Slashdot Mirror
Band Invites Music Copying
R C writes "The BBC is currently running a story about the band Carbon Silicon, including former members of The Clash and Generation X. The report claims that the band is encouraging fans to download tracks, demos, and works in progress from their website . Talking of re-capturing the culture of recording a tape to lend to your friends, they believe that the free availability of their music won't affect sales, and that the availability extra material like tracks in development will attract and engage even more fans."
What we need now is Open Source Songs. Tracks in development are released and fans can chip in and make those songs better.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
A new rock group featuring former members of The Clash and Generation X has taken a novel approach to the issue of piracy by urging their fans to copy their music.
Carbon Silicon make all their recordings freely available online, and actively encourage bootlegging or filming of their gigs.
They even attack the current waves of litigation surrounding illegally copied music in their song Gangs Of England, which includes the line, "if you want the record, press record".
"What we're talking about here is fans who are sharing music," Tony James, formally of Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Generation X - who formed the group with ex-Clash guitarist Mick Jones - told BBC World Service's The Music Biz programme.
"It's just like you did when you were young, when you made a cassette of your favourite tracks you'd love, and would give it to a friend and say 'listen to this.'
"Everyone's going to say, 'hang on - if they've got it already, why are they going to buy the record?' But what we find is actually, people really like buying the records."
Demos online
The music industry has been grappling with issues of piracy over the last few years, in particular since broadband became popular.
Artists who have backed anti-piracy campaigns, include Metallica, Tatu and Peter Gabriel.
But James said that he considered the internet to be the "most exciting thing that's happened to rock and roll".
In particular, he pointed out that people could now record songs in their bedrooms and make them available to the world, and new artists no longer needed "a label, or a manager, or a BBC Radio playlist".
Carbon Silicon use their website to show the development of their songs. Demos are put on the web so people can track how they came together.
"We feel that it's almost like if I could go and watch Lennon and McCartney in the studio making Sgt Pepper, and watch them on the internet making that record, that would be a really exciting thing," James explained.
"So I think what we'll see in the future is people will pay to be there - to be part of the creative process. That's a really exciting thing.
"Our ideas of copyright, and what constitutes a record, will change in the future."
Unfortunately, their web server is now a melted mass of carbon and silicon. I hope Slashdotters buy a load of CDs to replace that bugger!
I see that this is free as in beer, but is it free as in freedom? (can I alter and distribute?)
Maybe they can invite people to rename their band. "Carbon Silicon"?!
Plus, they clearly are terrorists. Patriotic westerners (Brits, Americans, etc) all know that if you give something away, you are only encouraging the terrorists to do more evil.
just to show support.
Now get that "Shop Online" button working!
His combination with Michelle McManus will be called Big Audio Cellulite
We will have to see if it works, but somehow I think it will work out for them. It will keep them out of recordcompanies grip I hope.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Wow! Too bad Nobody else does this!
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Sorry, RIAA and friends, but you've got an expiration date on your usefulness, growing clearer each day.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
For example recently I discovered http://magnatune.com/ which is a whole label following the same idea.
I think people should really encourage this and btw. they have some pretty nice music there.
(No, I'm in no way affiliated to them, I just like the concept and hand a fun afternoon recently listening through their offerings.)
Allow download of the full album:
Phenom, a rock band based in Bangalore: http://wearephenom.com/
You're music is going to get copied no matter what. All attempts to prevent consumers from making copies of CDs are bound to fail. There will always be a work around.
Instead, what bands should be doing is embracing the ease that they can get their material out there. You no longer have to beg and plead with radio stations or record companies. My band, The Dirt (shameless plug http://www.tractorgrease.com/) is taking that approach. You put a lot of time in recording your self and mixing/mastering tracks and then just give away your music? Well that's the reality of it if you want people to listen, especially as a new band.
People need to feel like fans, not criminals when they try to get music from their favorite bands.
