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My Jonathon Coulton, let me show you him:

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/

All of his material is available at whatever price you see fit to pay, including 0. He encourages file sharing. He makes most of this money touring. There's a tradition at his shows of people throwing little stuffed animals with 1$, 5$ and other bills safety pinned to them, onto the stage. It's sort of like Courtney Love's idea of the tip jar. JoCo won't be moving into a mansion anytime soon, but he's making a living for himself and his family while not criminalizing his fans.

Oh, and he's a damn good song writer. Do a video search on his name and you'll be quite entertained.

Without further ado, I bring you Jonathan Coulton, playing "Tom Cruise Crazy" accompanied by Kristen Shirts on ukulele.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbNtYdxB64A

Here's the "studio" version:
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2006/05/19/thing-a-week-33-tom-cruise-crazy/

The example that I drag out all the time is Jonathan Coulton http://jonathancoulton.com/. He releases all of his music for free and under a Creative Commons license and he asks for donations. He worked for a year producing something every week. By the end of the year he was making enough money from people paying what they thought his music was worth to support himself. It still doesn't prove my point because he tours as well so I can't say if he makes enough from music sales alone.

I think most musicians are mediocre and musical filler and would have to do something else to make a profit. I hold it as my opinion, however, that the really good musicians could make it work.

No, my paranoia is real... I've had a few CD's that tried to install stuff (if I let it) and some that are simply unrippable. I learnt my lesson. I do not pirate. I personally now sponsor people whose music I like. Examples would be Jonathan Coulton and Mr Pitifulmusic. I do not appreciate at all that you're calling me a pirate. I haven't pirated anything since my college days and that's 10 years ago. I put my money where I think it is founded. DRMed CD's arent worth supporting.

Besides, as said: I did not buy any CDs in the last three years. During that period I only bought iTunes music and independent musicians.

Finally, it's "affect" not "effect" in that context.

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songdetails/Code%20Monkey

That's "Coulton's "Still Alive"" from the summary.

Check out some of his other music: http://www.jonathancoulton.com/primer/listen

Have I actually tried what exactly?

I think, tried talking to an RIAA musician whose output you admire.

Although, I agree that it was rather unclear, without any quoting.

I haven't tried communicating with him yet, but I completely love between 90-95% of his music. That's impressive! I haven't yet sent him any money but I intend to as I derive a great deal of joy from listening. If he came to my area, I'd attend a show (and yes, I used his Eventful link on this page to make sure he shows up!).

I've communicated successfully with Beth Thornley; although her music isn't Creative Commons, it's still very good and independent so I don't mind advertising for her :). And you can listen to all her music there (click the "Beth Thornley Jukebox" link, top right). I love her lyrics, very intelligent, and different (like changing the chorus slightly each time, to reflect the story line of the song).

I've been bookmarking all the links in this story. Thanks very much to the originator, the editor, and all those who have contributed these links, helping me find amazing musicians.

/. led me to Jonathan Coulton whose quirky music I like very much, and who also responded to my email blindingly fast on the same day that a story about him appeared on /. - now he may not always reply quite so quickly but what are the odds I'd have been able to get a conversation going with a RIAA artist? Even some of the unknowns, who you'd think would be chomping at the bit to build a fanbase, seem quite aloof.

Apparently you ignore the success of others who have already been doing it for some time....

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/ for one.

But then who am I kidding. This is slashdot. Actually paying attention to the world around you is strictly forbidden.

I know it's an ad but I haven't sent him any money yet for all the joy he's given me by hanging his songs out for a clever wget scripter, so: "Shop Vac" is one of Jonathan Coulton's best songs. He has a lot of best songs... He also wrote "Code Monkey". I very much appreciate seeing a reference to my new favorite "open source musician". His web site is here but it seems to be down at the moment. There's a bunch of his stuff on YouTube though; this video for "Re: Your Brains" looks professionally produced.

Personally, the feeling of knowing that I was one of the "special few" to pay for everyone else having access to a musician I liked makes me more likely to pay for another album similarly distributed. After having spent money supporting Jonathan Coulton, I'm much more inclined to buy a download of this Radiohead album (though I'd like to listen to it first to see if I'd like it).

Remember when personal taste, and not legal research, determined who we listened to?

