Alan "Fluff" Freeman the veteran disc jockey and popular radio personality has died aged 79. Best known for presenting the BBC Radio 1 Rock Show and Pick of the Pops, his characteristic style and quirky catchphrases made him one of the UK's top DJs. Fellow broadcaster, the late John Peel once said he was 'the greatest out-and-out disc jockey of them all'.

I remember many Saturday afternoons spent listening to Fluff's BBC Radio show from 2pm-6pm during the 70's. It was an eagerly anticipated source of rock album tracks that was voted top radio show in the NME Pop Polls for 1974, 75 and 76. The choice of music was progressive and adventurous, showcasing new releases by artists such as Pink Floyd, Genesis, Camel and Caravan. The show opened with ELP's "Welcome Back My Friends..." and his colourful, lively approach was instantly recognizable, delivering a fast paced mix of wisecracks and classical music jingles.

Towards the end of his career he brought his enthusiastic style to classical music broadcasting at Radio 2. In 1996 he received the Music Industry Trusts' Award for his outstanding contribution to the British music industry and was awarded the C.B.E. (Commander of the British Empire) in 1998.

He died peacefully at home in Twickenham yesterday, after a long illness. He'll be sadly missed.

Audio Clips of Alan and his Jingles

• Radio Rewind
• The Radio Academy

More

• BBC Obituary
• Photos
• Wikipedia Alan Freeman

The British record industry has lost the fight to extend copyrights on sound recordings from 50 years to 95 years. Artists and record labels have been lobbying the government in an effort to bring copyright protection into line with United States copyright law.

In December 2005, the Chancellor of the Exchequer asked Andrew Gowers to lead an Independent Review to examine the UK’s intellectual property framework. Today, the Telegraph reports the Gowers Review has found little evidence to support record companies claims they will be deprived of profits that otherwise could be used to reinvest in new acts. The review will recommend against an extension of copyright terms but the final decision rests with the government. Music industry insiders are calling it a "blow" to the record industry that will detrimentally impact the income of artists in their old age. Recordings out of copyright will enter the public domain and be available for anyone to use or exploit for non-commercial and commercial purposes.

To clarify:

Copyright in Sound Recordings
Sound recordings have an individual copyright that is separate from the copyright of the composition. Even if the composition is in the public domain, a specific sound recording of it may not be.

Therefore, the two types of copyright that apply when talking about music copyright are:

1. The copyright that applies to the composition, musical score and lyrics of a musical work. This is signified by the traditional ‘C in a circle’ © symbol and remains in effect for 70 years after the death of the last remaining author.

2. The copyright that applies to the sound recording itself which is signified by the ‘P in a circle’ symbol and remains in effect for 50 years from the death of the last remaining author or from when the work was made available to the public, by authorized release, performance, broadcast, etc.

Excerpt: Release The Music: A guide to copyright in sound recordings.

See the British Music Rights FAQ for general information about copyright and the music industry.

Creative Commons

The issues surrounding copyright restrictions and music are complex, especially in the areas of sampling and file-sharing. Many independent artists see traditional copyright as overly restrictive and are now choosing to make works available under Creative Commons licenses. These type of copyleft licenses generally provide pre-cleared permission to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work under the terms of the license. This can apply to individual samples, complete songs and other materials.

The use of CC licenses has enabled podcasters to produce and distribute shows using a legal framework, without the complicated conditions associated with Webcasting licensed music from the major record labels. Copyleft licenses are now widely adopted by netlabels like Magnatune and dozens of other CC music distributors. A new music commons is being created and musicians can easily collaborate online using web-based tools like ccMixter, Jamglue and Splice. This open and flexible model is already commercially viable and it's only a matter of time before CC licensed music becomes ubiquitous.

There is a shift across the board to allow people access to music in new ways that take advantage of digital technologies and the Internet. Creative Commons is a part of it, interactivity and connectivity are at the heart of it, remix culture is a name for it.

Real World

Other websites like Peter Gabriel's Real World Remixed encourage "in-house" remixing of works licensed by Real World Records Ltd (under the EMI banner). Although user generated derivative works can only be made available via the website, the job of seeking copyright clearance is made easier with the online Licence Application form (both commercial and non-commercial). Sadly, Peter is pro copyright extension and I'm interested to hear his point of view on the matter. I imagine the decision is influenced by his strong position in the record industry and financial involvement with digital distribution technologies like The Filter. He believes artists should have more control over their careers and wants the record industry to become a service industry.

"It is here, it is now" 

YourSpins is another site that lets people remix tracks licensed from artists, producers and record labels. These type of commercial ventures use competitions and popularity charts to engage customers with music promotions and advertising. 

