Ideas for a Recording Industry Alternative?

icewalker asks: "There has been a lot of news (here, here, and here) lately about music, copy protection, and other related issues. What I find interesting is that there are literally thousands of free bands out there that are more than worthy of listening too. Free as in they have not sold their souls (not to mention music rights) away to the devils of the music industry. But how does one get to listen to these pioneers of music? The solution could be sites like mp3.com (until the mp3 royalties are forced). But what people want is a locals only site that streams, guess what, the music from free local bands only. Not just for your community but local bands from all over the US (and the world). We need a site that collects these bands and we need a streamer that plays them. No CARP royalty problems since these bands are unsigned and own the music themselves. Make it so that the artists can hopefully sell their own CD's or single songs from the same site. Anyway, mix and bake at multiple bit rates and you have a solution to the copy protected CD (I haven't bought one yet from an Indie Band). The big guys go down because they can't compete with free, better than great music on the web with a low cost distribution. So, where is this utopia? Oh! And dump the necessary registration required to listen (are you listening mp3.com?)."

Comments

mylocalbands

[silicongodcom]

mylocalbands.com is trying to do this.

Epitonic

[Over_and_Done]

Epitonic does this, they are free, have a portable music box that you can listen to from anywhere and lots of streaming stations that cater to any musical taste. And, most of the stuff is indie, as the big artists are probably not even allowed to use the service even if they wanted to.

BeSonic.com!

[Spaceman40]

This utopia exists.

It is called besonic.

It has been online for over two or three years (previously known as Riffage), and has a gigantic list of music online for free, as well as albums available for download from thousands (believe me, there are a lot) of bands from all over the world.

The great part about besonic is that just to be an Artist is free (you can post your own music completely free, charge euros - 'cause that's their currency - for albums, everything.) - the only thing that costs is the albums (that can also be sent in cd form to your home address) and a full artist service, with a custom web site and everything.

Can't believe nobody's heard of it here. Then again, I'm big on music and recording and everything...

Spaceman40

HEY! WE'RE A COPYLEFT LABEL!!

[locarecords.com]

I'ved posted before about our label LOCA RECORDS and the fact that we are releasing records on an Open Source license that gives the listener the right to copy the music and we are not just doing it because we are have rubbish bands! The proof???

See MEME INTERVIEW

Or WARD REVIEW

Ok that's in french so maybe WARD INTERVIEW would be better? (Scroll down for English)

Or hey just visit our site

Feel free to browse and if you have ideas for how we *could* place our music on the web cheaply and easily then please please let us know!! All help credited and appreciated!

Oh and feel free to buy a nice t-shirt.. they keep us releasing... ;-)

So how do I write my own music?

[yerricde]

No CARP royalty problems since these bands are unsigned and own the music themselves.

Really?

I know how to play a few instruments, I know some music theory, and I want to write some music, record it, and put it on the Internet, but I've run into one slight problem: How is it possible to write original music, when it's so hard to avoid accidentally re-inventing something you've heard ten years ago and losing a lawsuit? Especially when a large music publisher can take you down with just four notes?

Which part...

[tswinzig]

... of "tend to be" don't you understand?

He didn't say they ALL fit that bill, just most. I tend to agree. There are some diamonds out there, though.

One of my favorite independent bands that really deserves to be picked up is Virgos. They rock, they sound like a well-financed band, yet they have a unique sound, mostly thanks to the lead singer -- Brett Hestla (touring bassist for Creed, and producer of many CD's).

I'm trying to think of what I would compare them to, but I can't really come up with a good comparison... check 'em out.

Sources

[Snork Asaurus]

Here are some places to look for indies and unsigned artists. I'd guess this to be a pool of about 2 million tunes (across ALL genres). All offer streams/previews, mostly in low bit-rate mp3, a few in (yech) real media:

mp3.com (biggest >1.5 million tunes, now owned by Universal Vivendi who, so far, haven't messed it up too much)

IUMA (based in the USA, but international)

Besonic (based in Germany, but international)

mp3.de (based in Germany, but international)

Soundclick (based in the USA, but international)

(Garageband based in the USA, but international)

France mp3 (based in France)

Vitaminic (free + pay - based in the USA, but international)

Washington Post (yup, the newspaper)

Online Rock (based in the USA, but international)

Peoplesound based England

mp3.com Australia (not the same mp3.com - based in Australia, but international)

Emusic (pay and not really indie per se, but smaller label and re-release oriented, based in USA)

Artistlaunch (based in the USA, but international)

mp3 Poland - (Based in Poland - mostly domestic)

Good Google will searches turn up more small sites, thousands of independent artists' sites with free mp3's, some smaller labels that have free samples, many, many links pages. The biggest problem here is that it takes time to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is some incredibly good stuff out there and a lot of crap.

Use Google - many local newspaper sites have mp3 sections for local artists and there are many mp3 sites that are specifically for local talent.

If you're not familiar with mp3.com, it can be daunting in the sheer volume of material (no pun intended). And they accept material of all (musical) quality from absolute crap to incredibly good. They have many genre-based top-40 style charts and new-release charts. Walking through those is a natural first step. One concept they have that can be a big help is "stations" - really a euphemism for fan-generated lists of tunes by various artists. The tunes can be played separately or sequentially. So, when you find an artist that you like and get to their page, click on the "stations now playing" tab. On that page could be one to several "stations" where you might find additional good material that someone else has taken the time to comb out and list. I've seen lists from 2 to 200 tunes long - this can expand your options very quickly.

I have looked for ogg sources and found precious few. Unfortunately, Ogg is still a long way from critical mass.