I happen to be very lucky that for well over a year now, one of my favorite artists to listen to has been Jonathan Coulton, who is both talented AND digital-media savvy. I also like a lot marginally popular music -- classical and film scores and things -- so I'm a small enough market that no-one really gives a rodent's rear end what I do.

But a musician creating music, recording it, and releasing it publicly has done just that: released it to the public. And while reproducing art, including music, in a commercial way without permission is and should remain unlawful... music is music. When there's something you like, it crawls into your head and stays there. And aren't the arts, at their core, supposed to stay with you in some way? Aren't you supposed to be a participant in an experience that alters your perceptions, or some such? Goodness knows they demanded that of us enough in film school. :-P

Happily for me, I don't care one bit about Prince's songs and could happily live forever without them. However, I attended five weddings in 2007 and I think at least one Prince song was played at four of them. I imagine that if the DJ's and friends' playlists had to be discussed legally and approved in advance, I would have had a lot more Bridezilla friends than I actually do.

Exactly. I've recently found Jonathan Coulton, who is selling his entire catalog for $70, or you can buy it on a per-song basis for $1 each, or $10 per album of 12-15 songs. Although he's selling them, he has also released them to the Creative Commons, and on his site he mentions "Lots of it is freely available depending on how technical you are - you can get all of it for free if you really try." (so wget-fu nets you it all :).

If you haven't yet heard Code Monkey, you need to! It speaks to most of us...

Also Re: Your Brains is great (second song on that page), and Shop Vac has a great beat. In fact, about half his songs are multiply listenable, which is way more than most of the tripe RIAA members are putting out these days. And he gives it away.

He also uses Eventful for anyone to "demand a show" in their area.

The coolest part about it being Creative Commons is the derivative works. Check out this video for Re: Your Brains -- it's very well done, and seems professionally produced. And it's free. I bet the filmmakers get business based on their efforts, which is great!

Exactly. I've recently found Jonathan Coulton, who is selling his entire catalog for $70, or you can buy it on a per-song basis for $1 each, or $10 per album of 12-15 songs. Although he's selling them, he has also released them to the Creative Commons, and on his site he mentions "Lots of it is freely available depending on how technical you are - you can get all of it for free if you really try." (so wget-fu nets you it all :).

If you haven't yet heard Code Monkey, you need to! It speaks to most of us...

Also Re: Your Brains is great (second song on that page), and Shop Vac has a great beat. In fact, about half his songs are multiply listenable, which is way more than most of the tripe RIAA members are putting out these days. And he gives it away.

He also uses Eventful for anyone to "demand a show" in their area.

The coolest part about it being Creative Commons is the derivative works. Check out this video for Re: Your Brains -- it's very well done, and seems professionally produced. And it's free. I bet the filmmakers get business based on their efforts, which is great!

Exactly. I've recently found Jonathan Coulton, who is selling his entire catalog for $70, or you can buy it on a per-song basis for $1 each, or $10 per album of 12-15 songs. Although he's selling them, he has also released them to the Creative Commons, and on his site he mentions "Lots of it is freely available depending on how technical you are - you can get all of it for free if you really try." (so wget-fu nets you it all :).

If you haven't yet heard Code Monkey, you need to! It speaks to most of us...

Also Re: Your Brains is great (second song on that page), and Shop Vac has a great beat. In fact, about half his songs are multiply listenable, which is way more than most of the tripe RIAA members are putting out these days. And he gives it away.

He also uses Eventful for anyone to "demand a show" in their area.

The coolest part about it being Creative Commons is the derivative works. Check out this video for Re: Your Brains -- it's very well done, and seems professionally produced. And it's free. I bet the filmmakers get business based on their efforts, which is great!

Exactly. I've recently found Jonathan Coulton, who is selling his entire catalog for $70, or you can buy it on a per-song basis for $1 each, or $10 per album of 12-15 songs. Although he's selling them, he has also released them to the Creative Commons, and on his site he mentions "Lots of it is freely available depending on how technical you are - you can get all of it for free if you really try." (so wget-fu nets you it all :).

If you haven't yet heard Code Monkey, you need to! It speaks to most of us...

Also Re: Your Brains is great (second song on that page), and Shop Vac has a great beat. In fact, about half his songs are multiply listenable, which is way more than most of the tripe RIAA members are putting out these days. And he gives it away.

