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Just once I would like to hear from genuine copyright holders on slashdot who both make a living from their creative works *AND* support un-regulated torrenting and file sharing

Sir or Madam,

I apologize for the length and I know some will feel this is irrelevant, but I feel the background is important to the point.

I am a professional software engineer of 25 years ( AST-Cons @ http://www.sco.com/support/docs/openserver/506/rnotes/ipxrnC.install_configure.html & many other non-published works) and a semi-professional musician of 30 years ( http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=7&ti=1,7&SAB1=Chuck%20Fletcher&BOOL1=all%20of%20these&FLD1=Keyword%20Anywhere%20(GKEY)%20(GKEY)&GRP1=OR%20with%20next%20set&SAB2=&BOOL2=as%20a%20phrase&FLD2=Keyword%20Anywhere%20(GKEY)%20(GKEY)&CNT=25&PID=wKzqQlM4-haqA4MgAO7ElXsllTO36&SEQ=20120206023617&SID=1 , http://www.soundclick.com/ChuckFletcher & http://www.musicpreview.com/ )

I am 100% behind the free sharing of all content and for searching out alternative methods of payment.

The most blatant and egregious circumstance that has helped form my opinions are my own experience with copyrighted works and infringement of said works.

In 2006 my company did extensive work for a law firm. The firm had a service agreement in place (since 1996) with my company, under which they purchased time at an hourly rate & licensed our proprietary technologies for which they paid a monthly fee. They purchased a new server for about $15,000.00 and requested our expertise to configure the new server, and their network of about 80 workstations, in order to replace their current 5 or 6 varied-platform servers with this huge AIX-based server. What they forgot is that $15,000.00 was the price of the server & Informix software. When they received a bill for $65,000.00 for time, they proceeded in typical lawyer fashion to sue my company and myself personally for incompetence and a slew of other trumped charges (which were eventually dismissed) in order to avoid payment. For 10 years we provided outstanding performance and overnight became incompetent?

After installation, my company maintained the 'admin' passwords and continued to provide support for the new configurations. During this time there were a few issues which were resolved and their systems were otherwise working flawlessly with 100% access to their data. After three months of non-payment from them, their workstations began displaying a simple non-repeating license non-compliance message upon reboot. They perpetrated a fraud on the courts and acted like their data was inaccessible due to our maintaining the admin passwords. I could really go on, but the main point that I wanted to make is in regards to the proprietary email/firewall extensions, custom Samba Active-Directory extensions & custom tools which were all protected by the admin passwords and the subsequent handing over of said works. The lawyers proceeded to bring us into court under a mandatory restraining order and the judge compelled my company to turn over the admin passwords and in turn all of our protected works. They then proceeded to give that admin password to one of our competitors, in turn giving that competitor access to all of our protected configuration & administration tools including sources & binaries.

My next move was to hire a copyright attorney in pu

Music Copyright - Rich global companies making huge profits off other people work, some long dead

See? This is my problem. I think the real issue is that a lot of folks on SlashDot automatically equate copyright issues for music with the insane abuses and invasions that are committed by the RIAA and other major media companies. Unfortunately, it's pretty rare that the same group which throws up this same correlation thinks of the artists who are either independent, or for one reason or another are "represented" by one of said media companies.

Now look, before you go flaming me into oblivion, I'm not defending the RIAA/MAFIAA/whatever we're calling "them" this week. I think it's insane that they're trying to sue kids/grandparents for millions of dollars for grabbing some tracks off of Limewire or whatever. I get it. I agree that this is insane and is invalid any way you cut it. What I'm bothered by is that it appears that no one seems to come to the defense of the artist(s) whose livelihood is somewhat dependent on the exclusivity provided by copyright law. Now, a lot of folks like to take this view of "well, the artist(s) shouldn't be dumb enough to enter a contract with one of these evil companies", which is a very cogent point particularly considering advances in technology which make it very possible to do a lot of recording in relatively modest home studios. The problem is, this isn't going to apply to everyone, and sometimes, artist(s) are going to need some financial/business backing to get something off the ground.

