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Creative Commons Remix Contest
victors writes "Creative Commons and WIRED recently went public beta with CC Mixter which is a Commons pool for music samples and remixes. The site creates a tree of remix/sources inline with every entry and has Flikr/del.ciou.us style tagging. The launch includes two remix contests and features samples and cuts put in the Commons by Chuck D., Beastie Boys, David Byrne, Danger Mouse and tons more. The winners end up on Chuck D.'s next CD and a CC promo disk and there's already been some pretty astounding entries. Of course every upload is under a CC license that allows legal sampling including contest entries and the big name source tracks and samples. I took over the coding for the site from Lucas Gonze (of WebJay) who did a proof of concept. We're currently working on making the site source part of the CC Tools open source project. That version will support remixing of any media including images, videos and Flash mods."
If not, wouldn't that violate the whole non-commercial use part of the CC agreement?
Slashdotted already...? Too bad. :-(
There's a similar bicardi breezer mixer also done in Flash, I personally think it's good as a toy (Flash, that is), not as anything you can seriously use. It's powered by ECMA script, after all.
Nothing costs nothing
I enjoy their music, but how are struggling musicians supposed to make a living with CC? Maybe I don't get it, but these guys can afford to give their stuff away now...I can't.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
I can't figure out if I should really be so stoked that the artists on are really 'on the bandwagon' with CC licensing. It seems after a few spins of that disc that it's filled with cast-off and b-side quality material. If they're so hot on it, why no release some of the good stuff under CC?
After 3 beers and 3 espressos, there's a 20-minute period where you can climb anything.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
They have to perform a lot. Many bands that give away their albums on mp3 would like the increase their popularity so that next time they're in town you will go see their concert/performance.
Anyway, doing a couple of CC tracks doesn't mean you can't release a regular full album later that might score increased sales because of the band/group's exposure by the CC tracks.
Sample this!
E.g., MacJams.com
If you really like to do music and you can make a living of it, why not do that?
I agree the number one motivation to be a musician should be to enjoy it, but if it seems people are willing to pay for your music/performance than why not try to make a living with it?
Sample this!
I understand your situation is different if you are making music for a living, but in recent times there has been such a surge of amateur musicians who are technologically-savvy.
...)
Take me for example. I had the unfortunate realisation at age 25 that I was not going to be a rock and roll star, so I switched gears and got a CS degree. But I told myself that I would always make music, but it would have to be in hobby form from now on. Fortunatley with a CS degree I would be able to afford some nice toys for that hobby (at least in theory
Well it worked, and I'm now in the process of recording an album. No, Island records has not flown me to NY for a posh recording session with cameos by Steven Tyler, but I make great sounding music recording the album 100% digitally, with not much $$ invested, thanks to technologies like this (heck, the software was free -- Garageband).
The point is many people like me who always wanted to record in a studio now can -- they can build one that is relatively inexpensive -- and those are the type of people that enjoy tools like this.
I would not be surprised in the future if we see a few people out there who were working professionals who suddenly become famous for musical works they did as a hobby with no intention of making it big in the first place.
-- (Score:i , Imaginary)
Let me be clear---I'm not a musician. But I do not give away the services I perform and we shouldn't expect musicians to do the same. I should've been more clear. Poser? Ummm, OK Asshat.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
Hey, take a pledge then:
"I will not use anything that I obtain at no financial cost to myself or where the creator of the thing recieves no financial reward for my use of the thing."
Something along those lines. Feel free.
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
I kind of think of Revolverlution as an open source album. Public Enemy released a few of their tracks on a website, and had a contest for the best remix. The best one got on the CD once it was pressed.
PE has been in the forefront of digital music releases for some time now. Def Jam wouldn't release "Bring the Noise 2000", so PE released it online. Def Jam sued, said they owned all rights to PE music, even though this was all remixes, and didn't want to sell it anyway. In the resultant dust-up, Chuck and Flav split from Def Jam, released the single "Swindler's Lust" for free to show their anger at being owned, and helped in the start of Atomic Pop, what was one of the first Internet focused labels. Atomic Pop released "There's a Poison Going On" (with Swindler's Lust) for $8 download only, $10 pressed, with an autograph from Chuck. They eventually folded, and it was weird seeing "Poison" at Virgin for $18 when I got it for $10. Chuck still has some links from http://www.rapstation.com/ and http://www.bringthenoise.com/ used to be a PE oriented site, now looks like Fark for Hip-Hop news.