In North America at least, the radio stations are locked into deals I've heard where they are bound to play primarily what's on the "charts". The charts are determined by Billboard and other RIAA shills, so an independent artist is unlikely to get real radio play over a wide area from chain-owned stations.
This makes it hard for any artist trying to break through without signing over their soul to the RIAA.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I RTFA, I listened to some demo's, and I can see why they are giving them away - but seriously, lots of bands allow their content to be downloaded - just because this band happens to have some members that were in bands that wrote some good tunes, does not mean that the music is good or that they are somehow breaking new ground. Go listen to the demos and then listen to this Oceans_by_Cold_Suzy this is re-capturing the culture of recording a tape to lend to your friends - not just hype...and its damn good music to boot !
sounds like your listening to the wrong music....
sirius Outlaw Country sirius.com
"Please just LISTEN to our music, we'll do anything, we'll even work for free."
It is nice that they are willing working for nothing. However, this seems more like an attempt to gain exposure rather than actually releasing 'good' music for free.
Now the debate of whether they suck or not can begin to even make this invitation worthy of merit.
[cx]
Unfortunately, the tracking community isn't what it used to be...
Oh, btw, a link for all your module download needs: Modarchive.
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
you have no fucking clue what good music is. I guess I can't help you with that either. Now if you spoke Russian, I would have reminded you that the best music that was really ever produced had to do with serious themes on defiance against the tyranny and oppression.
Vysotskiy (Guitar Solo, nothing else needed.), Tsoy (ROCK), DDT (ROCK), Nautilus(ROCK)
You can't handle the truth.
I can't find any tracks on their website at all. Is it me, or is it all a bit of a con to attract visitors?
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
Hey, you are some funny companion! :-D
GPLed music shouldn't be too hard, as you can start by GPLing scores, MIDI files and the like. The samples would then logically follow (as they are derived works, so must be GPL). Editing at the more basic level would seem easiest, so that is why I'm thinking that is where you'd really want to start.
Music editors (and video editors) fill Freshmeat on a daily basis, so there's no shortage of ways of editing the final tracks, though convincing the RIAA that it is legal might be another matter.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"It's just like you did when you were young, when you made a cassette of your favourite tracks you'd love, and would give it to a friend and say 'listen to this.
Yeah, exactly like when we were young, and you made digitally exact copies of the music you liked and shared it with thousands of people who you've never met.
Like the Grateful Dead? And all the bands that followed their lead, giving us over 1000 different bands with music on the Internet Archive's Live Music Archive, and thousands more that allow their music to be legally traded on the Etree Torrent server?
Ok, so you may say that's just live music, but if you want studio music, there's the Internet Archive (again) with Netlabels and Open Source Audio. I'm sorry, but I'm not seeing the news here.
Independent artists have been giving away their music online since the bronze age. My group for example (shameless self plug): http://www.kestwest.com/
This band should be stopped. Think of the lives that could be saved.
I can't imagine that this comment would come to someone who really is "into" music. The face of music at the front of western culture is refactored and generated by music execs. As someone who's been a musician since they were 10 (11 years now), I can't imagine you are looking very hard to find something that you might consider good music. But to be fair, it's not like you are obligated to. I just feel that making such a broad sweeping statement is an insult to quality musicians and composers who you might never hear about just because you discount the present state of music.
Cory's famous for doing the book version of this, distributing his books for free as a means for getting promotion.
http://craphound.com/
I caught his talk on it on Friday night. He said that the normal way people get to read an author is to buy the book in a shop, but the shops only carry books from known authors....
...because eventually enough people not paying for their music will definately pay off their studio time. Oh, right... "former member of The Clash" probably finds it a lot easier than some semi-famous bands to not worry about whether anyone wants to buy the new material.
But taken to the logical destination, you can only look at this approach as making them a hobby band. Which is fine if you're not worried about the rent. If he's not worried about trying to eat off of music sales, I wonder to whom he donates his Clash residuals?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Good music has theme, connects to reality, does something to make you care. Those days are long gone.