Champagne Socialism Holding Back the Years (a retrospective update)

Much of the muddled thinking on the copyright extension debate appears to be coming from within the record industry. Millionaire musicians campaigning for "copyright creep" include Sir Cliff Richard, Bono, and Mick Hucknall of Simply Red.

Cliff's first hit recording "Move It!" is due to enter the public domain in 2008. Written by Ian Samwell, It was the first rock and roll hit to be created in Britain. Ian's lifelong contribution to the record industry is highly significant and this recording will be an important addition to the public domain. This year Sir Cliff has recorded the song again.

Incidently, Cliff's backing band were originally called The Drifters but changed the name to The Shadows due to legal complications with the American R&B group of the same name, formed earlier by Clyde McPhatter. 

"They say the lights are always bright on Broadway. They say there's always magic in the air." On Broadway

There are many of these early recordings from 50 years ago that are currently not made available by the record companies that own them. The era of rock 'n' roll has hit the public domain and specialist music dealers are able to make recordings more widely available. Rock 'n' Roll songs entering the PD in 2007 include : 

• Elvis — Heartbreak Hotel, Blue Suede Shoes, Love Me Tender
• Little Richard — Tutti Frutti
• Chuck Berry — Roll Over Beethoven
• James Brown — Please, Please, Please
• Carl Perkins — Blue Suede Shoes
• Johnny Cash — I Walk The Line
• Lonnie Donegan — Rock Island Line

This potentially provides income for the original songwriters who receive publishing royalties on the sale of materials, radio plays, etc. As the law stands, the coming years will see popular titles by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones enter the public domain. With the permission of the publisher these works can then be distributed and remixed freely.

How much of the current CE lobbying is due to artists jumping on the bandwagon to promote themselves rather than awareness of the real issues is a matter of opinion. Their anti-public ownership challenge can be confusing to the public who's side of the deal they aim to break by changing the law retrospectively.

Mick's Mini Manifesto

An example of this confusing woolly clothing is a recent piece by Mick Hucknall for The Guardian:

Fundamental Socialism - Copyright does not restrict the flow of ideas; it promotes it, and boosts the knowledge economy.

Mick is a close friend of Tony Blair and a staunch supporter of the UK Labour party, hence the socialist stance. His handsome donations, have helped the Labour party in the past when they most needed it (Leak ). However, donations to Labour have virtually dried up since the investigation into the cash for honors scandal and the party is now £23.4m in debt. See Red Star Research for information on friends of the New Labour Project and the Electoral Commission : Loans to political parties.

"Any rock can be made to roll if you've enough of it to pay the toll".

In the Guardian article Mick says:

"Copyright promotes artistic creativity and the free circulation of ideas. More than 20 years ago, musicians seized the opportunity for collaboration offered by new technology in the form of digital samples. Far from obstructing this exchange of inspiration, copyright facilitates sampling, and translates the creative debt into income for the creator of the borrowed work. Musical sampling is the perfect example of copyright's flexibility in fusing the ever-changing worlds of art, commerce and technology."

Free circulation of ideas? This contrasts sharply with his attack on the music industry in 2003.

He told the Financial Times:

"The contract was basically immoral.

"Like many artists, my deal meant I paid for the cost of recording the music. I paid for the marketing. And I didn't get any royalties until those costs had been incurred.

"But despite this the contract stated that the master recordings still belonged to the record company."

"I don't know any other business where you pay for something and then someone else owns it."

If not the tune at least the words appear to have changed somewhat. I guess at the time Mick just wanted to get control over his own copyrights having signed up for a deal that made him £20m and the label £192m profit. Apparently Mick thought this was unfair (exploited?) and belatedly realized owning all your own copyrights is a better place to be. He's now worth more than £40m and apparently enjoys the benefits of copyright control so much that he would like to extend it retrospectively. Does this make him a kind of public domain pirate?

Sound Sampling Socialism

As far as digital sampling and socialism are concerned, he seems to have missed the fact that digital drum machines and samplers were used both live and in the studio to replace drummers, bass players, horn and string sections, etc. Thereby eliminating the expense of paying musicians and arrangers in accordance with the rules of the Musicians' Union and forcing many musicians into unemployment. The realistic reproduction of various musical sounds was revolutionary and instruments like Ken Freeman's string synthesizer were analog precursors of things to come such as Roger Linn's drum machine, a digital rhythm sequencer which became widely used in music productions. This situation provided little incentive for traditional musicians to pursue professional careers in the record industry.