If I compose a suite of music for a full orchestra and I really want it to be done well, it's not possible for me to have a full orchestra come hang out in my bonus room for week and let me record them take-by-take to capture my composition. If I were to partner with a large media company or some other vehicle of financial and logistical backing, I could probably swing this. I bring this up to point out that sometimes, there are some pretty good reasons that artists partner with "evil" companies. Thus, when said "evil" company is attempting to protect its own admittedly greedy interests in the work they've produced, they're also protecting the artist's interest. In other words, it's not always as simple as just striking out on your own.

I am someone who writes/composes everything I create, and I perform all the instruments on all of my work. I make music because I love it. I greatly enjoy hearing music in my head, and getting it fleshed out into a finished product. I do not depend on my making music to support me. I am fortunate to have a very good "straight job", and I have no illusions about "striking it rich" with a song. I choose to make most of my stuff completely free to download and offer most of it for use under the Creative Commons license in exchange for credit. I enjoy working with film makers and producers, and I feel good when I can let someone use some of my stuff in their work, and have it support the work in a way they find satisfying. I feel fine being able to make this choice myself, and am not trying to profit at others expense. However, as an artist, I reserve the right to try to make some money off of my work every now and again. I don't think I'm greedy or a jerk for thinking that if someone is willing to pay a little money to get a copy of my stuff on iTunes or pay me a little bit to use my stuff in their Youtube videos that I participate in the mechanisms that allow for me to receive money in exchange for my work.

By extension, I don't think it's totally unreasonable for artists to partner with either various unions like ASCAP or BMI to provide them this same mechanism. I had an

Or you could go with an alternative like SoundClick

Last I checked only labels can sell music through iTunes.

I'm glad to say that this is not at all true. Here's my stuff* in iTunes, and I assure you, I don't work with a label (I learned that lesson the hard way.......fyi, so-called 'indie' labels suck too). If you don't like iTunes, there are other great sites like Soundclick, and many others.


*go ahead, buy it, you know you want to.

this is just an example of it becoming easier for smaller artists/designers/producers etc to be able to show themselves on the world stage, nothing more.

I agree with that.

Yo Fede, if you need a composer, I promise I wouldn't take up too much of your $30MM budget.

IANAL, etc., but as I understand, you would only need to release the source code of the software if you release the software. The product you create with the software is incidental. For that matter, I don't believe it makes any difference whether or not you modify any of the GPL'd code that you used -- the modified code was for your use only, and therefore it doesn't have to be re-released (whether or not you *should* at least offer the modifications back to the FOSS community is another story, but the GPL doesn't require it, as I understand).

For that matter, I have pretty much done exactly what you describe: I have a sequencer that lacks an arpeggiator function, so I wrote a perl script (perl being FOSS) on my Linux (also FOSS, being released under the GPL) desktop that would generate a random sequence of notes based upon a pentatonic scale. It's posted on-line at http://soundclick.com/share?songid=5822327 if you are interested in hearing what it sounds like (and it's released under the creative commons non-commercial, share-and-share-alike license, as well).

There are...lots of them, in fact. For example, I write, record and release music on http://www.soundclick.com/. Most of the stuff I put there is still scratch pad versions, since I've been a bit too busy to record polished versions lately. I'm also trying to build an Internet radio web site to stream the music of indy musicians, but again, I haven't had time to get it working yet. I'm sure there are others who are doing the same thing.

Sadly, you're right - people kind of expect anything they find online to be free.

However, I think even if people were to not share music of musicians who didn't want their music to be shared, capitalism would begin to make these musicians obsolete anyway.

Those musicians who give away their albums online as a promotional tool, and then find other ways of cashing in [live shows, etc.] - they have a potential competitive advantage over those musicians who want consumers to purchase their music first before hearing the majority of it.

I think if you can get an entire album on somebody's iPod, that's a great deal of exposure for you (especially with those iPod users who like to use the 'shuffle' playlist.)

--
Mike/AMUC
http://www.soundclick.com/AMUC
*Old fogey / Age: 32*

I do agree that a middle ground needs to be reached. Should an artist have some right to control how their music is distributed? Yes.