:(
That's such a depressingly negative view to take.
I don't think that music is any worse than it was years ago, but you may be led to believe this if you exclusively listen to commerical radio/tv or whatever. Music has become saturated as there's so much shitty pop out there, but if you're prepared to look, I'm sure you'd find something you'll like.
I'm not going to start spewing my own current interests in music, but EVERYONE can surely find something they like out there..?
A better band called the flaming lips just released some music... only about 100 CDs were made so they are telling people to put it on the internet.
But they're cool like that.
...not for Widespread Panic fans!
Link here. They've only got about 6800 recordings so far, but it's only going to get bigger.
I play piano, even though my specialty was accordion (I was 12, it was the only instrument for which the music school was prepared to accept me.) I used to listen to music all the time. I am 29 now and for I stopped listenning to everything.
You can't handle the truth.
In order to get some dosh.
Bands earn more on tours than from album sales, but an album is relatively easy, sit back, do a video or two and let the cash roll in from the rest of the world.
Deleted
At the performance in Sweden Bruce Dickinson said:
To all you looking at this at your tv... if you're bootlegging this! Make sure you send it to all your friends! Not only the nordic ones!" http://www.swecheck.net/nfo.asp?id=15827
To download the "bootleg": http://thepiratebay.org/details.php?id=3354545
The free advertising model of music is great if you have something that ppl will /like/. Otherwise you're just pissing projected sales away.
For instance the famous book "Thinking in Java". by Bruce Eckel. According to him making it freely available online has lead to increased sales. Because *much* more people get to read the book and so more people recognize it as a good book and buy it. Two more book examples are "Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Theory" by David MacKay And "Convex Optimization" by Boyd and Lieven. All these are excellent books.
Same might be true with music, although, I agree that it is yet to be tested.
My father's band, Legion, does this. http://legion-music.com/ [/shamelessplug]
There are lots of bands that encourage distribution of their music, especially among indie circles. Sigur Ros is one good example of this; they even run their own DirectConnect hub for distributing their music! Despite this, I own two of their albums. I never would have purchased them if I had not heard their music through downloading it.
Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.
Get off my website.
This isn't novel at all. Tons of smaller bands, especially those not on major labels, do this. There are many that allow downloads of whole albums, such as Defiance Ohio or mellowdrone.
Where's the torrent?
I imagine all that faggy poem shit will be thrown by the wayside and the wiki will become a giant goatse trap.
I remember The Offspring tried to give away an album in 2000 as mp3s on their website but had the idea shot to shit by their record label.
Sony Forces The Offspring to Cancel MP3 Giveaway.
The article was incorrect. The tracks are *NOT* free, they are encrypted in a format called "Windows Media" which will cost: $200 for a copy of windows. $400 or so for an extra computer to run it on. $[lots] for anti virus software. $[even_more] Firewall software $[lots_o_money] hardware firewall Even then, I don't know how you would go about converting it to .mp3 or .ogg in order to use it on your regular computer.
...the band is encouraging fans to download tracks, demos, and works in progress from their website.
As reported on that subversive commie website the BBC. We know they're a hotbed of evil anti-American perversion, why they even gave away their own music for free. Worse, the Open Source idiots are giving away their own software. They should be filtered off the internet.
</sarcasm>
In any popular area, at least in the states, you can find hundreds of bands that allow and encourage taping/distributing their live shows. Boston, New York, San Francisco, LA, Denver, New Orleans, etc... Many of these bands are large enough to tour the country, many are not. I've personally taped well over 50 different local bands in the New England area and I am constantly finding more. These bands tend to play because they enjoy music, not because they are looking to go tripple platinum. People rarely try to find these bands because they don't have their own musical tastes. People want to listen to music that everyone else has heard of and can relate to. Bands that are on national labels rarely make it their due to their own talents, people buy what advertising and radio tells them to buy.
Personally, I rarely buy CDs unless a bandmember is selling it to me. I do buy the CDs though, as I feel it is important to keep these types of bands around.