Fueled by new technologies and a deficit of real musicians, small groups of creative people began "sampling" the remnants of live playing that could still be found on old vinyl recordings. But mostly it was the sound of the recordings that creators were interested in, the unique feel created by the recording process at the time. Ironically the recording engineers that often spent lifetimes conjuring these sounds into existence were rarely if ever paid a royalty for their work. Even a credit on the sleeve notes was considered privileged at the time. Perhaps retrospectively we should track down all the engineers that have contributed to these recordings and give them pensions!

The process of selecting these disparate chunks of sound and recombining them into structured compositions became a highly skilled and resourceful art form. From the plundering of rare and obscure sound sources to the editing and final musical composition itself, the art of noise had unlimited potential.

Mick's correct that musicians did try to seize the opportunity for collaboration using digital samples. However, due to copyright restrictions this was considered stealing, an infringement of both the sound recording copyright and the original composition copyright. And so just when it mattered most, costly and complicated procedures were introduced designed to secure copyright clearance and deter unauthorized use of musical works. To summarize, copyright prohibits use and deters creativity; infringement of the law is usually pursued in conjunction with the motivational word money - 'Where there's a hit, there's a writ!'.

Still, by the time record company executives, publishers and composers realized how to make money from (wr)it, brilliant new derivative works had emerged and the genie had escaped the bottle.

For the first time it was possible to experiment musically by isolating and combining the greatest musical performances, compositions, lyrics, and sounds of history. Having stood on the shoulders of giants and been inspired by the vision before them, the creators of music embarked on a great journey to explore the wealth of world culture. They quickly rediscovered the forgotten treasures of the esoteric arts, counterculture, tribal traditions and the hidden meanings locked within previous struggles. The artistic creators, scattered into diverse communities, started to manufacture hybrid forms of music from their eclectic plundering.

These hybrid musical forms inevitably lead to social commentary and a reappraisal of the human condition. Each community finding its own voice and identity. Had the public domain vaults contained more recent sound recordings even more creativity would have been unleashed. None of this was dependant on obeying the laws of copyright and much was achieved through the process of dissent coupled with a healthy dose of entrepreneurism. Is Mick suggesting that the inventors of Hip Hop music are irrelevant because they infringed copyright?  Art is at the heart of culture, it's shameful to deny it and painful to the artists that are persecuted for making it.

True Colours - Paint It Black - Fade to Grey

Mick says:

"Allowing valuable sound recordings to pass into the public domain does not create a public asset: it represents a massive destruction of UK wealth, and a significant loss to the UK taxpayer as exploitation moves offshore or into the grey market."

So he's against replenishing the public domain on the grounds that it destroys UK wealth. Would that be your wealth or his?

Grey market? I assume he's talking about Danger Mouse's Grey Album, a remix of music from The Beatles' White Album and rapper Jay-Z's Black Album. The production used unauthorized samples of The Beatles recordings. EMI the copyright holder ordered Danger Mouse and associated retail outlets to cease distribution. In response, Downhill Battle, activists for music industry reform, organized a protest. Grey Tuesday was a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience on February 24, 2004. For 24 hours, participating websites adopted grey tones and posted copies of The Grey Album for free download on their sites. And when the fat doggy shakes its tail:

"OVER 1 MILLION SONGS IN A DAY After a survey of the sites that hosted files during Grey Tuesday, and an analysis of filesharing activity on that day, we can confidently report that the Grey Album was the number one album in the US on February 24 by a large margin. Danger Mouse moved more "units" than Norah Jones and Kanye West, with well over 100,000 copies downloaded. That's more than 1 million digital tracks."

Doubtless, the huge public interest must be doing nothing to stimulate interest in The Beatles' music and is obviously damaging the UK economy (minus the bandwidth providers). That is why this illegal art must be crushed for the benefit of the public. History has shown EMI's attempts to silence the protest and curtail downloading of the Grey Album are futile.

In the past, revolutionary digital developers and pioneering producers invented new tools and broke many rules in the pursuit of their grey arts. As these pioneers pushed the frontiers of possibility forward, a vacuum was created behind them to be filled by the artists of following generations. The same fundamental social traits are being played out today on a much grander scale. The meaning and influence of musical sampling is best told by the samplists themselves and the copyright criminals documentary This is a Sampling Sport is well worth watching if you're interested. 

Fundamentally Flawed - Let It Bleed

The Guardian article is fundamentally flawed and Mick's partisan posture on copyright extension reads more like an ill-advised, self-serving, charm offensive. Testimony to the public's distaste for his ideas are the number of weighty comments posted in opposition to his discourse. The rush of hot air has rapidly spread flaming dissent like wildfire from column to post.