Sometimes just getting your track sampled and looped in someone else's can expose your music to other audiences. Besides, if it's not a super hot/top ten track, which you could license for big cha-ching, why not let it go. This seems analogous to letting folks d/l your back catalog for free (or some nominal fee), because you're not expecting to make much money off sales for those albums (you've either already made your money or you haven't - of course there are notable exceptions a la Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon). If you've already made your money (or not and have written those "losses" off), why not give it away, you might gain a new audience, who - if they like your stuff - are far more likely to purchase your next album and see you in concert (where artists actually make their money).
Seems like a great idea to me.
"Content's a bitch."
Flikr/del.ciou.us
I hate it when I slam my head into the keyboard too.
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
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It sounds a little bit like a computer fan crossed with some keyboard clicking on a bit of a crashter tip.
All of the ccmixter.org links are returning SQL errors--definately a server-side problem. Are there mirrors of these audio files? It would be best if there were Ogg Vorbis copies of these audio tracks elsewhere.
Digital Citizen
I am in a very similar situation. I have pretty much no formal training and I have completed 4 albums at 26... the last one entirely on my laptop. Not to say that I am exceptional, not at all... but simply that music composition has become very affordable and approachable. I'm tempted to say that you no longer even need to be tech-savvy, a good ear and a fair sense of harmony can be enough--things that can be aquired simply by having listened to music all your life, which most of us do.
Now, of course not everyone will pick that up, but the fact that the tools are relatively cheap and easy to use gives the same chance to almost everyone.
The warez scene might also be helping a lot with this--in the same way that it helped 12 year olds master Photoshop, it's now helping young musicians master tools like Reason (I first got a taste of Reason through a cracked 1.0 version, and ended up purchasing Reason 2.0).
Heh. I'd like to see a poll here to find out how many of us actually got started with pirated software. I wouldn't be surprised if it was most of us...
Eh.
Good ol' /. l33t-ism!
Define "new" and "original", first of all.
In many cases, I would guess the vast majority of cases, "new" music isn't actually new. Seriously, think about it. Unless you've heard EVERYTHING that's been produced, you can't determine whether something is new or not.
You might think its new, but there's a good chance someone, somewhere, in their basement, garage, club, whatever, wrote a very similar song using a very similar chord progression, beat, and very similar lyrics.
If I write a "new" song using the same chord progression as "Wild Thing" (and "Louie Louie" and about a million other rock songs), is my song "new"? Why? How is that different from taking what someone else has done and doing it differently?
If I play a C chord on my guitar, why is that original? Nobody else in the world has ever played a C chord before?
My point is that "new" means "different", not "nobody ever thought this up, ever!".
despite the parent being totally off-rocker on remix culture, he does have a point. remixes are typically works-for-hire, so the original artist retains copyright on the remix recording.
-mkb
The Creative Commons licenses generally offer exceptions to copyrights. From the CC FAQ:
Is Creative Commons against copyright?
Not at all. Our licenses help you retain your copyright while allowing certain exceptions to it, upon certain conditions.
From Chuck D's perspective, I don't think that this has a much to do with remixing as sampling in general. Now, there is an artistic aspect to remixing itself. For example, see what DJ Danger Mouse did with Jay-Z's Black Album and the Beatle's White Album before it was shut down.
But either way, a large part of Chuck D's success with Public Enemy was the music produced by the Bomb Squad on their It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet albums. On those albums, the Bomb Squad sampled tons of music to produce those tracks. This site has a list of many of them. And in fact, sampling existing music has been part of rap since the beginning with DJs mixing tracks. Such production, though, is not viable today due to the crackdown on such practices without paying royalties, and actually paying royalties would have enormous cost. This issue actually came up in the testimony Chuck gave before Congress regarding file-sharing (where opposing testimony was given LL Cool J).
With Creative Commons, artists would be able to sample existing music for their own tracks and be able to sell them, while still respecting the copyrights of the original artist and avoiding the financial burdens that royalties impose.
This (Google cache) interview with Hank Shocklee of the Bomb Squad and Chuck D discusses some of this stuff further.
So. Do you think anyone will point out that Chuck D. and the Beastie's were the only ones on the previous CC album that chose a license that didn't allow commercial sampling? Think the'd give 'em create here for contibuting stuff to be sampled?
"There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone."
- Duke Ellington
The idea of being a struggling musician is a bogus way of thinking. The practice of music is not about hustling to become a star. It's about making music constantly, and once in a while making some money on it.
Yup, you are missing something. Check out CC Mixter's tagline -- "mixversation".