While I'd argue P2P potentially could be used by innovative artists to get all sorts of exposure for their music, the ball should be in their court whether they want to allow this or not. (A lot DO allow this - take all the artists who post full albums to Jamendo, for instance.)

As far as the corporate record labels go, they need to stop extorting money out of consumers by threatening to sue them over unfounded piracy allegations. I have sworn I will not give one red cent to them until this ends.

Furthermore, the record labels need to apologize. I'm not talking some wussy, spin-doctored apology like the one the Warner CEO gave. I mean a -real- apology.

While they're at it, they should completely dissolve the RIAA. The damage done to the RIAA's reputation is irreparable. They should create a new entity and start fresh [and not do any of the obnoxious things the RIAA did!]

---
Mike/AMUC
http://www.soundclick.com/AMUC

http://www.garageband.com/
http://www.jamendo.com/
http://www.stage.fm/
http://magnatune.com/
http://www.soundclick.com/
http://www.myownmusic.de/

hand-picked from around 1000 at del.icio.us

Any time I see "punitive damages" I am always reminded of the classic Sol Rosenberg: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=187358 (Scroll down for "punitive damages")

Completely off topic, but I wanted to tell kryptkpr that the link in his sig no longer works (if it ever did?)

I think I managed to find you here:

http://www.soundclick.com/djkrypt

Which soundlcick then redirects to:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pageartist.cfm?ban dID=97487

Hope that helps ... Haven't checked the tunes out yet ... hopefully they were worth the effort :)

Completely off topic, but I wanted to tell kryptkpr that the link in his sig no longer works (if it ever did?)

I think I managed to find you here:

http://www.soundclick.com/djkrypt

Which soundlcick then redirects to:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pageartist.cfm?ban dID=97487

Hope that helps ... Haven't checked the tunes out yet ... hopefully they were worth the effort :)

The Cthurch of Scientology routinely sent out mass DMCA claims against web sites which included material that belonged to someone else or were in the public domain. (They seem to be running out of steam on those; worn down by the Internet and rotation of their people through their "ethics" re-education camps. Now they robotically notify Google to remove posts to ARS with Hubbard's OT-III story.) They got an Avagram!

Soundclick... and Pandora...

It's a David Rovics song: Who will Jesus bomb? http://www.soundclick.com/pro/view/01/default.cfm? bandid=111310&songid=1125356&content=song I've seen you in the markets I've seen you in the streets And at your political convention Talking of your crusade Talking of your nation And other things too terrible to mention And you proclaim your Christianity You proclaim your love of God You talk of apple pie and mom Well I've just got one question And I want an answer Tell me, who would Jesus bomb? Maybe Jesus would bomb the Syrians 'Cause they're not Jews like him Maybe Jesus would bomb the Afghans On some kind of vengeful whim Maybe Jesus would drive an M1 tank And he would shoot Saddam Tell me, who would Jesus bomb? I've seen you on the TV And on the battleships I've seen you in the house upon the hill And I've heard you talking About making the world safer And about all the men you have to kill And you speak so glibly About your civilization And how you have the moral higher ground While halfway around the world Your explosives smash the buildings Ah, if you could only hear the sound But maybe Jesus would sell land mines And turn on his electric chair Maybe Jesus would show no compassion For his enemies in the lands way over there Maybe Jesus would have flown the planes That killed the kids in Viet Nam Tell me, who would Jesus bomb Yes I hear you shout with confidence As you praise the lord And you talk about this God you know so well And you talk of Armageddon And your final victory When all the evil forces go to hell Well you'd best hope you've chosen wisely On the right side of the lord And when you die your conscience it is clear You'd best hope that your atom bombs Are better than the sword At the time when your reckoning is here 'Cause I don't think Jesus would send gunships into Bethlehem Or jets to raze the towns of Timorese I don't think Jesus would lend money to dictators Or drive those SUV's And I don't think Jesus would ever have dropped A single ounce of napalm So tell me, who would Jesus bomb? # What is Christianism about? Jesus, a poor against the poors? No, it would have been called Jesuism if it was the case. It is all about superstition, more exactly superchristus as I call it. So, I am not surprise at those extremists are against the game console that take less power but don't say a word about the other game consoles that take more as 10 time more electricity power to do the same job: to play games. And even worst, sex is only the third biggest market in this capitalistic society. They said not a word against the first market in this capitalistic society: weapons traffic. Why are children is some countries doing war? only because they can afford the food without a weapon in their hand. According to the UN, it is enough food for all on this planet and 35 millions of peoples are strawing to death each single year only because they cannot afford to pay for this food. But those peoples don't say a word about what is the biggest genocide in history: starvation by poverty. But maybe at they don't like games at all, because superchristus is not about games but about hypothetical future world domination of a small gang of religious extremists. Finally, i will not trust one word of what they can say because I am not living in a hypothetical future of the unconditional of the perfect one. but just here and now. And it is here and now at I want a better world. Note at the other religions are not better: they all claim without to be able to prove it, at we will have a better life after the death (West variant) or in another life after the death (rest of the world variant). With other worlds, they are telling peoples to don't take their responsibilities here and now but at it can wait until after the death. And they tell at the word of their perfect one is a mystery, but at the same time are trying to explain it. So, come on. If it is a mystery, no one can explain

