewalk.

If you're really into the MIDI playing, an actual sequencing package will probably be better. Cakewalk can't be beat for the price. It's also getting better in the digital audio handling, though it's still not up to snuff with Cubase or ProTools for recording.

If you're curious to see the type of sound you can get using the lower-priced solutions like Acid or FruityLoops, check out the FruityLoops forums or Acid Planet

There's a demo version of FruityLoops available that you can use to play any FLP files from the forums.

Good luck!

Webcasting, at least the individual-run stations I see, could care less about CARP or any fees anyone seeks to impose on them. The individuals I see who do care about it don't have any plans to stop broadcasting, but instead intend to take their broadcasts deeper underground. A tactic I have seen is that a broadcaster will firewall his shoutcast or icecast stream and then do allows on individual IP addresses that want to listen based on e-mail requests. Of course this is easily defeatable by someone with half a brain, but not by automated methods.

Another thing I've seen is webcasters who refuse to play music commercially released in the U.S. They play J-, K-, and C-pop, some of which is quite good. They play German techno and metal, and un-US-released Euro-pop. They also play tracks that are freely available downloads from amature-music sites like Acid Planet

This is, of course, the music industry's largest fear... that the U.S. public will realize that they are not the only, nor even the best source of music in the world.

Acidplanet.com has a truly Byzantine "hyperlink agreement" prohibiting, among other things, all links to pages on their site other than the main page.

I make music. I spend time on it, and I spent money on my equipment. This doesn't mean I should make money from it. You should make music becuase you love to make music and want to share it with your friends. Not because you want to be a rock star. I'm talking about people starting to define their own culture again. Not accepting the pre-formatted pap that oozes from the corporate teat. If the system that makes Britney Spears a 'musician' who deserves to make money for her 'creative efforts' and the ideas she 'owns' (even though someone else wrote the words, and someone else wrote the music, and someone else choreographed the dance, and someone else directed the video) comes crashing doewn tomorrow - hallelujah! Yippee! It won't affect any of the musicians who post their music on acidplanet.com for others to listen to or download for free. -Note this is not a drug site - its put up by sonic foundry for people who use their acid music creation software. Look in the lounge, under search by artist name 'Memerot' to find my songs. Download those mp3s all you want. Give them away. Email them to people. That is WHAT I WANT and is THE PROMISE OF THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION!

Music used to be primarily a folk activity undertaken for pleasure not profit. It is completely wrong to think that people will stop making music if they can't make money from it. And of course an effect i have noticed is that when I give a tape of a band to a friend and a month later the band is playing in town the friend will often want to go with me. Live performances have historically been the thing musicians were paid for. MP3s and music 'piracy' will not take that away. I think it would do wonders for the music 'industry' to put the focus back on performances and take it off of studio recording.