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np: Kuchen Meets Mapstation - Primary (Kuchen Meets Mapstation)

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.

For electronic music I find netlabels are a good source and most of the music is released under a Creative Commons license. I guess one way to describe a netlabel is as a curated collection of music, there is the concept of quality control and reputation is important for the better known labels. They aren't just a huge collection of dubious quality music like mp3.com used to be.

A good label is Thinner, and for more have a look at the netlabel catalogue, my collection, or just use Google.

Hi,
My main sources for music are emusic.com which sells great independent artists for cheap and DRM free,
and some netlabels in particular thinner/autoplate http://www.thinner.cc/ that is simply amazing.

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.

If you all would switch to listening to electronic music, especially from netlabels like Thinner http://www.thinner.cc/ [thinner.cc] you wouldn't need to worry about DRM. :-)

Which is all well and good if you're willing to merely exchange cliches. Some of us judge music on artistic merits rather than how well it assumes a genre-centric posture and don't have the option. Though that's probably better: less bad pseudo-political punk choruses and less samples of bad third rate soul vocals to give otherwise white music a bit of "soul" going 'round.

If you all would switch to listening to electronic music, especially from netlabels like Thinner http://www.thinner.cc/ you wouldn't need to worry about DRM. :-) Except that you probably don't enjoy free, and fascinating electronic music.... no you want David Hasselhof's new band "singing about love" - you know the neat band they play when your inside McDonalds, or ordering a coffee at Starbucks, or passing by a sexy shot of a model on MTV - oh wait that was a tampon ad.... yeah the lyrics are so unique that it just catches your ear so you download it to your Ipod because its so easy to give them your credit card number. God I bet the band really appreciates your help. To put it more bluntly, it is my experience that it is the type of music you listen to that will get you locked into money schemes like DRM. /love the minimal

try visiting some net labels. You can find a lot of legal / legit sites listed at archive.org. Some I like are Kahvi Collective and Thinnerism although Thinner seems to prefer IE browsers and MP3 over Ogg, but you can work around it. The pieces are Creative Commons licenced, so it's free, but if you like these groups, consider donating them some money.

If you're not into techno, Thinner's sister label AutoPlate is good too.

Net labels are the way of the future. I've considered entering the music business, and from what I am seeing, media groups like RIAA / ARIA offer no market advantage over the Net now, and frankly I reckon I can make more money and get at least as wide a distribution without a corporate music label's help, thanks very much.

As for mainstreme penetration of music into the Net, RIAA and Apple are doing a grand job of advertising the fact that you can get music off the Net, thanks.

Now it is up to more musicians to shurk the big music companies that only serve to rip you off (witness complaints by Michael Jackson, Prince and others over their own deals). Get on the net, distribute your tracks yourself and be free -- you may even make a living in your own lifetime.