This is one /.'er who can compile a kernel, put a skin on KDE *and* do...well...something similar to what the dude in the video did, anyway :) I can't edit video, but that's because I've never tried. On the other hand, to see what the creative side of this geek can do, (shameless plug goes here) check out http://www.soundclick.com/elementop/.

So now that I've argued against the parent post :) I have to admit that I do, in fact, agree with the poster. Whether or not the guy can actually play one of his performances live, he is a musician. Like someone else commented above, his instrument of choice is his computer, and he's quite skilled with it. Creating an original composition, whether you play it, someone else plays it, or a computer plays it, is still a work of art, and it's hard. I've written a few songs, and none of them were easy. And, while I do play guitar or bass (yes, even live), I couldn't have created most of my music without a computer either, because with one exception, all of my recordings were done with a sequencer and digital multi-track recorder. IMHO, it's the creativity that goes into a work of art that counts--not whether or not you can play your composition live.

What's wrong with Sounclick?

Jesse Helms

I wouldn't call them retards. I'd say uninformed... anyway the key is on page 17 of the settlement.

D. Defendants' Limited Right To Withdraw From Settlement
Defendants have the right to withdraw from the settlement, if the number of timely and valid requests for exclusion from the Settlement Class exceeds 1,000.

1000 requests for exclusion is a pretty low bar guys. If only those qualified reading slashdot filed for exclusion, you could pull this off. Sony should be in a lot deeper shit that this settlement provides. Filing a request for exclusion from the settlement class should send a message to these people... I'm as mad as Hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore! If the settlement is approved by the court, everyone here should file for exclusion. Don't let them get away with a slap on the wrist this time. I personally would not be happy until someone responsible for this at Sony was facing criminal charges.

If you like jazz guitar listen

I have to also give "big-ups" to my hometown players: The NESkimos.

The NESkimos fuckin rock your socks off. You don't have to Slashdot their homepage ... but you can Slashdot Soundclick here: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?band ID=91259

Also worth mentioning is The Advantage (you can even find their CD on Amazon.com), but as they are from the West Coast they only get ups, but not big- or otherwise. I will admit they do some good work with Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania(s).

I used to roadie for an indy metal band a couple of years ago, and that experience introduced me to a few online methods of distribution.

First, here are some websites that might fit your bill:

Garage Band
Sound Click
Independent Music Online
And a list of other sites that might interest you: http://www.rmpmusic.com/

If you choose to use a third party website to promote your music, I and many others in my local music scene, still believe a web site dedicated to your band is the best idea. Offer full CD or near CD quality MP3 downloads of your best singles, demos, etc. Add a list of your gigs, news and updates relating to your band, perhaps a press kit full of print-sized logos, promo photos, and posters, in addition to a physical CD to send to record labels and credible review sites and mags. And also offer a way to buy your band's CD off the official website. Use something like PayPal for that. It's easy enough.

Good luck.

Those cats are wack. Only MC Frontalot is a real MC.

