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The point is the raw footage is available for reuse. I don't know of any other documentaries that allow this? Please post other examples that are policitally neutral.
This concept if embraced is potentially revolutionary.
Likewise for open source music, such as root#records (http://www.rootrecords.org/open-source.html).

This looks like a good time to support open source music.

if, and possibly only if, everyone does this, will it be time for the great revolutions akin to that fortold by marx. Capitalism will have outlived it's use
(honestly, how many people are involved in 'overhead' jobs these days? how many lawyers, bankers, financial analysts, and so on and so forth) and it will be time for "everyone" to get together, overthrow the current regieme and live in relative utopian bliss. mabye no revolution will be necessarry, and it will be a democratic process. due to the election-rigging and media control lately i don't see this as likely, but hey, it's possible.
the next step will be convincing the outsourced labour to not be our slaves, and not to try to enslave us. but that's just a suggestion.

i'm exactly who you are talking bout, by the way. when i graduate from university, i know i'm not going to be able to get a job in my feild. i'm probably going to be deliverring papers and or flipping burgers for my entire life...which is starting to sink in because this weekend i found what could be someone worth marrying...and i can't raise a family on less-than-minnimum-wage, period. know what the worst part about this situation is? that i refuse to charge to help people with their computers. i know a few of people who basically make a living either a) making websites and b) reparing/doing service on peoples' home computers, and i see this as sick. even if only in virtue of being in kult, i refuse to charge for such service if i can help them with it. i think it's sick that people take their knowledge and then profit on it, when they could be helping people.
if you want to help a multinational corporation, go hard, charge them through the teeth...but these are human beings. people who are just trying to live their lives. if enough people help other people for free, the others will be *forced* to have sane pricing standards by sheer competition.

i remember living at home with my family, getting my computer infected with spyware, and screwing the winsock up... and while i was willing to install the operating system(win98) over again, the place we got our computers told us not to because they had the drivers and they didn't give us the drivers... so we had them to a routine os reinstall..they charged us like 150$. 150$?!! for a fucking re-install of fucking windows? i've installed windows a good 4 dozen times, and linux at least twice that many, and i'm not even really good at this sort of thing. if me and my collective of peers can do something there is no fucking way you are justified in charging a family 150$ for it. that's just sick, and greedy. but they get away with this, and they make their livings like this. and i will live the rest of my life now trying to put them out of business.
want to learn how to play the piano? have some spare time for me to teach you in? if i can get enough money together on my own to fix my piano, i'll teach you for free, if you let me. computer borked? i'll fix it, if i can. for free.

to keep this on topic, has anyone thought of music?

I submitted this as a story, but who knows if it'll get accepted? So I'm posting it here.

I'm just as sick of this RIAA nonsense as the rest of you. Here's what I'm doing about it. I had this idea for a t-shirt, and I decided it would be coolest to just put it up on Cafepress and donate the profits to the EFF. So that's what I did.

The shirt is based on the real pirate Bartholomew Roberts' -- aka Black Bart -- flag (one of them), which originally had the letters ABH (a Barbadian's head) and AMH (a Martinican's head) on it. He didn't like those places much, since he was wanted for piracy there, much more aggressively than anywhere else.

I should make it clear that I'm not affiliated with the EFF in any way. I'll just be donating ALL the profits ($5 per item, except for the stickers and mousepad, which generate $2.50 profit) to the EFF as I get checks from Cafepress (in $50 increments, is what they say). No, there's no accountability -- you'll simply have to trust me. I'm just a geek trying to do something good.

In the case of someone getting sued that I feel really got screwed (like Brianna LaHara), I'll be donating the money directly to their paypal recovery fund (assuming they have one) instead of the EFF. As soon as my Cafepress account shows some sales, I'll post the progress on my website, with full disclosure (# of sales, total profits, where they went).

Feel free to post your opinion if you think I'm being too naive -- I'll get screwed by taxes for not filling out some form or something -- but I trust you'll do that anyway ;)

I'm part of the discussions about the new sampling license (don't be impressed, anyone can be (see link in article)). I had various problems with the existing licenses (they allow advertisers to use your work for free, no open-source clauses), and I'm very excited that they decided to tack another license onto their pile. I'm very happy with my own (based on the GPL), but I very much like the idea of standardization. If we all used one of a set of licenses, it would give the open-source-* movement that much more solidarity, and be that much more of a threat to the establishment. So I just wanted to encourage you all to be part of that discussion. Skim through the archives and give us your input. The guys running it are really nice and personable; I wish I was working with them in person. I'm hoping that the sampling license will be simple and easy to understand, and at the same time flexible and robust enough for even big-name artists to use.