From there, its not hard to imagine that 70+% of the songs that are actually downloaded online are simply dumped into 'Storage' or 'To be Sorted' folders.
May I suggest you have a listen to Anthony and The Johnson, fulfils all of your criteria.
awesome, I wish more bands and artists and labels would wake up to the way the world has moved. Quite frankly I would be about 10 times more likely to buy a song or CD from an artist if they did this. Same way I am much more likely to buy from or donate to software from vendors who don't put in ridiculous anti-piracy stuff or nagware. Those who cling onto the past are the past.
The more flexible you are with your media, the more you treat your audience like grown ups and not like kids in playpen that need supervision the more people will respect you for it.
Man, if I had known one could get in worldwide news for releasing free tracks I'd have made a press release ages ago. All my band's material is free to download, and we encourage people to share it with people who would like it.
...
It's a shame that it's surprising to some, but what can you expect in an age where everyone and their brother are being sued for one P2P thing or another
Who doesn't like free music?
Open Sound
http://www.opsound.org/
or maybe
Internet Underground Music Archive http://www.iuma.com/
Typical slashdot, always last with the news...
Well for me it is.
And for most of the rest of us, it isn't. But at least you had the balls to acknowledge this as a personal opinion, rather than a Declaration of Universal Truth(TM) like many other slashdotters.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
This band is composed of people who already made enough money off their copyrights that they can do what they want, what they started playing music for: to get girls, and quiet the voices in their heads.
The real demo of "free music" is not these ex-punks (long live the Clash!), but those emblematic hippies: the Grateful Dead. The Dead always encouraged their fans to record and exchange their performances. So they outlived all the cycles of fads. They never had the rights to allow free exchange of their studio records - the labels kept those rights, along with most of the revenue - so those weren't exchanged. Result: the Dead's albums, even the pretty good ones (_Workingman's Dead_, _American Beauty_, _Mars Hotel_) were never that popular, though their sales got a boost from their increased fans. Nobody collects 100 tapes of live shows, or follows a band around, without buying commercial releases, too. The Dead would never have lasted, if they weren't true to the spirit of the music: music is for sharing.
It's the central story of the record business that the weasels who run it understand nothing about the music, its makers, or its listeners. Everything they do is counter to the reality of the music itself. Sometimes they get lucky, like figuring out how to monopolize the distribution of the plastic discs most people use to consume music, in collusion with mafias that monopolize trucking. But usually they're fighting the ways that people always share music, and always have, for thousands of generations (of humans *and* copies, or renditions). When people build a music business around *more sharing* of the music, they get the real rewards of working *with* their product and market, not against it. It might not be the instant payoff that the weasels demand, but then it also doesn't usually require the one payoff to finance the 100 failures that their "clamp down" model requires.
--
make install -not war
Is this an attempt at a 'man bites dog' story?
Because, most bands invite music copying. It's only a select few who have big $$ contracts who restrict copying.
Most people are flattered if a fan base copies their music around.
So what is this? It's actually a 'dog bites man' story but we're pretending it's 'man bites dog' for political reasons?
This move is right in line with Mick Jones. One of the founding members of The Clash. Back in the 70's when The Clash was young they had the song "Complete Control" which was all about the artist retaining all forms of control regarding their art. It was aimed right at their label IIRC. I always did like the forward thinking of that band and am glad to see one of the surving members still at it. I wish them success. Keep on rocking in the free world mates.
My humor is probably your flamebait
Most music do...I'll admit to have trouble finding it in some err "songs", and mean theme not badly rewashed old cliches.
sometimes I want to get away from it, maybe I'm not the only one. Sometimes to enhance my current mood or change it.
Good music transmits an emotion a feeling be love, anger,sadness, whatever. There's lot of it out there, stop listening top xxx's or look music in another genre/countries. There's always good or bad music depending on each one tastes.
Smokin' & rubying away
Fuck man.