Try:
Meter Versus Yard, Old Scratch, Nerd X, MC Chris, Dr. Octagon, 5-Headed Retard, Governor Bolts, Buck 65, Commodore 64, MC Hawking and more for sometimes geek-related stuff that's actually listenable.

Those cats are wack. Only MC Frontalot is a real MC.

Try:
Meter Versus Yard, Old Scratch, Nerd X, MC Chris, Dr. Octagon, 5-Headed Retard, Governor Bolts, Buck 65, Commodore 64, MC Hawking and more for sometimes geek-related stuff that's actually listenable.

nothing owns more than rapping about boning zelda and killing ganon http://www.soundclick.com/pro/?BandID=95394

Since when do they have rights to prevent Seattle bands from freely sharing music recorded by themselves.

Probably since the overwhelming use of P2P software is to 'trade' commercially marketed software, which was the very reason Napster and other P2P software was made in the beginning (while trying to keep the software maker/distributer out of hot water by not hosting the files itself). If the sharing of music the artists WANTED shared over P2P were a substantial portion of what gets shared, there would be a better legal argument that P2P has a legitimate use. But such files are just as well hosted on a regular webhost, unlike commercially-released music (published to be sold rather than given away).

Actually, there's NOTHING preventing Seattle bands, and other musicians worldwide from hack to pro, from making their music available over the Internet. Look for your favorite (or least favorite) bands giving their music away on these and many other music hosting sites:

http://garageband.com/
http://soundclick.com/

Every day we become more and more like Russia.

In Soviet Russia, songs share YOU!

And why not just use a web site? What does "peer to peer" add, except inefficiency?

Yes, but the styles are very much alive - just not on the major labels. I'm two years older than you, so my guess is that we grew up on similar stuff (Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Clapton, Aerosmith, Scorpions...). I was a huge consumer of music until the early '90's and by the mid-90's I was buying 10% of what I used to and thought that the type of music that I liked was gone forever. I listened to the "old stuff", but there wasn't much new to excite me. But with the dawn of the web and mp3's, I started to become excited by music again as I discovered more and more artists doing the sorts of music I love. I has taken a lot of effort and searching but I've found that as great a wealth of material, if not more, exists today as ever - it's just not on the major McLabels or McRadio or in the McCDVD stores.

Right now, I'm listening to the Pillbugs (from Toledo, no less) who have to be the best Beatles/Kinks/Hollies/Britpop influenced band I've ever heard (and I've heard a lot). Try some of their promo mp3's at Soundclick-The Pillbugs to see what I mean and if you like those, go to their website for lots more and links to buy their CD's.

The stuff is out there, but you have to go looking for it. McLabels and corporate radio have f#@%ed the old paradigm of just turning on the radio and having good new music find you.

For an Indie artist P2P is essential for helping to distribute their art to the public. They usually do not have the means to host a web server for themselves for listeners to download MP3's. Several websites exist for independent artists to share their music such as SoundClick and (the late) mp3.com which is nice when a potential fan already knows the artists' name and music. However in order to get introduced to the indie artist a listener must find his music somewhere. These days it definitely won't be on the radio or MTV, so that only leaves word of mouth or a BitTorrent amongst illegal ones on a P2P website somewhere. Speaking about Indie artists, check out DZK, a talented artist I never would have found if not for P2P.
- Cary
--
Anyone from Fairfax County or Northern Virginia?

For an Indie artist P2P is essential for helping to distribute their art to the public. They usually do not have the means to host a web server for themselves for listeners to download MP3's. Several websites exist for independent artists to share their music such as SoundClick and (the late) mp3.com which is nice when a potential fan already knows the artists' name and music. However in order to get introduced to the indie artist a listener must find his music somewhere. These days it definitely won't be on the radio or MTV, so that only leaves word of mouth or a BitTorrent amongst illegal ones on a P2P website somewhere. Speaking about Indie artists, check out DZK, a talented artist I never would have found if not for P2P.
- Cary
--
Anyone from Fairfax County or Northern Virginia?

You never know who is relaxing his tired mind fragging monsters in Quake this very moment. It could very well be this century's Einstein.

Yup, it sure is...

I'm a huge fan of the Internet and the way it empowers me to share my stuff with the world (as demonstrated here and here) :)

There are several sites that carry a wide variety of music from independant artists.