He also uses Eventful for anyone to "demand a show" in their area.

The coolest part about it being Creative Commons is the derivative works. Check out this video for Re: Your Brains -- it's very well done, and seems professionally produced. And it's free. I bet the filmmakers get business based on their efforts, which is great!

I think Jonathan Coulton would disagree withyou, since he earns a living giving away his music for free (and encouraging his fans to do the same).

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2007/10/15/portal-the-skinny/

Ask Jonathan Coulton if the model works.

Or maybe the guys at Magnatune.

They still seem pretty sold on it.

I bought some creative-commons-licensed music directly from the artist (Jonathan Coulton).

I have also bought music through Magnatune and Emusic, but I don't know if those count.

He's a musician featured on Slashdot several times.

For a year he released a song a week completely free on his website, each song was written and performed in the week it was released. It was quite an impressive feat and he did many great songs in that time, including "Code Monkey" which took wings and is pretty damn popular around here.

Basically he's a geek with a guitar who took a gamble on singing for a living while still wanting to release things for free and letting people buy from him if they want to pay for the stuff.

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/ is his website.

For those who haven't heard it...

Re: Your Brains by Jonathan Coulton.

Truly, an anthem for the modern age.

There's also Jonathan Coulton's I'm Your Moon, a love song from Charon to Pluto.

Watch this video for his introduction to the song, but you can download (for free -- CC license -- or buy) an MP3 here, since the video cuts out briefly every couple minutes.

Find me real examples of bands that have made it strictly off the web with no label backing.

People like Jonathan 'Code Monkey' Coulton are making a living through YouTube backing.

Sure, word of mouth will get around in time but how much time does truely independent artists have until they need to show a profit or be forced to go back to school and get a 9 to 5?

I think you have cause and effect reversed. Artists start out with a 9-5 playing on weekends until they make enough money to make a living off their music. It's around the time that they're beginning to "make it" that the labels get involved.

If they're good, the web just makes it easier for them to get to the point of making a living off their music before the labels swoop down.

I have to say that the best of Coulton's songs has to be First of May. I first heard Ikea and was interested. Once I heard First of May, I was sold. That is by far the best song in his catalog:
"...bring your favorite lady, or at least your favorite lay."
For the uninitiated: Mp3 and more information here.

I would add to your list of favorites:
Skullcrusher Mountain- a mad scientist sings to his captive.
The Future Soon- A junior high kid imagines his future as a cyborg
I Crush Everything- A giant squid that hates himself because he destroys the things he loves
Re: Your Brains- Imagine your most annoying coworker coming back as a zombie.

And of course the link: Where you can listen to them all.

I must say, I did email Mr. Coulton after purchasing a number of his songs one day. I just fealt like explaining my quirky selection and justifying my buy. The next day (I sent the email late at night) I received a nice and well thought out email in response.

We really should support artists like Jonathan. He's talented, his songs are interesting (bills, bills, bills or creepy doll for instance) and funny (such as code monkey), and best of all when you buy them, he gets every cent. (well, most of it. Paypal takes 2.5% :P but that's a far cry from the premiums that record labels extort from their artists). Also, you can listen to all of his songs before you buy them. The whole thing. Not to mention quite a few of his songs are free downloads.

Check out http://www.jonathancoulton.com/ today! :)

/advertisement ;)

The reason we have DRM is so the media cartels can create an artificial shortage and control the price. If the songs, movies, TV shows are readily available, you'll get more of a free-market pricing response ... which is exactly what the studios don't want.

The entertainment industry's business model is fundamentally flawed. Up until recently, they've had a strangle-hold on production and distribution. That creates and artificial shortage, and allows them to dictate terms like price and availability. It used to be very difficult and very risky to go around them, and the cassette-tape pirates of long, long ago were small potatoes. Fast forward to today, and the entertainment industry is in the latter phases of the "adapt or perish" paradigm. Their control of the distribution channel gets less and less effective with each passing day. People have gotten a taste of freedom, and they like it. I don't care what new name they assign DRM ... I refuse to roll over and be a "good little comsumer." I haven't purchased an audio CD in over 10 years. I haven't been downloading either. The commodity stuff is formulaic crap. I do, however, support indie musicians like Jonathan Coulton. He's earned some of my money without resorting to DRM or lawsuits. Imagine that. I'm also a firm believer that without the internet, Jonathan's music would have never gotten to me.