Granted, some of these comments are possibly due to Mick's poor public perception; he ranked 43 in a Channel 4 poll to discover the 100 Worst Britons We Love to Hate. Cliff charted at number 29 and Tony shimmied straight to the top on his ascent up the greasy pole of pub-politics. Politicians are not held in high esteem by the British public (There's an ongoing police investigation into Labour funding and MPs are currently asking for a 66% wage increase).  

Rebuttal

In relation to Mick's piece the Guardian's online editor Vic Keegan was quick to publish a rebuttal.

Excerpt: 

"Talent is now starting to come spontaneously from below and being judged by its peers around the world rather than having to go through the rusting filtration plant of the quasi-monopolistic moguls of the music or publishing industries.

The new digital giants, Google, YouTube, MySpace, Bebo, Flickr and the rest, are operating in a different space and we will have to adjust. It goes without saying that artists should be properly rewarded, but surely 30 or, at most, 40 years is enough to milk what is there before letting the rest of the world have a go at remixing or improving on the old songs (which British artists would be good at)."

Grassroots - Let It Be

I'm inclined to agree with his point of view, grassroots production flourishes in an "open" space, Creative Commons is a useful copyright tool and the public domain is a valuable source of material. British artists are indeed very good at remixing and improving songs. Building on the past adds cultural value.   

Mick mentions this here:

"Copyright extension is partly about equality for performers, with other creators and with those in the US and elsewhere. It is also about maintaining the cultural value of works by controlling their exploitation. But, most of all, it is about nurturing the development of a truly revolutionary explosion in small-scale grassroots creative businesses."

So the UK should unilaterally extend copyright in line with the US and give it's citizens the equal benefit of losing access to hundreds of classical works made available at resources like the European Archives? No thanks Mick. 

Now, in relation to record companies, copyright and ownership, I've highlighted two words in the excerpt above that seem to make more sense once exchanged. Advocates of copyright extension claim the relatively small amount of money involved, £143m over 10 years according to a recent IPPR estimate, would be vital for investing in new acts. Consider:

"Extending the copyright period would mean that record companies have no incentive to discover new talent. When Cliff Richard signed to EMI in 1958, the company wasn't relying on the smash hits of 1908 to fund the deal." Private Eye issue 1157.

A recorded work paid for by a record company is owned by the company (copyright) and is a company asset. Most commercial record companies invest in sound recordings for the purpose of developing (nurturing) a return on that investment. This can mean exploiting the product to it's maximum potential. A record company's most valuable assets are the acts that sell the most. In a large corporation the most popular acts form a minority.

It's no coincidence this call for copyright extension comes at a time when the biggest acts are falling out of copyright: Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan etc. Without this safe income the record companies will be forced to invest in new acts to remain competitive. It's easier for them to keep singing the chorus line to Elvis's "Got My Mojo Working, Keep Your Hands Off of It"

P2P Distribution

Research shows that unknown artists, the ones selling the least albums at the grassroots level, benefit from P2P file-sharing. Conversely, popular artists with higher sales are damaged by file sharing. So although P2P file sharing depresses music sales overall, the effect is not even. To protect their most valuable assets it's in the interests of the record companies to reduce (control) the amount of file-sharing.

"File sharing is reducing the probability that any act is able to sell millions of records, and if the success of the mega-star artists is what drives the investment in new acts, it might reduce the incentive to invest in new talent." - For an explanation see The effect of P2P file-sharing depends on popularity.

Either way the case for investment in new talent by major record labels looks tenuous. At the other end of the tail,  unsigned bands are very happy to be able to share their music online. Many new artists actively distribute media files under Creative Commons licenses across P2P networks. What about their copyrights? Hundreds of these acts are now carving out their own niche in the wider music business outside of the record industry.

"In a traditional market, hit products often get 80% of the revenue. In a long tail market, hit products get 50% of the revenue while the other 50% is shared by a plethora of niche producers." (definition from Global Guerrillas weblog) - See P2P Foundation Long Tail

Closing down file-sharing networks affects these niche producers by inhibiting low cost distribution. Protecting the interests of the minority popular artists, that only benefit the coffers of large private corporations, sounds more like reinforcing capitalism than socialism, although I'm aware definitions of the two are constantly evolving. Interestingly, file sharers get different treatment in Europe's courts. 

The Internet and mobile devices provide new opportunities for the distribution of media and there's gold in The Long Tail. However, if record companies depend on their most popular acts for profits it's probable that many older and important works will remain unheard, locked in record company archives.

Copyright and the record industry is less about equality and more about rarity, as in restricted, infrequent, unavailable, scarce. There are many examples of how copyright has been used to suppress creativity and freedom of speech. Recently we saw claims of corporate copyright infringement over the stolen Open Source code used in the Sony Rootkit spyware scandal. And what's this I hear? Is EMI profiting from Beatles digital piracy? - Artist exploitation? Never!