But I'm working on it. Somewhere between steps 3 and 4 are "finish full-length CD," "sell CDs" and "go on tour". I'll probably incorporate Bitpass into the whole equation soon, when bandwidth costs get out of control.

But "An Association Named Sue" written by Slashdot user Yo Grark and myself, about free music, will always be free as in beer. Check out the lyrics:

The RIAA says I'm a theif, because I download mp3s; I got nothing but this hard drive space to lose,
But I know it's a fact that if I had much more, they'd take it away from me in court, saying that their actions protected their revenues.
Well they must think it's quite a joke, and it gets a lot of laughs from lots of folk; it seems I've downloaded my whole life through.
Hell, I never even thought of it as wrong, cause I'd buy more CDs after hearing more songs; I tell ya, it had nothing to do with their revenues.

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up l33t, my hacking got hard and my wits got street, I'd roam backdoor to backdoor to hide my name.
But I made a vow to the moon and stars that I'd search the databases and systems far and kill that connection before it got too lame.
Well, just finished with a shell I had since July, I kissed my DSL connection goodbye and I battled a round of security with big blue.
Went to a cybercafe in case they pulled the lud's, and there at a table, spewing FUD, sat the dirty dog that "protected" the RIAA's revenues.

Well, I knew that snake was a lawyer so bad from the way he jumped up and down so mad when he saw that KaZaa Lite was installed on every PC in the room.
He was big and bent and gray and old, and I looked at him and my blood ran cold and I said: "If you're defending your bands, how come all the money goes to you?"
I was so pissed off I hit him between the eyes and he went down, but to my surprise, he come up with a lawsuit in his hand.
But I called right back and I marked him the theif, and he forced the conversation into the non-witnessed street. Acronym'in and a' cursing, I made my stand.

I tell ya, I've stolen identities of tougher men but I really can't remember when, he tricked like a snake, brought out a Pocket PC and filed
another suit, he said I'd pay for this fuss, he went for his digital pen and initialed first, he stood there lookin' at me and I saw him smile.
And he said: "Son, this world is rough and if an association is gonna make it, their legal gotta be tough and you know, to keep the music monopoly along
we'll crush independents until they die, we'll overexpose until you buy and from those sales major labels go on strong."

He said: "now you just fought one hell of a fight and I know you hate me, and you got the right to report me now, and I wouldn't blame you if you do.
But ya ought to thank me before your case is tried, for the l33t circles and coding sk1llz in ya eye cause I'm the son-of-a-bitch that forces you underground when I yell "Sue."
I got all choked up and I threw down my Palm and I thought about his crooked law, and I saw that everytime he sue'd it's true.
My hacking gets better, and my ski11z get l33ter every time I find a P2P that's sweeter, but in the end, whoever wins, we all still lose.

Cause the RIAA has got control over music, congress and America's soul and if you want to download, copy or even use
any music you've bought and paid for, without fail, you'll be fined or put in jail, all in the name of their goddam revenues.
I think about him now every time I see, a young coder writing stuff that's free, and if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna teach him...

to fight the corporations from a legal and political standpoint, so he won't have to hack, and support free music with all his back, and maybe after a generation or two
their greed'll thin, and freedom will win, sampling songs won't be a sin, and we'll have taken and farmed all their grounds to sue.

Having gone and taken a look at your Open Source Music License", I disagree with your definition of what "source" means as pertaining to music.

The way I see it, any audio recording of a piece of music IS the end product. It's a performance of the 'source', which is the words and notes that comprise the music itself.

Even copyright law makes a similar distinction -- the copyright of a song pertains to the chords, lyrics, printed sheet music of a song; the phonographic copyright pertains to recordings of the song. If you make a copy of an audio recording, you must get permission from the phonographic copyright holder; if you record a song yourself that was written by someone else, you must get permission from the other kind of copyright holder (under US Copyright Law there are conditions where licensing is compulsory, but I digress).

My conception of a GPL-like music license would be one where artists could sell CD's containing recordings of their music. They would not have to allow people to make their own copies of the CD's, but they WOULD have to provide 'source code' for their music (as lyric files, sheet music, MIDI, or some other conceptual representation) and allow people to make their own recordings of the music, provided the orchestration/interpretation/whatever changes were documented in the 'source' and distributed along with the rerecordings.

There are at least a dozen different open music licenses listed on the EFF site, I bet at least one of them contains exactly what I've described. But it does demonstrate a concern about open-source movements -- what is the most appropriate way to apply computer programming concepts like 'source', 'binary', and 'compile' to fields that are not computer programming?

Here's a theme song on the whole topic (now version 2!).