There's dmusic.com, Musician MP3, Sound Click, Vitaminic, CNet Music, and even modarchive.com, Just to name a few. There's a bunch of other sites to get music from independant artists so there is no need to even use P2P to share RIAA music let alone purchase it.

This would be the proper way to protest the RIAA. If everyone did this, they would see their profits fall and at the same time, see that file swapping is way down, then they would have no choice but to confirm that they're really the ones to blame for the decreased sales. The biggest challenge is trying to get people that love the "Cookie Cutter Boy/Girl Bands" to switch over.

"The purpose of the lawsuit is to harass and discourage, rather than to win." "If possible, of course, ruin him utterly." - L Ron Hubbard

Seriously. It's not 50 Cent-type stuff, understandably.

stars in my pocket like grains of sand

From the demo "Hip-Hoppers Guide to the Galaxy"

...try being moved by a synthisized speech of any good written work. You get just as much feeling out of an answering machine message...

I'm not so sure. MC Hawking's Led Zeppelin Medley kicks butt. I can't find the download for that one, but here are a couple of other ones.

Here are some more for you:

besonic
mp3.de
soundclick
garageband
france mp3
vitaminic(free + pay)
Washington Post (yup)
Online Rock
Peoplesound
Download.com from the old mp3.com's new owners
Emusic (pay)
Artistlaunch

Warmest Regards,
--Jack

"I'm breakin' crazy rhymes,
The suckers can't stand it
I put out the guide
and it says "Don't Panic"

- Meter Versus Yard - "Stars in my pocket like grains of sand"

I suggest you look into the Canadian hip-hop scene as well. Governor Bolts, Buck 65, Sixtoo, etc.

http://museeks.com/artists/1/meter_versus_yard.s ht ml

indie hip-hop for the bespectacled bookwork nerd in each and every one of us! mangled beats and dictionary rhymes even your grandmother would approve of!

Since those claims are sent on penalty of perjury it would be nice to see someone lose a metaphorical hand for frivolous use of them.

I've had material on MP3.com for several years now. Never paid for the service, so I had less to lose than those that took the Gold Membership, etc. But I still don't understand the griping.
The era of free multimedia serving is over. There's just too much overhead to justify providing that much free bandwidth.
For those of you who bitching about MP3.com, just accept this unfortunate reality.

Who's been screwed? OK, maybe the folks that signed up for Gold Membership. But it seems like it's pointless to bitch about what's happened - it's all just business.

It's not the same as being ripped off by your producer [Beach Boys and countless others], or cheated out of payment by a venue after a performance [an ever-present risk in a business rife with unscrupulous people].

There's always an element of risk, whatever endeavour you undertake. There's no guarantee that a party with whom you have entered into a contract and paid money for future services will not go out of business, or sell out to another party. That's just a fact of life.

Fortunately, there are still plenty of free and low-cost music-hosting alternatives [sorry, I haven't checked ALL these links recently, but most should still be good. I am a lazy sod.]:


AMP3.com
AmpCast
Audiogalaxy
efolk
etree.org (SHN)
Listen.com
Lycos Music Search
MP3.com
nzmp3
peoplesound
SoundClick
stationMP3
gdlive.com
FurtherNet
CD Baby
IUMA
BeSonic
My Local Bands
SoundClick
VITAMINIC
archive.org etree listing (SHN's)
emusic
listensmart


My music (if you're curious, totally bored, and looking for something to listen to).

I've had material on MP3.com for several years now. Never paid for the service, so I had less to lose than those that took the Gold Membership, etc. But I still don't understand the griping.
The era of free multimedia serving is over. There's just too much overhead to justify providing that much free bandwidth.
For those of you who bitching about MP3.com, just accept this unfortunate reality.

Who's been screwed? OK, maybe the folks that signed up for Gold Membership. But it seems like it's pointless to bitch about what's happened - it's all just business.

It's not the same as being ripped off by your producer [Beach Boys and countless others], or cheated out of payment by a venue after a performance [an ever-present risk in a business rife with unscrupulous people].