Remixing is about bouncing ideas back and forth, getting in a conversational flow, a jam approach that isn't done in real-time. It's like a mailing list or a forum. Here and there you see really cool things, the rest of the time it's just people talking.
Maybe I'm missing something here. What is the big deal of remixing something?
How about going out and creating new and original music? Taking other people's work and mixing, splicing, etc...just really doesn't seem much like talent to me...
By your logic, every mixing engineer out there is doing something that's "not a big deal" and requires no talent. After all, all they're doing is taking other people's work (the tracks recorded by the band) and mixing, splicing, (and balancing, and arranging, and adding effects, and creating a proper stero image, and creating the proper dynamics, and making sounds "fit" together into a cohesive whole), etc to make a song. That doesn't seem much like talent to you...
Which is, of course, ridiculous. Doing good sound mixing is an incredibly difficult and artistic process. Doing good re-mixing, therefore, can be as well.
BTW: most remixes use only a small number of tracks from the original work (often only the vocal), and are built around completely new compositions to create what's effectively a new song. Would you also claim that in every band and songwriting team, only the vocalist has talent? Because that's where your logic leads.
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
Right, and since the site is slashdotted I can't check to see which CC license they're using. :)
-mkb
to bring your site to a grinding halt.
Well, there are sites out there such as http://www.ind-music.com/ that allow Indie Artists to upload and sell there music. The accounts are free to join. The site does take a commission, but the artists earns more as they sell more songs. I think CC is a great place, but really unless you are an established act, you really don't stand a chance.
I have nothing clever to put here...
Hell, give me the time and hardware, and I could remix stuff....if I could do it...well, you know..
That's mainly my point. Taking samples of someone's recorded efforts, putting a different beat around it, and maybe shouting out some semi-rhyming words behind it...not talent.
Knowing how to play instruments, write lyrics, singing (actually singing and not just speaking or shouting a bunch of words), is what I mean by talented and original.
And to carry that point a bit further...something you can perform LIVE in front of an audience...to me, that's a big one too...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I guess I don't see the talent in people 'sampling' other peoples work...why not spend the time learning to play an actual instrument, and compose, and sing? Stealing or using with permission other people's efforts and talent by sampling, to me just isn't talent. I think most anybody with time and equipment could take existing sounds, songs and such from existing recordings...and re-do them. If anyone can do such a thing...to me...not talent.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I think you have a lot of misconceptions about music.
First, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any musician who didn't do something that another did. There are so many examples to cite...probably the most overused (in the rock genre, anyway) would be Led Zeppelin ripping off just about every blues artist there ever was prior to 1968 or so. Would you say that Led Zeppelin is untalented? Would you say Jimmy Page in his heyday was a lousy guitarist?
Second, you seem to believe that only certain things can be used to create music, like actual, established, traditional instruments. Soundgarden's "Spoon Man" features a guy playing the spoons...is that new? Original? It can't be, because spoons aren't musical instruments, they're eating utensils, yet most people you could ask would say that song was "new" and "original" when it came out. So obviously its OK to take something unconventional and make sounds with it, right? What's the difference between one guy using spoons and another guy writing some code to make his computer spit out sounds instead of playing the guitar?
Third, you seem to equate someone being first or famous as being "original". In this thread, Chuck D's track would be considered "original" but I guarantee you that track probably has samples, loops, effects, and other techniques in it that came from other tracks. Hell, Public Enemy was one of the original groups to use samples in mainstream radio. Is Chuck D's music still "original" then? How can it be if he's using samples?
Fourth, you seem to have a bias against rap and hip-hop, judging by your "singing and not just speaking or shouting" comment. In "Pink Moon" Nick Drake doesn't sing (or what you would probably call singing)...yet I bet anyone you asked would say that song was an "original song" and its not even hip-hop or rap.
Fifth, what constitutes performing live? Is Kraftwerk a group with original songs? Their concerts sell out, and I'm talking arena size shows, not small clubs. They perform live. Yet they use samples and loops. Are they untalented? Unoriginal? Groups like U2 use pre-recorded backing tracks to fill out the live sound and make their live shows sound more like the albums...is U2 unoriginal? Untalented?
Seriously, think about what you're saying. You're saying that unless somebody knows how to play a traditional instrument (whatever "traditional" means) a certain way, their creative output is unoriginal. You can't even define "knows how to play" or "traditional"...is a didgeridoo a traditional instrument? How about a bouzouki? What level constitutes "knowing" how to play an instrument? I can teach a 13-yr old the bar chord progression used in the vast majority of rock songs in the past 40 years...if that kid writes 5 songs using that same chord progression, is that kid's music not new? Unoriginal? Should I punish that kid for not inventing something completely new? Chastise her for not understanding that she isn't good enough to make "real music"?
