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Yes, because at this moment it's not possible to create free music. We totally need a network for that sort of stuff, which will also somehow solve the problem of Internet radio dying.

There is a dizzying array of music available under the Creative Commons family of licenses released online via "netlabels". Much of it is electronic (ambient, IDM, etc.), but other genres can be found.

I've recently started blogging netlabel releases that I personally enjoy at: http://circumjacence.com/

Much of the material I blog about comes from a fairly short list of netlabels, including (but not limited to):
http://camomille.genshimedia.com/
http://www.earstroke.com/
http://www.hippocamp.net/
http://www.archive.org/details/lost_children
http://www.mono211.com/content/news.html
http://www.1bit-wonder.com/
http://www.sundaysinspring.net/
http://www.sutemos.net/en/

Much of the music is actually hosted on archive.org, which has a good starting page at: http://www.archive.org/details/netlabels

There is a whole world of CC-licensed music out there for the adventuresome listener!

The first one I came across a few years ago was Kahvi. Since then I've followed leads from Kahvi, and dug around to get more variety. I've found that the problem is not finding free (legal) music, but that it's difficult to such music that I actually like. Basically, about half of what I encounter is worth listening to more than once, and maybe one in ten releases I find are really good (worth listening to many times). That, and basically everything I find is electronic (which often comes in the form of somewhat boring ambient or arbitrary noise). Here's a few netlabels/artists/archives that I've been following that seem better than most:

http://kahvi.org/ (as described above - definitely some really good stuff here, if you can sift through the music that doesn't suit you from the hundreds of releases)

http://foem.info/ a blog that lists lots of free/non-RIAA releases

http://psilodump.se/ Psilodump is by far one of my favourites...his releases are scattered around in various locations (e.g., Kahvi, X-Dump), but they can be found

http://www.dinstalker.com/ Din Stalker is also a favourite...same story as above

http://x-dump.com/ A net label that also includes the above two artists, and has been featured on Kahvi

http://www.dirtybirdrexx.org/ A pretty cool netlabel I found via the FOEM blog

http://www.infinityloopmusic.com/ Also found via FOEM...fairly decent

http://mono211.com/ the monotonik netlabel + friends

http://archipel.cc/ the Archipel netlabel

http://acediamusic.org/ the Acedia Music netlabel

http://www.thinner.cc/ the Thinner/Autoplate netlabels


Of course, as others have pointed out already, many of these artists/netlabels have their media hosted by scene.org or archive.org - for the larger collections, it's sometimes easier just to browse the corresponding file repositories via FTP.

"Could you go without purchasing or even downloading music for 3 months? 6 months? a year? to prove a point?"

Geez, I hope so.

I have a tendence to hoard files. I have 2.80 Gb of music from Monotonik, and I listen to only a fraction of it.

hey this is an old topic, if you look at older netlabels such as http://www.tokyodawnrecords.com, http://www.thinnerism.com or http://www.mono211.com !

Simoniker is actually a pretty interesting guy, y'know ..

Hey Simon, what happened to the blog?

Into electronic music? Try Monotonik .. they have maybe a gig or more of "freely spreadable" MP3's, all great stuff. Some live sets and stuff hiding on their FTP servers as well. Awesome music, if you like artists like Thug, Lackluster, Sense, etc, or any kind of electronic/ambient/IDM stuff.

Look around for more MP3-only free labels, there are some others out there I can't remember right now, but they all encourage distribution. DJ sets are particularly nice (big) but most of them don't have permission to redistribute the songs in the first place, use your judgement on how "legal" those are.

I bet there are online movie outfits that give away stuff in a similar spirit.

I think this is a good idea, maybe someone will download one of your files and learn about a new artist who deserves their money rather than the the big labels.

Too bad I never got around to actually do anything.

virt just relased his chip tune disk fx 2.0 on monotonik. the professional game musician, who made the soundtracks of several games on the nintendo platform, re-scored 15-year-old nintendo titles from konami, as if he were actually soundtracking them at the time. you can download them there for beer -- and have a look at that great cover!

virt just relased his chip tune disk fx 2.0 on monotonik. the professional game musician, who made the soundtracks of several games on the nintendo platform, re-scored 15-year-old nintendo titles from konami, as if he were actually soundtracking them at the time. you can download them there for beer -- and have a look at that great cover!

virt just relased his chip tune disk fx 2.0 on monotonik. the professional game musician, who made the soundtracks of several games on the nintendo platform, re-scored 15-year-old nintendo titles from konami, as if he were actually soundtracking them at the time. you can download them there for beer -- and have a look at that great cover!

virt just relased his chip tune disk fx 2.0 on monotonik. the professional game musician, who made the soundtracks of several games on the nintendo platform, re-scored 15-year-old nintendo titles from konami, as if he were actually soundtracking them at the time. you can download them there for beer -- and have a look at that great cover!

I was having a discussion the other day about this, how people of a certain age have emotional attachments to video game music, and sometimes it's hard to understand.