There's always an element of risk, whatever endeavour you undertake. There's no guarantee that a party with whom you have entered into a contract and paid money for future services will not go out of business, or sell out to another party. That's just a fact of life.

Fortunately, there are still plenty of free and low-cost music-hosting alternatives [sorry, I haven't checked ALL these links recently, but most should still be good. I am a lazy sod.]:


AMP3.com
AmpCast
Audiogalaxy
efolk
etree.org (SHN)
Listen.com
Lycos Music Search
MP3.com
nzmp3
peoplesound
SoundClick
stationMP3
gdlive.com
FurtherNet
CD Baby
IUMA
BeSonic
My Local Bands
SoundClick
VITAMINIC
archive.org etree listing (SHN's)
emusic
listensmart


My music (if you're curious, totally bored, and looking for something to listen to).

And in fact GTA3 was based on his own life experiences.

Consider you hate $cientology, and you link to their site on your site, as an example of how screwed in the head you think they are. They change the contents of the page you link to so it contains some of their intellectual property and then get your site and your ISP taken down.

Unlikely? Nope, actually a near-certian outcome.

Strange, Co$ certainly tries to spam search engines with links to their sites and sock-puppet groups. Ah well, who ever said they were sane?

Now all we need to do is have some band like Enturbulator 009 to stick it to Diebold in music as was done for Co$'s avagrams.

If everyone started downloading legal music instead, we would make short work of the RIAA, because people would start buying CDs from indie bands, and seeing their shows, instead of enriching the major labels every time you buy a Britney or New Kids CD. The RIAA would also have no cause to complain - these music downloads are not copyright violations because the artists give you permission to download them.

Probably the best known site for downloading MP3s is of course MP3.com . See especially their genre index . Click the link. You will be quite astounded at how many genres there are.

Unfortunately the website usability of MP3.com is atrocious, and their streaming audio seems to be buggy - I can't get it to work in either Explorer or Mozilla. To get an MP3 file to download to your hard drive, you have to register, which I'm sure will result in merciless spamming. May I suggest registering with a throwaway email address from spamgourmet ?

The Open Directory Project has Bands and Artists and Styles indices. Not all the artists offer downloads, but the site says they list 48,000 artists and I imagine many of them offer downloads.

There are better sites for hosting MP3s than MP3.com. Some of them allow you to buy the band's CD from the same page as the MP3 download. Among them are The Internet Underground Music Archives, CDBaby, Epitonic.com, Lulu, SoundClick, Matador Records and insound .

Monotonik provides BitTorrents with zip files containing 60 to 100 MP3s apiece available here.

If you prefer the higher quality, patent-free Ogg Vorbis files you can find several download sites here . Ogg Vorbis players are available for many platforms - WinAmp will play them on Windows, and I understand iTunes on Mac OS X supports Ogg now. There are open source Linux ogg players and encoders, even an open source fixed-point decoders for embedded applications where the CPU doesn't have floating point hardware.

There are also peer-to-peer applications for distributing legal music. See Furthur Network and konspire[2b] .

Unfortunately, musicians are often not very good website designers, so poor usability is a significant obstacle to getting music directly from artists' websites. If you're a musician, and you'd like to know how you can improve your website so more people will download your music, please read my article If Indie Musicians Wanted Their Music Heard....

Finally, there is the problem of finding the music that's actually worth listening to. The labels do serve the (somewhat) legitimate purpose of picking out the good from the bad. But we can do that ourselves with legal downloads by using collaborative filtering, for example by downloading our music with iRATE, which you'll find at

Verizon isn't my friend. I'm not sure if they are even the enemy of my enemy. But in this case, good for Verizon for fighting the good fight. (For whatever reasons.) Far too many ISPs simply roll over and play dead whenever they get a DMCA letter from some ambulance-chaser, like the bogus Avagrams from $cientology. (They frequently claim copyright over stuff that isn't theirs. That's why I'd never put up a page on a US server.)

Beats me how selling a physical object can be copyright violation, and I thought that part of buying something was the right to sell it. Unlike Google and Slashdot, eBay has no balls. (Granted they gave in, but in a way that the Happy Fun Cult really wouldn't have wanted.)