The fact that these guys are A) doing this publically B) as noteworthy music icons makes this newsworthy. For every Magnatunes/Garageband/et al comment: your missing the fucking point.
And before anyone starts trying to jump up and down, I support independent music. I shop Magnatunes. Et al.
Quack, quack.
But there are so many bedroom musicians. How do you pinpoint the future Lennons and McCartneys?
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
from the article
"Everyone's going to say, 'hang on - if they've got it already, why are they going to buy the record?' But what we find is actually, people really like buying the records."
I'm glad someone thinks the album format isn't dead yet, given the popularity of buying single tracks from iTMS. I prefer listening to albums, rather than some mix of greatest hits by various bands.
Vote for Pedro
Other musicians are doing it too. Trent Reznor released his last single as a Garage Band file on his website so that fans of NIN could remix it themselves (scroll down to 4_15_05 to download the SIT file).
and labels, are releasing stuff under Creative Commons licences.
You like techno? I heartily recommend Avionix Records
I think in the future there will be a lot more music floating around for free of *real* quality simply because there's a lot of artists who wont put up with all this corporate bullshit.
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
All my band's material is free to download
Are you paying the proper royalty (in the United States, no more than 8.5c per downloaded song) to the publisher of the musical works that you recorded? Or if you wrote your own songs, did you run them past a music expert to make sure that you didn't subconsciously copy something?
Well, for one thing, if someone put up a rock or metal recording that was missing the bass or the guitar, I could (quite easily) put either of those (or both of them, come to that) on top as my particular vision and skills allow, and return the recording with the new layers.
In fact, that would be a lot of fun. I've been playing for forty years and I'm a rock and roll / metal-head who will not tolerate country, gospel and rap. I worship at the altar of Satriani and Vai. Like most musicians, I love to play.
It could be awesome... Imagine fifty people laying tracks like that on your creation, and you get to choose whose part(s) you like? Sheesh, I think that'd be terrific. And what a way to find people you want to collaborate with!
All you'd need is an open music format and an open multitrack application to make it easy, and I'd be surprised if something like that didn't exist already. A website to enable the community and I'd think you'd be off and running.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Music downloaded as mp3s is a form of time-shifting, the way you'd program your Tivo or, in an earlier age, VCR to record your favorite show.
Which makes me wonder, what really is the difference between hearing music over the radio and listening to the same music on mp3? I think what the record labels want you to buy isn't the music, which you could hear on the radio and see on MTV anyway (especially if it's something as obnoxious as the latest Britney Spears hit), but the right to listen to the music when you want where you want. You're being deprived of the right to time-shift your pleasure.
I'm a sci-fi vegan: I don't want the aliens to think we have as much right to live as the fried chickens we eat.
Well, I don't know that band, but there is my favorite band, Machinae supremacy who makes almost all their tunes availaible on their website. Even better, they distribute as mp3 AND ogg. Some months ago, I was wandering on their forum while downloading their lastest album. Some people were debating over the "illegal" bittorrent release and one of the band player wrote that they don't care about piracy, as long as it helps them to get known and makes people happy. 5 sec later, I was buying their cd online. I think a band with such enthusiasm for their music to be shared merits my money.
Brad Sucks
Has been doing it for a while now. He's got some really good tracks and scores that you can play with, remix etc. There are also links to other similiar minded musicians/groups. Might not be totally free but it's still pretty cool.
[shameless plug]
If you are into Death Metal, chekc out the website of my band: http://deifecation.cjb.net/
All songs are released under a Creative Commons license and available in Ogg Vorbis.
[/shameless plug]
Please save that. I will need dessert after I eat today's shit.
... wiki link karma whore;
Free Music
Has some good free labels. Could probably stand some improvements by the slashdot crowd.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
NIN did this with last few singles, If only I had a mac. moo
I was at a concert and a band by the name of Something Corporate came on. While I'm not really a fan of their music, while on stage they encouraged the entire crowd to download every song they could using a p2p app. So this concept isn't really new. And as far as I know they are a successfull band.