One of my favorite labels is an online MP3-only label, Monotonik, they have some cool original chip tunes and some Mario remixes (here's one). Actually look around and there's lots of cool stuff for fans of IDM, electronic music, etc.

Also of interest, there's a music machine that uses the sound chip from the C64 (that's Commodore 64, kids) with MIDI support.

Also check out the Minibosses.

Lots of this stuff around! I never played video games much but that stuff all managed to get stuck in my head anyway..

I was having a discussion the other day about this, how people of a certain age have emotional attachments to video game music, and sometimes it's hard to understand.

One of my favorite labels is an online MP3-only label, Monotonik, they have some cool original chip tunes and some Mario remixes (here's one). Actually look around and there's lots of cool stuff for fans of IDM, electronic music, etc.

Also of interest, there's a music machine that uses the sound chip from the C64 (that's Commodore 64, kids) with MIDI support.

Also check out the Minibosses.

Lots of this stuff around! I never played video games much but that stuff all managed to get stuck in my head anyway..

I was having a discussion the other day about this, how people of a certain age have emotional attachments to video game music, and sometimes it's hard to understand.

One of my favorite labels is an online MP3-only label, Monotonik, they have some cool original chip tunes and some Mario remixes (here's one). Actually look around and there's lots of cool stuff for fans of IDM, electronic music, etc.

Also of interest, there's a music machine that uses the sound chip from the C64 (that's Commodore 64, kids) with MIDI support.

Also check out the Minibosses.

Lots of this stuff around! I never played video games much but that stuff all managed to get stuck in my head anyway..

You may not know that there is a big number of online labels existing, and distributing free mp3s (legal mp3s) on the net.

The existence of those labels makes it easier to find music of your taste:

• monotonik -- Highly acclaimed internet label releasing IDM/experimental materials from all around the world. They were showcasing at the recent Ars Electronica.
• noise -- Noise is releasing all kinds of fine ambient, techno, drum'n'bass, with always a focus on experimentation and quality. (Some jewels were released there by Stereoman (now esem), Saag...)
• theralite -- Since theralite started releasing mp3s their focus got more and more on diversity and quality. Releases are ranging between trip-hop, drum'n'bass and house. (check THERA001 and THERA012 for some very nice trip hop tunes)
• tokyodawn -- a label focusing on triphop and drum'n'bass.
• tokyo2051 -- sub label of tokyodawn, releasing mainly techno materials.
• you also have kahvi collective releasing idm, techno, ambient, milk releasing experimental finnish techno, reaktio...

There are also tons of stuff on mp3.com or vitaminic.

Even laurent garnier's website has some mp3s which were selectionned after a remix competition...

You can get also some infos and more links on the scene news website noerror

The conclusion is that you can find tons of legal mp3s on the net, (I hardly listen to anything but what I get on the net) It's just a bit harder to find and know about the artists and labels around.. but if you're interested, you will find.

The CNN article missed the point. If people go to mp3.com to sell CD's, they're stupid in the first place. It's never going to happen. What's the point of (traditional) record companies? Making the CD's? Organising the live shows? Rubbish. anyone with a $900 PC and a $300 CD-R can burn their own CDs. There are plenty of gigs to be had just by asking - I should know. My old band got booked by the US Air Force for £350, and we were just a bunch of 17 year old kids at the time. Selling CD's to your friends is easy. The hard part is selling them to strangers. And this requires PROMOTION... RADIO PLAY... POSTERS... MTV... MAGAZINE ARTICLES... which is where the big money comes in.

Let me offer an analogy. If I burn my own CD's and make my own inlay, go down to my local Tower Records, and set up a small stall filled with my CD's, how many people who come to Tower Records are going to buy it? Answer: none, because no one has heard my stuff, or even heard of my stuff. What I'm saying, you're in a 'traditional' music vending environment, but you're stil not selling you're stuff, because the problem is the same. That fact it is online has essentially nothing to do with it. If people havent heard of you, they arent going to pay money for your tunes, online or offline.

mp3.com and similar sites are great for several things:

- going global, and
- hopefully getting a bit of a following to your free tunes
- getting somewhere to host all those big mp3s for free (isntead of setting up your own site) :)

They're no good for selling CDs. Sorry, they're just not. I love discovering music from 'unknown' online artists, I download stacks of the stuff from places like mono211, noisemusic, theralite, tokyo dawn and many more (all of those links are highly recommended, incidentally), but I only went there because they're free. No matter how much the text at mp3.com says "this band is cool", I'm not going to shell out money for it, just as I dont buy 'real' artists' CDs just because the newspaper says "this band is cool".

the music scene rules:

there's no greetings order

• ageema blues & blacksista http http2
• blacktron http
• brothomStates http
• five musicians http
• kosmic http
• level-d http
• maniacs of noise http
• milk http
• mono211/monotonik. http
• mo'playaz http
• n.o.i.s.e http
• Tokyo Dawn Records http
• sunlikamelo-d http
• theralite http
• vibrants http
• ...

don't forget the very good individuals, they are too many too list... check ftp.scene.org/pub/music/artists/

get active...