It's a shame that you feel only people who meet certain criteria should be allowed to create. Having an open mind is critical to growth...nobody is saying you have to like the things you see and hear, but criticizing them based on some subjective measure of "talent" or "originality" just isn't reasonable.
IMHO, you should refrain from judging someone's talent or originality until you can, in fact, do "better" than they can, whatever "better" means.
But, aside from that...I know that Zeppelin and the Stones and such 'lifted' a good deal from previous artists. But, taking tunes, runs, and riffs...and playing it yourself to make new music...that is still original to me. Yes, especially in music, one generation builds on the music from the previous one. You get continuity and growth that way. In fact, I think somewhere in the late 80's...this continuity was somehow broken...and hence a large contributor to the dearth of good music available today.
"Second, you seem to believe that only certain things can be used to create music, like actual, established, traditional instruments. Soundgarden's "Spoon Man" features a guy playing the spoons...is that new? Original? It can't be, because spoons aren't musical instruments, they're eating utensils, yet most people you could ask would say that song was "new" and "original" when it came out. So obviously its OK to take something unconventional and make sounds with it, right? What's the difference between one guy using spoons and another guy writing some code to make his computer spit out sounds instead of playing the guitar?"
I'm not so much speaking about using unusual sounds...back in the day, the MOOG, and such were revolutionary...new ways to make music. What I am saying that is not artistic and original..is sampling other people's recordings. Lifting musical ideas is one thing, but, I feel that sampling another artists recording is just plain theft by those unimaginative and/or untalented enough to create those sounds themselves. Samples of sounds and stuff...well, ok..but, sampling some's bass or drum track, or actual singing voices, to me is theft. It just doesn't take talent to do that IMHO.
"Fifth, what constitutes performing live? Is Kraftwerk a group with original songs? Their concerts sell out, and I'm talking arena size shows, not small clubs. They perform live. Yet they use samples and loops. Are they untalented? Unoriginal? Groups like U2 use pre-recorded backing tracks to fill out the live sound and make their live shows sound more like the albums...is U2 unoriginal? Untalented?"
Well, I tell ya...I'm not a fan of playing to backing tracks either...to me, that's one step short of being a Brittney Spears and just plain lip synching. I like some of U2's stuff...mostly the old stuff...but, there is some of the new I like. But, by today's standards...U2 is pretty much an 'old' band. Where are the bands of today that can, on a regular basis, fill those stadiums and not only hold an audience's attention, but, move them to their feet?
I think it's pretty plain on what constitutes a live performance. I'd rather see a band get up, and play with nothing pre-recorded..Back in the day, you knew when you saw Zeppelin...it wasn't going to be the same as the record..no way it could be. Jimmy just couldn't play 4 parts at once..that was a studio effect (however it was played..not sampled). But, I'd rather any day of the week, see a band like that play today...sure he flubbed more notes on stage than anyone else, but, then again...he was trying to squeeze about a 1000 notes into each bar...and all the while stoned....
But, I think what I'm saying is pretty simple and clear....I think people singing, and playing their own instruments, and hopefully writing their own material...is what talented music is. I think sampling recorded media of said talented people by those that take it and remix and resell it as new, original material (adding a new drum track or spoken work with it)...is not original music. Sure, you learn and take from the past to create the new...but, you don't just outright steal it verbatin from a recording, and try to package it as something original and yours.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Me: been playing music for 40 years. Cello, guitar, piano, bass and now computer and turntable. Graduated from music conservatory, scored films, played countless gigs in rock, blues, reggae, casuals, lounge, weddings, bar mitzvah, folk, avante-garde, symphonic outfits. Written music for singers, small combos, big bands, 80 piece orchestras. Worked for record companies for 15 years including Columbia, Epic, Rhino. Currently have a recording contract with Magnatune, posted over 100 tracks to my website and twice that around the web since 1999.
You: have an opinion.
Me: Remixing is an art form as valid any musical art form that humans have known.
You: No it isn't.
Me: OK, you're right.
Boston's fun, funny, hip, and technologically-aware Jim's Big Ego did this in May 2004. Their song, "Mix Tape," makes some good statements about the RIAA. Several contest entries and the original song and component tracks are available for download.
0 504090919481
http://www.bigego.com/egog/article.php?story=2004
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/4162