Please, don't confuse "music" and "song". Reshuffling 3 chords is not a music in any serious take. And like it or not - not Vysotskiy, nor Tsoy had a background music in their songs. Their songs did kick ass, and big time, though. Not because of music, of course, but because of lyrics. Lyrics do make a good song, as well as music does. But lyrics don't make music.
I haven't yet heard any of the Carbon Silicon music, but Tony James is a hero of mine, and his former/other group, Sigue Sigue Sputnik (with Martin Degville and Neil X), stands as my absolute favorite band of all time. (I've got an autographed album and a personalized, autographed poster among other Sputnik memorabilia on display in my house.)
I'm amazed that they aren't more popular, particularly among the Slashdot crowd. Sputnik was/is always about more than just the music- it's like a cultural snapshot of an alternate future- Bladerunner meets The Road Warrior in the nighttime neon-city wastelands of the 80's music scene. Tony James gets it with respect to the way the future should have been, and this is reflected in Sputnik's music.
Whether Carbon Silicon pans out or not, anyone with an interest in upbeat, energetic, high-tech music with a heavy emphasis on bass guitar and cheap porn owes it to themself to at least check out their first (and IMHO, best) album, Flaunt It. Their subsequent albums are somewhat more of a mixed bag, but they all have some real gems. Additionally, there's an active fan community which has been producing independent remixes and redubs for years, generally with the blessings of James.
-Cybrex
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
If you are an artist wanting to connect to an audience, giving away your music for free on the internet should be a no-brainer. What I would like to know is: How does this work for the masses of musicians wishing to make a living, with and without record label representation? In other words: Lets assume that you are going to give away your music for free and play into the internet culture. OK, great. But if you are an unknown musician, you are still stuck with a distribution problem (nobody is going to show up at your website.) So, what I want to know is: What are some actual business models that a) support the free music idea and b)give exposure to unknown artists and c)actually are viable as a way to make a living. I havent seen anything yet. Not iTunes, not Magnatune, nothing. Nothing that furfills those 3 requirements. What is the next step?
A band that streatches the copyright debate even further is the Kelptones fronhttp://www.kleptones.com/from the UK all thier albums are free and avaible via Bittorent .
They have a ground breaking album that mashes up Queeen and Hip Hop classics called Night at the Hip Hopera
Their albums sell over a million copies - that's enough for them (and shows that they aren't a small band...)
I heard that your library burnt down and destroyed your only two books - and one was not even coloured in yet.
Phish had the following setup during their 21+ yrs:
1. Audience members were free to tape any show.
2. Audience members were allowed to copy/trade and recording that they made and freely share it by others so long as no profit was made in the exchange.
You can read their Policy if you want the nitty gritty...
It's a fantastic way to get people to listen to your music - they never had a top 20 hit but were one of the top grossing concert acts in the country for several years.
In their last few years they also started putting soundboard copies of the show on http://livephish.com/ and allowed downloads at $10/show (FLAC or MP3) - and all profits go to charity.
A wish more acts had this kind of insight to believe in their fans.
Stephen
If religous zealots don't believe in Evolution, then why are they so worried about bird flu?
It should read: Shitty, Washed-Up Band With Gimmicky Name Invites Music Copying As Publicity Stunt.
is giving away all 3 CD's for free via BitTorrent. Their latest CD was produced by Tim Alexander of Primus. :) http://bornnaked.net/junk_index.html
Giving fans free access to demos and work in progress? Wow, with a unique strategy like that, they might be giants!
Since people seem to be pointing towards their favoriate redistributable music sources, let me point out just one more CC Mixter
As for Carbon Silicon, I don't know. From what I can see, we have an unsigned band with some recognizable members. Since they are unsigned, they have a great deal of latittude in what they can do with their music, so they are using it to promote themselves further. With enough promotion, they may land themselves a deal, and then they will have much less say in how they distribute their music.