And finally, the entertainment industry isn't the center of the universe (in spite of what they've told you.) You can do without the latest DVD of American Whatever. Honest. It's not required. The entertainment industry has dictated the value-proposition of their goods (see the "artifical scarcity" argument above.) They're terrified that you'll actually make up your own mind, and realize that whatever they're peddling isn't worth it. That's one of the chief complaints about the iTunes pricing schedule - Joe Consumer can add (barely,) and the audio CD with 10 tracks selling for $18.99 at Best Buy is a lot more expensive than purchasing 10 tracks from iTunes. Additionally, the labels lose the opportunity to pad an album out to two discs by inserting filler or remastered tracks that you didn't want in the first place. Those last two are just pure profit for the labels, and that's where they're taking the biggest hits. Heard them whining about the death of the album format recently? It's not because they fancy the art form.

Yes, there are *some* people who will not produce information-products (including software, music, images, or what-have-you) if they cannot globally enforce copy restrictions. Agreed. Such people should, IMO, go in to a different line of work. That is perfectly acceptable for a very simple reason: there will be more than enough people who find good reasons to produce such works in the absence of copyright restrictions. Some people will find an alternative means of making money off freely-duplicated works, and others just because they are altruistic.

Remember that people pay good money for their hardware, and copyright restrictions mean they cannot make full use of it. Copyright isn't actually a "freedom" for the person producing a work....people will still be completely free to produce works without copyright restrictions. Copright may be a "benefit" to the producers of a work (though in practice it is not; it is only a benefit to the distributors of the work, but I won't get into that here), but to call it a "freedom" is incorrect. Copyright law is a restriction on freedom to everyone in the world, and if such a freedom is going to be globally sacrificed, there had better be a damn good reason for it.

The only reason you have given is the false premise that without these restrictions, no-one will produce knowledge-products. Not only is this false in theory (since some people will produce stuff for free, and since some people will find ways of making money off knowledge-products in the absence of copyright restrictions), but there are lots of examples of businesses that make money off a free end-product, and of profoundly useful products made without any profit motive. And there are more where those came from.

That last set of links is pretty important. Google gives all of its services away for free, and yet has a market cap of over 100 billion. Not only are there business models built around free products, but they are very profitable and fiercely competitive.

Also check out this and this. Copyright is still there, but it is unenforced upon the consumer. It will be interesting to see how this selective approach to enforcement will pan out.

It is true that a farmer who gives away his crops for free would go broke, and if farmers could not legally force people to pay for their products then there would be no farmers. However, this observation not apply to information products. Information is fundamentally different from physical products, and business models surrounding it wind up taking a different form than traditional business models (a form which includes a free and/or freely redistributable product).

What we are dealing with is a new kind of abundance. Oxygen is an abundant resource, (anyone can get it for free because it just never runs out). Traditional capitalistic wisdom says that it is not possible to build a business around such resources, and further that no one will produce them because of that. Information is also abundant, once it exists (since it can be duplicated at zero cost by anyone). But it is also strangely non-abundant, since it's initial production requires an expenditure of resources. Traditional capitalistic models have a very hard time categorizing it...is it abundant or isn't it? Copyright law is an attempt at forcing it in to the "limited" category so that the traditional models wil

Sure, it takes money to produce it. Once it is produced, however, it can be duplicated ad infinitum at zero cost.

The fact that it takes money to produce does not justify limiting the freedoms of all computer-owners on the planet. They paid good money for their hardware, and they should be free to make full use of its features. This includes duplicating the data to which they have been given access.

Having expended your resources to produce some bit of information does not give you a *moral* right to control what everyone else in the world does with that information. Just because it was expensive doesn't mean you can then use it to justify robbing billions of people of their freedoms. Morally speaking, data duplication is in the clear.

The economic justification is that this unrealistic level of control over all the hardware in the world is necessary in order to ensure that such works are still created in the future. That is bunk, it has been proven so both in theory and in practice (Here are some examples).