This is NOT NEW. I actually submitted a story about this a full year ago and it got rejected. In fact we have some of these folks on Slashdot right now. My radio station got this guy's CD in the mail... I thought the license was quite interesting so feel free to check out his site here: rootrecords.org

Although I do see a problem with this just as with some GPL software... how do you prove that your original source was ripped off by someone else, who is now making millions?

I agree. That's why I wrote the OSML. It's based on the GPL. Next step is to simplify it and try to make it easier to read. The trickiest part is defining what constitutes the source audio. And before the next revision, I need to decide if I want it to require you to publish binaries (mp3s) for free download, or just make the source available. I'm leaning towards the latter, since that's the way the GPL is, and it'll get more people to use the license. Any thoughts, /.?

My site offers my own music for free, along with the source. I also will provide links to anyone else making open-source music, but most musicians seem to be reluctant to give away their seperate tracks. The EFF lists all the music that anyone is releasing under their Open Audio License. This is partly what you're asking for, except that if you're under another license (like my Open Source Music License), or just simply giving away downloads, they won't list you. I can't seem to find the links page now; maybe they took it down?

The problem with mp3.com (one of them anyway) is that they host the music, so they have to make some money somehow to offset the bandwidth costs. A site that linked to the bands' websites could be cheap and simple and maybe offset the hosting costs through ad or membership revenue (like /. does). The other benefit to this is that bands with sites are generally more dedicated, and the overall quality of the music might be better.

What would make this perfect though is some kind of rating system, maybe like Amazon's. Listeners could rate albums (or songs), so someone just visiting the site would have a better chance of finding something they really liked.

Well, hell. I'm not one to sit around whining. Send me (jcsehakatyahoodotcom), or reply to this post with, links of bands you like that let people download at least one complete album of theirs for free. It's gotta be at least a complete album because averyone and their mother gives away sample songs; look how many free downloads there are on Amazon. Include a short description of their style. I'll make a page that lists it all (in addition to open-source bands), and I'll see what I can do about making a rating system. Any help on that would be appreciated. Or just respond to this post saying it's a bad idea or someone else is already doing it and I shouldn't bother.

No, probably more like root records. AFAIK, there aren't any open-source collaborators working on those songs, but it's probably just a matter of time.

For those who haven't heard it, check out my recording "An Association Named Sue," based on this post by Yo Grark. It's all free, so it's not like I'm being a marketing jackass here.

I've also added a gif of an old pirate flag modified to reflect today's concerns. I think it'd make a great t-shirt, but I'm too busy with other stuff. Feel free to do whatever you want with it.

Okay, as I understand it, the labels, afraid that the '98 performance was gonna suck, agreed to not advertise or discount CDs of the previous 2 concerts, so as not to take away from the fanfare of the most recent one. How is this wrong? It's not even like they got together and decided to make all their CDs more expensive. And even if they did, who cares? No one has a monopoly on selling music. It would just make more people take a closer look at independent releases. Besides, I thought price-fixing was reserved for markets that dealt with necessites, like the phone company or gasoline. You don't need CDs. In fact, they're very easy to go without.

I'm the last person to defend major labels' practices (see the RIAA song and wallpaper for proof), but I don't see anything wrong with what they did (or more accurately, didn't do). It's a free market, and they should have the right to choose whatever business model they want, no matter how crappy or unfair.

Get Pro Tools free from Digidesign. Musicians like Beck, Bjork and Aerosmith use it. Of course, they use the version that's tens of thousands of dollars. Basically, the difference is the more money you spend, the more hardware (and thereby processing power) you get.

The best way to learn is to just start doing it. If you have a sound card and Pro Tools free, you should be able to just start laying down tracks with the mic that came with your computer. Experiment with EQ settings. It's all about training your ear to recognise what sounds good and what doesn't. After you've recorded an album's worth of material, you'll find you're able to make much better sounding songs, though you won't be sure how you got there.

If you don't have a sound card, get one that has at least a stereo input and output. Before you get it, make sure it's supported by whatever software program you're using. If you don't have a firewire port, think about getting one. Firewire is useful in so many ways.

If you want to get some higher fidelity, you'll need to get a decent mic. Pick up a Shure SM57 if you're recording mostly instruments or 58 if it's mostly vocals ($80-100). These mics are workhorses of the industry and will remain useful even after you become a famous rock star. You might be able to find a XLR -> 1/8" adapter to plug the mic into the back of the computer, but I recommend either buying a cheap mixer and going mic -> mixer -> soundcard, or getting Digidesign's mBox ($450), a firewire-based audio input system. The good thing about the mBox is you get a more robust version of the software along with it.