I've long been a fan of Mick Jones though. He was responsible for most of the more experimental music from The Clash, and then through the various incarnations of Big Audio Dynamite.
This certainly isn't new, several bands have done this. Actually, the first big name band to ever be involved with any of this was the Smashing Pumpkins. Right before they broke up they put an entire final double album worth of material up on the then "illegal" napster as a "Final f--- you to the record labels."
Other bands have toyed around with online material, sales, and downloads. Pearl Jam has been getting more and more involved with this, especially since their contract ended with Sony. They are pretty much the biggest independant band in the world right now. They have been selling albums, singles, songs, etc online for awhile, always allowed recording in live shows, and have released official boots of every concert since '98.
Still other bands have done things online. I recall NiN did some stuff back around 2000 when they released a bunch of remixes of their songs for free on the internet.
I do agree this is becomming increasingly common though as bands are learning that the internet is a great way to connect with fans and reach out to new listeners while sidestepping the marketing BS of most publishing labels. It's also letting a lot more independant bands get their music out to an audience without having to sell your soul to the RIAA.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
The thing is that royalties for music is quite a recent invention. In the past all (and today, still the majority of) musicians get paid on a per-performace basis. Most musicians out there struggling to make a living use CDs as a promotional tool for their live performances more than anything else.
Big money from royalties is reserved for only the super-successful and of all things... mobile phone ring-tones. These are either people that have NO worries when it comes to money, or in the latter case purveyors of the most mind-numbing annoying filth that is decreasing our collective intelligence.
It is a concept invented by these monolithic dinosaur companies that see music as a flashy image they can sell to the masses, not an exercise in creative expression. The real musicians are in pubs and clubs performing music they wrote to express themselves, not posing on TV surrounded by fly booty girls.
This is not to say I believe is right to download music, I don't. I don't download tracks at all, and I buy a hell of a lot of vinyl of the type of music I like. But like the whole Revenge of the Sith thing, the income protection seems to be provided for those that need it least. If you want to support the music industry you should get out there and see some local bands! They are the guys that need your money, not some wanna-be tv-star who exists solely for a company profit-line.
Blessed are the 1337, for they shall pwn the earth.
The demoscene, a collection of artistist nerds making cool little animations, spawned something of great importance: the netlabel scene.
Now I'm not sure if the demoscene is as large as it was when I was a part of it (future crew days), the netlabels are bursting at the seams and there is A LOT of high quality music in many different genres available. Several promiment artists have their roots in the netlabel scene when trackers were still #1 (Fast Tracker, Scream Tracker, Impulse Tracker), but now adays, while trackers are still in use (Buzz, MPT, Renoise), there are a lot of home studios and garage bands releasing music through netlabels as mp3s and oggs.
Thinnerism
Ronin Collective
Camomille
Kahvi
One
There are also two main repositories where netlabel releases are uploaded, available at:
Scene.Org
Archive.Org's netlabel repository
These netlabels are starting to be taken a lot more seriously these days, and has even attracted corporate attention. Mercedez Benz's "Soundtrack of the Autobahn" contained several prominent netlabel artists.
While 90% of the music available is electronic in nature, there are still some artists (including myself) that are hitting up other genres. It's just a matter of looking. Some of these artists go on tours, and in some cases, the netlabel itself sponsors their artists for tours.
So for people who want to seek non corporate tainted music, the netlabel scene is where to look.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
go to licktheblade.com for a lot of free mp3s.
I've been going on about getting folks to open their stuff up for quite a while here.. You can read my posts to find out all that ive been saying on this issue.
Is it selfless promoting for folks to make the news with this stuff? Most likely.
It most likely isn't new or novel as has been said in the comments above. Just consider how many folks write and make music and know of this little thing we lovingly call the internet.
Now.. what will be interesting will be to see if thier stuff *remains* in the public realm vis a vis CC licensing or non enforcement of copyright.