So, the notion that data duplication is morally wrong and economically harmful just doesn't stand up to criticism. Like it or not, the bottom line is simple: you simply cannot give people access to information and yet control what they do with it. The misguided laws that try to do just that harm the many for the needless benefit of the few, and hence they are unjust. The world must adapt to the abundance that new technology has brought.

Math does rock!

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/mp3/Mandelbrot%20Se t.mp3
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/lyrics/mandelbrot-s et

Math does rock!

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/mp3/Mandelbrot%20Se t.mp3
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/lyrics/mandelbrot-s et

Already happened. In a recent interview, the recently signed band The Dresden Dolls disclosed they were making about $1500 a month touring. Jonathan Coulton, who released his music on his website where you can buy it with no DRM, is making more than that.

but, I really do long to know good rock music again, and GO see bands.

Best remake EVER

Code monkey offer buy you soda, tell you sweater look nice...

That's what Jonathan Coulton did, and he did it right. A Thing a Week puts stress on you, but you are forced to get it done. Then again, you can hear that he has lots of experience and did his homework. Oh - and has talent.

Thankfully, I was wrong. The song that got stuck in my head was ultimately Creepy Doll, which happens to be under a Creative Commons license (Attribution/Shara-Alike/Non-Commercial).

Actually, the thing that first drew me to SL was the live music concerts by real people singing to you over a stream. I signed up for SL so I could go to a concert by Jonathan Coulton, but I've since found all sorts of cool concerts to attend by people like NANCE Brody and Lyndon Heart. Lots of fun, especially on a weeknight when there are no good real-life concerts in your area, or when you're too broke to afford RL tickets for that matter.

Sounds from the development machines at work

JoCo has done something like this. Check out http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songs

That's how I read it as well... now, with that assumption the OP might want to take a look at Jonathan Coulton's site http://www.jonathancoulton.com/

He offers some of his songs as free mp3 downloads available to anyone, then lets you pay to download the rest (still as mp3s!). While I can't say how his purchase system works (as I haven't yet bought any... although lately throwing $60 his way has been rather tempting...), I can't imagine that he's going to have it set up so he's providing people with static links that can be spread around.

Then there are sites such as magnatune, http://www.magnatune.com/ that the OP may want to look at as well. I seem to remember there being a listing on wikipedia of music download stores of various types, that may help him find more sites along the lines of magnatune.

Code Monkey is a close second.

so wait - other than women who are beautiful (which is enough), what does sweden have thats cool?

Merry Christmas, from Chiron Beta Prime,
where we're working in a mine
for our robot overlords. Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.

Just think of how many bags of sugar are on store shelves in the hopes of a sale for $0.79. The cost to make a product available to your target market via brick-and-mortar distribution is ridiculous! How many Treo700p units were necessary in order to have them sit on Sprintel shelves across the country? How many of those will be sold before another two generations makes them obsolete?

The reality is different for digital content. Negligible storage and duplication costs mean that advertising is the only marginal cost. And even that is undergoing reinvention. Just a few weeks ago, I had never heard of Jonathan Coulton (http://www.jonathancoulton.com/). I heard RE: Your Brains while listening to part 2 of How to Succeed in Evil: Cheap Labor (http://succeedinevil.com/?p=47) and got hooked. A few YouTube videos and streamed songs from JoCo's website and I was gladly throwing $50 through PayPal to get all of his songs.

Eventually, the cost savings will allow physical items (like the Treo 700p) to be handled the same way. The cost of return shipments will be dwarfed by the savings in pushing the shiny boxes through retail distribution and the increased.

Before I get too rabid, I'm not predicting the death of retail. I'm predicting the explosion of online purchasing and the death of scarcity in digital content. The dinosaurs clinging to DRM and Special Extended Widescreen Collectors' Edition DVDs will be swept away by artists producing high-quality (in both technical and artistic senses) downloadable content for a twentieth of the price.

Yes, Jonathan Coulton also has other nerdy songs too like 'That Spells DNA' and 'Mandelbrot Set' that are actually very good. Not all of his music is nerdy, but I really enjoy most of it. All of his songs are free to listen too and many are free to download as MP3s. Good stuff.
Link to his songs page

There are great non-rap geek songs in the world. My current favorite has to be "Code Monkey" http://www.jonathancoulton.com/lyrics/code-monkey

-Rick