Pro Tools isn't the only way to go, though I think it's the only way that's free. Kruder & Dorfmeister use Cubase, and Thievery Corporation use Cakewalk. I've heard lots of great things about Cubase, but the Cakewalk seems to be more amateurish. Thievery has a crapload of hardware, and I think Cakewalk is just a small part of their studio.

If you're broke, you can always pirate plug-in's from p2p networks, but audio programmers are generally non-rich really cool people, so if you ever wind up making decent money off of your music, you should buy the software you use frequently.

If you're into programming, check out MAX/MSP. Autechre uses it.

Also, check out Propellerheads Software:
Reason- Berklee is using this to teach recording concepts.
Rebirth- 303, 808, 909. Kicks ass.

For a reference, my stuff was recorded using Pro Tools with the Audiomedia III sound card (it's pretty old), a Neumann TLM103 mic and a Roland xp-60 synth, both going into a mackie 1202 mixer. I'm completely self-taught.

I made an image of Bartholomew Roberts' pirate flag modded to have RIAA/MPAA on it. Thought you guys might get a kick out of it. You can grab wallpaper versions here: www.rootrecords.org/joshua_csehak.html.

While it may be fine for a piece of code, putting a creative work like a song in the public domain can be dangerous. When I first started releasing my music, I wanted to make it free for people to listen to, copy and change. But I realised: what if the KKK made a propaganda video and wanted to use a song of mine in the soundtrack? If my work was PD, or even released under the EFF's Open Audio License, they'd be able to. Open source purists might argue that people should be allowed to use free work for good and for evil, and that may be alright when your work is an app that converts mp3s to oggs, but with music it's not that simple. If a song of mine was used in a KKK video, not only would it compromise the artisitic integrity of the song, but it would ruin the experience for anyone who heard it first alongside the video. More importantly, my reputation would be shot to hell, because it would be an easy matter for people to assume that I worked alongside the KKK for this project.

Another issue I have is that if I put my songs into the public domain, and Sting, for instance, hears them and likes them (work with me here, it *could* happen), there's nothing to stop him from rerecording them as his own work. Then when I play my own song later on down the road, people would say "Hey, that's a Sting song!" Not only that, but Sting would be free to copyright them, so I would have to get his permission before releasing an album of my own songs! For these reasons, when I wrote the Open Sourse Music License, I kept it as close to the GPL as possible, but included a term to prevent people from displaying a song alonside accompanying video without the author's permission. I was hesitant to include it, but I don't think I had any other choice. If anyone else has any better ideas, let me know.

I fully applaud the Creative Commons, and everything they're doing with it, but for many people releasing your works into the PD can cause a lot more problems than it will solve.

As another poster mentioned, be sure to check out the original masters of this stuff: John Cage and Brian Eno. I tend to prefer Cage's piano work (his "In a Landscape" is unbelievable), but Eno's ambient music is some of the best of any kind of music out there. I'm listening to his "Ambient 4: On Land" right now. Others of his to check out are "Discreet Music" and "Atmospheres and Soundscapes." Some more:

Boards of Canada: In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country. This somehow manages to be ambient and melodic at the same time. I never get sick of listening to it. It's a 4-song single, so it should only be 5 or 6 bucks in a store (I got the vinyl for $6, and was pleasantly suprised to find a beautiful marbled light blue record). If you're into this kind of music, you need to buy this right now.

There's a great 3-disc set called "Ohm" which has a huge cross-section of music spanning the history of experimental electronica (for lack of a better term). Some of it is kinda annoying, but some really gets under your skin, in a good way. I sometimes find myself hitting "repeat" on a song that doesn't even have one chord change in the first place.

I don't like it as much as Eno's stuff, but if you're a King Crimson fan, you might want to check out Robert Fripp's "The Gates of Paradise." He experimented with some ambient stuff in "Exposure," and with this album has gone full blown.

I picked up this great german LP at a records store in Minneapolis for $2 called Gas Pop. One of those might be the name of something, I don't know. It's wonderfully anonymous. I later saw it in a store in western Montana (albeit for $17), so chances are good that it wasn't just a, like, 10-record pressing. Very nice to listen to. Wait, there's a URL listed. Apparently the band/guy's name is Gas and the release is Pop.

It isn't quite ambient, but William Orbit's "Pieces in a Modern Style" evokes the same mood. It's basically a bunch of classical pieces that are arranged, performed and programmed by him with in electronic means. It effectively raised the ante for electronic music everywhere. I like his version of Barber's "Adagio for Strings" better than any symphonic version I've heard, and his take on Gorecki's "Piece in the Old Style 3" is likely to sit in your head the whole day. Yet, instead of being annoyed with it, like a jingle, you find that humming the melody actually calms you.