They can most likely still make some money on this by selling cd's just out of the good will they garner.p. As for me, since ive been preaching on this now for what seems like an eternity.. Im gonna keep doing my thing, and wish these guys well! Peace Yall, D
I get to be disappointed by at least 10 tracks for 10 bucks.
Where have you been buying your music??
Well, at least I am honest to myself and it was not a troll post. Don't care what the moderators think, I was not trolling.
You can't handle the truth.
Free as in speech, not free as in beer. sorry, just nitpicking
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
Duh.
my band is releasing an album for free /plug
check it out
www.dreambeats.com
tucson,az
I've always considered an honour system could be a perfect way for bands to still see monetary reward from filesharing.
The basic concept is whenever you download songs from a band that you find particulary good, instead of buying the CD and giving a majority cut of the purchase to various middle men and record companies, you donate to an (non-profit?) organisation that then distributes it directly to the band. If the system was set up correctly, meaning you can access almost any band from the one website and one could be assured that the money would indeed go to the band/artist, I believe many people would use such an option rather then buy the CD's of bands they like.
Wonder what the chances that The Clash, if starting today, would get played on the radio?
Not Free SF Reader
Schism Tracker is a nearly 100% IT2 clone for Linux. Much further along than CheeseTracker ;)
Sk@letracker is a fairly modern tracker that runs under almost anything incl. Linux.
MadTracker 2 runs in Windows, and in x86 Linux near-perfectly with Wine. It's a bit dated but more recent than IT2 or FT2.
And so what? I've yet to have a media file successfully download from archive.org. The servers are too overloaded to allow a connection to stay open long enough. With a little patience you can access their Wayback Machine and other repositories of small files, but their collection of media files is effectively inacessible.
Really? 'Cause I've been downloading steadily from the Archive for the last couple of years. Just got a Warren Zevon show yesterday. Streamed it first, liked the sound quality, downloaded the lossless version, and burned copies for me and a friend. Within the last week, I've also grabbed some tasty New Orleans funk and some excellent Japanese surf music. No problems uploading either -- half the Bernie Worell on the Archive is courtesy of yours truly. All in all, I've uploaded over 20 shows, and downloaded maybe 10x that amount. And I have yet to have a connection problem. Perhaps the problems you're having are on your end, not theirs?
And given that he's a top producer (i.e. Nirvana) I'd wager that his word has more weight in this matter.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
... than right here ...
..
Plenty of re-mix material, songs incomplete, and artists looking for other people to contribute to the mix
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I'm told most musicians make most of their money through touring anyway. CD and radio sales are, as far as the musician's finances are concerned, advertising.
Giving it away means you get more free advertising, and doing it right now means you get a lot of good will from fans that you wouldn't be getting if you were one of 200 bands doing the same thing.
Wilco credits music "piracy" for revitalizing their careers.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
.....We don't need no stinkin' invitation!!
Every song they've ever recorded or played as far as I can tell. Oh, and they're damn good. http://www.brianjonestownmassacre.com/
Why the hell is this news? Artists have done this for a long time. I've been doing that for a while. Is this somehow news just because it includes someone who used to be famous? Okay, hat about Trent Reznor? He released the song "Only" in 4 different AUTHORING formats (IE, Apple Garageband, Sony Acid Pro) for people to remix, & whatnot.
It's very nice that they are doing it, and I'm happy about it (I'm a Clash fan) but to act like they are the first, or even on the upswing of a trend is ludicrous.
The Smashing Pumpkins did this in 2000 with Machina II: The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music. Machina was originally intended to be a double album, but Virgin didn't want to produce a double album, fearing it wouldn't sell. The band pressed 25 vinyl copies and distributed it to friends, family, radio stations, and various internet people (like the maintainer of alt.music.smash-pumpkins) with instructions to spread it as much as possible.
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.
We love them!
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
Yeah. Sure you weren't. I guess you weren't here either:
0 74457
0 74309
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=155955&cid=13
Or here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=155955&cid=13
Are all the Mozilla developers as childish as you, or do the rest of them have enough work to do that they don't post on Slashdot?