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Free Music Archive Is Shutting Down (theverge.com)
WFMU's Free Music Archive -- a digital library of high-quality and legal downloads that users could listen to, remix, and share -- is shutting down due to funding shortages. The Verge reports: "The future is uncertain, has been my mantra lately," says Cheyenne Hohman, who's been the director of the Free Music Archive since 2014. The shutdown date was initially the 9th, but has since been pushed back to November 16th because the FMA is in early talks with four different organizations that are interested in taking the project over. "The site may stay up a little bit longer to ensure, at the very least, that our collections are backed up on archive.org and the Wayback Machine." Even so, it's not a perfect solution. "If it just goes into archive.org, it's going to be there in perpetuity, but it's not going to be changing at all," Hohman says. "It's not going to be the same thing, that sort of community and project that it was for ... almost 10 years."
Jesus christ, I'm gonna be downloading as much stuff as I can... this was my main music source for videos. This is a huge loss, the FMA is a godsend for a lot of indie production of all types.
That is a real bummer. Where will I get my minimalist dubstep alt-electronica music now?
You coulda parted with a couple of bucks to keep this excellent project going. I have a ton of friends who have put music on that site and I've contributed some too.
You expect everything for free and this is why we can't have nice things.
Here for example, check out these nice young men from the Northwest who play deep deep funk and have given music to the site for free.
http://freemusicarchive.org/mu...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Until last year, WFMU hosted a popular Jewish radio show - called JM in the AM - that supposedly brought in more than enough money to run it's 15 hours/week of programming. Could they not make up the difference once the show left the air?
I had just downloaded 8 jazz songs from that site to put to some video i'm uploading to youtube at this very moment. That sucks, it's been really helpful.
Then get ready to eat a lot of ass.
Neoliberalism failed, and there still isn't a coherent political model to replace it. Until that tension is resolved and corporate power is checked as the vast majority of people want, expect more Trump or somebody like him.
Don't except things to ever go "back to normal".
Why do we keep seeing these type posts on /. for the first time, only after a site is soon to be shutdown or after it already has been shutdown?
Seriously, I've never even heard of this site before now. I suspect many others haven't as well.
So, like, 5 people plus apk?
Keep the main website up and database of listener stats, store the music on volunteer's PCs via bittorrent. That should cut storage and bandwidth costs by 99%. Also, maybe advertise? Partner with a music community? I had NEVER heard of this website!
The first step to getting something is asking for it, I admit I rarely look for a donate button but a legit and backed up claim saying you are going to close if you don't get funding should be one of the first things to put on their home page. Maybe someone likes it enough to just cover the costs.
Here's some alternatives:
archive.org
Bensound
cctrax
musopen
bumpfoot
incompetech
audionautix
audeeyah
You sure? Because the basis for the "you should do it for the love" (subtitled: "and stop asking for money") argument is that artists will create forever, and audiences will get everything perpetually free. How could a group with such giving hearts, and unselfish motives be so wrong about creativity?
Even if a musical composition and a recording thereof are under one of the Creative Commons licenses, that doesn't guarantee that the composition was in fact original.
Just because a musical composition and a recording are commercially licensed doesn't guarantee it was original and not stolen from others either.
Why bother to specify creative commons as if that makes any sort of difference here?
All music for thousands of years is based on some one else, and a shockingly large amount of music in the last hundred or so years is flat out copied from someone else without permission, credit, or dues.
Just because a musical composition and a recording are commercially licensed doesn't guarantee it was original and not stolen from others either.
Unlike a free license, a commercial license may provide a warranty of provenance, giving you someone to sue if you get sued.
Sorry bro, I'm Trump broke. I got $10 in the bank but I look like I am rich. The service will be missed. Many Flash animations will hold your memory alive as they all get converted to mp4s.
That's ok. The only free music archive I need is the IMSLP :-)
Man, you'd be a good candidate for a MAFIAA member. Someone might plagiarize, so the whole site is a pirate site. Better go after them.
Didn't know about them, so took a look. Seems to be something of a vanity site. Didn't see anything of interest. Maybe that's why they can't get donations. They won't get anything from me.
as if thousands of unwashed hippies all cried out in unison and were suddenly silent.. actually just stoned on the couch
Unlike a free license, a commercial license may provide a warranty of provenance, giving you someone to sue if you get sued.
Just like free licenses do. Only the © holder can determine the song's license, that it was free or otherwise. If the song, free or commercial, was found to be not original, the author and posing © holder who chose the license can be sued.
I used one of the supposedly creative commons songs from FMA, then it got flagged on YouTube. I never used the archive again as it was suspect.
and so we end up with an internet where the only sites that are still up & running are owned by (mega)corps, because anything else can't afford to stay available.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Audio mashups weren't a fad, not at all. Neither are self-driving cars, 'AI', or virtual reality, Soilent, or Thanos. Nothing to see here. /s The level of butthurt that was present at that time was off the charts (no pun intended), and for what? Naturally, as with every other life lesson, this one, too, will be lost on millennials.
If Trump wins what? Also, define "win", because if it's his definition, you'll owe a lot of ass eating.
So what should a songwriter do to avoid being sued?
They've been SLASHDOTTED!
Uhhh because it gives you someone to pass the lawsuit on to? If I for the sake of argument license a song from say Disturbed for a project and it turns out Disturbed ripped off some 60s tune? You can show you licensed it from Disturbed and its their record label and reps that are on the hook, not the person that in good faith bought the license from them.
If I use a CC licensed song in a project and it turns out some kid who made the song ripped it of from some song I never heard of, think I'm gonna be able to pass that lawsuit off? Not likely because there is no money there so it'd be my ass on the hook.
Like it or not there is a reason why we have saying like "nobody got fired for buying IBM" its because it gives you someone to pass the buck to.Its why we buy insurance, why we buy support contracts, its all so we can CYA and pass that buck down the line and by its very nature there is no money in CC so nobody you can pass that buck. I mean why do you think companies pay shitloads of money to RH when they can get Linux for free? So they can point and say "its THEIR fault, take it up with them".
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
.... good riddance!
They kind of represented the downside or "curation" over more traditional forms -- it becomes all about who you know.
Sour grapes? Perhaps, but it's deeply offensive being told "your stuff isn't exactly what we're looking for" when there are literally thousands of tracks of "1, 2, 3...testing!"
Seriously, everyone speaks as if "curation" is some distributed, egalitarian form of distribution. It's not. It's about who's on the inside and who's on the outside.