My own music falls right around here. It's somewhere between ambient and downtempo, maybe a cross between William Orbit and Moby. Plus it's open source!

If you haven't gotten into the downtempo scene, now's the time. I've been addicted ever since I heard Thievery Corporation's "Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi." Chances are, you've heard it too (tracks have been in a lot of movies), but I get more out of it with every listen. Gorgeously complex drum beats. After the Thievery, get:

Peace Orchestra "Peace Orchestra" when Kruder and Dorfmeister split up, Peter Kruder made this album under the Peace Orchestra moniker. I think it's genius. If you give it a listen, go straight to the song "Shining" and you'll be hooked.

Nightmares on Wax "Carboot Soul" Contrary to the title, this album is the opposite of freaky. It's sort of a cross-over from hip-hop into downtempo, but it's its own thing and can't be pigeonholed. There are a few of the songs where there's a female voice that's either sampled or recorded, but whatever it is, he makes it so that the sound of the voice (and really the sound of every instrument on the album), hmm, let me put it this way: I can't think of anything more pleasant to listen to.

An Association Named Sue. Now available in ogg!

[ original post ]

That was so cool I had to make a recording of it. If this pisses you off, I'll take it off the site, but what I'd really like to do is make it public domain. Nothing educates the public like a catchy song (one of the many reasons Woody Guthrie was the man). I'd also like to give you proper credit, of course. It could probably stand another take or two, and some more practice, but it's great for a few hours' work. I had to edit the words a bit to make them more singable. Here's my revised version:

Been pirating from the RIAA since I was ten and three, and I don't think I've missed a single MP3, Just this old hard drive's space to lose,
Now, it isn't just the fact that they sued, it's the stupidest thing they ever did, was to claim that their actions protected revenues.

Well, they must o' thought that is quite a joke, And it got a lot of laughs from a' lots of folk, It seems I've downloaded my whole life through.
Hell, I never even thought of it as wrong, cause I'd buy more CDs after hearing more songs, I tell ya, it had nothing to do with their "revenue"

Well, I grew up quick and I grew up l33t, My hacking got hard and my wits got street, I'd roam backdoor to backdoor to hide my name.
But I made a vow to the moon and stars That I'd search the databases and systems far And kill that connection before it got too lame

Well, just finished with a shell I had since July, I kissed my DSL connection goodbye and I battled a round of security with big blue
At an old cybercafe in case they pulled the lud's, There at a table, spewing FUD Sat the dirty, mangy dog that "protected" the RIAA's Revenue

Well, I knew that snake was a lawyer so bad From the way he jumped up and down so mad cause Kazzaa Lite was installed on every PC, it's true
He was big and bent and gray and old, And I looked at him and my blood ran cold And I said: "If you're defending your bands, how come all the money goes to you?"

I was so pissed off I hit him between the eyes And he went down, but to my surprise, He come up with a lawsuit in his hand
But I called right back and marked him the theif, And he forced the conversation into the non-witnessed street Acronym'in and a' cursing, I made my stand

I tell ya, I've stolen identities of tougher men But I really can't remember when, He tricked like a mule, brought out a Pocket PC and filed
Another suit, he said I'd pay for this fuss, He went for his digital pen and initialed first, He stood there lookin' at me and I saw him smile.

And he said: "Son, this world is rough And if an Association is gonna make it, their legal gotta be tough and you know, to keep the Music Monopoly along.
We'll crush independents until they die, we'll overexpose until you buy and from those sales major labels go on strong"

He said: "Now you just fought one hell of a fight And I know you hate me, and you got the right To report me now, and I wouldn't blame you if you do.
But ya ought to thank me, before your case is tried, For the l33t circles, and coding skillz in ya eye Cause I'm the son-of-a-bitch that forces you underground when I yell "Sue.'"

I got all choked up and I threw down my palm And I recognized his crooked law, and I saw that everytime he sue'd it's true.
My skillz improve, and my knack gets better every time I find a P2P that's l33ter, but in the end, even though I think I win, we all still lose

Cause the RIAA has got control over music, congress and America's soul and if you want to download, sample or even use
any music you've bought and paid for, without fail, you'll be fined and put in jail, all in the name of their goddam revenues

I think about him every time I see, a young coder writing stuff that's free, And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna teach him...

to fight the corporations from a legal and political standpoint, so he won't need to hack, and support free music with all his back, and maybe after a generation or two
Their greed'll thin, and freedom will win, sampling songs won't be a sin, and we'll have taken and farmed all their grounds to sue.