Rather than say any more on Mick's piece here I'll simply point you to Simon's amusing and witty decoding of it in We'll keep the red-head flag flying here. For more about flaws in reasoning and argument see: Thirty-eight dishonest tricks which are commonly used in argument, with the methods of overcoming them taken from "Straight and crooked thinking" by Robert H. Thouless. 

Buffalo Bill's Wild West - Presents - The Silence of the Lambs

In response to the leaked findings of the Gowers Review, the chairman of the British Phonographic Industry, Peter Jameison claims:

"There can be no rationale for discriminating against performing artists..."

On that note and keeping with the theme of whistle blowers, perhaps signed artists should investigate Some intimate details on the Google YouTube deal. It would appear the big media companies have done a deal that avoids musicians and actors getting a cut of the millions exchanging hands in the settlement payouts. I have no idea as to the validity of the claims but a couple of the paragraphs contain information sure to wet the whistle of many a musician. Thanks Victor.

If any of it is true the lawyers will already have their sharpened claws thrust firmly into the tender meat and the hungry wolves will be licking their lips at the thought of lengthy litigation. When it comes to copyright and big business, what goes on behind closed doors, in the darkened smoke-filled rooms of private corporations, God only knows.  

Is it any wonder we find it difficult to trust wealthy business men and politicians that consort secretly? When a Christian musician more popular than the pope, and lobbying for copyright reform, provides the Blairs shelter for their summer holidays as a gesture of kindness, people are bound to ask questions. On that cliff hanger, a few final thoughts.

It makes me wonder if the 8000 about to be slaughtered are just sacrificial lambs... a forlorn hope... redshirt characters dreaming of red wine... Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil... for I am blissfully ignorant...baa.

Cartoon courtesy of gapingvoid - blog homepage

"All this takes place without a single sunset, without a single bell ringing and without a single blossom falling from the sky. Yet it fills everything with its mysterious intoxicating presence. It's over to you." This and various other quotes - Peter Gabriel, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - see annotated interpretation.

The Writing's on The Wall

This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Warner Music Group
because its content was used without permission

"It's only knock and know-all, but I like it"

Commentary

• Beatles music to start entering UK public domain in 2012? automatically generated digest of recent news stories.
• Charles Leadbeater: Too tight to mention personal insights and comments from the public.
• Louis Barfe: Music Copyright (slight return) a musician speaks.

Conversations

• Lessig Blog
• Slashdot

• AlltheWeb.com
• Google
• IceRocket Blog Search
• Yahoo

• Open Rights Group a hub for digital rights issues.

• Podsafe Music Resources
• The Long Tail Manifesto free PDF download.
• What if The Beatles had used Creative Commons Licenses?

• Mick Hucknall

Do You Read The Bible?

Free Culture Flag

A collection of news and views across The Beatles universe, in no particular order; from politics to parody, paradigm to paradox.

Blue Meanies Spotted in Japan

I read the news today oh boy... About an old man arrested for performing Beatles songs on his harmonica:

A 73-year-old bar manager who illegally performed copyrighted tunes by the Beatles and other artists on the harmonica was arrested Thursday on suspicion of violating the Copyright Law, police said. More on this story at the Mutantfrog Travelogue.

And though the news was rather sad... I feel fine 'cause Mr Martin made a mashup with a Beatles thing called "Love".

Love is all you need

Original Beatles producer Sir George Martin and his son Giles have spent the last two years remixing the Fab Four's music at Abbey Road Studios. The Love album combines previously separate songs into a 1.5 hour musical medley, mixed and available in 5.1 surround sound. Love samples 130 songs to create 27 musical pieces. The songs are mixed into a soundscape where the lyrics and instrumentation from one song merge with the next. The project was commissioned for the Cirque du Soleil's Beatles show of the same name that is currently showing in Las Vegas. The show by the world-famous circus troupe is a lavish biographical interpretation of The Beatles story, written and directed by Dominic Champagne and performed in a theater production costing around $150 million. It's the first time Apple Corps Ltd. has partnered in a joint venture, permission for the production being granted from Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon, and Olivia Harrison (the latter two representing John Lennon and George Harrison, respectively).

When I'm Sixty-Four

Earlier this year on June 18, Paul McCartney turned 64 years of age. According to The Sunday Times Rich List, Sir Paul is Britain's second richest music industry millionaire, thought to be worth around $825m. Former Zomba Records owner Clive Calder is the first, with an estimated fortune of £1,300m (Britney Spears and 'N Sync). In an ironic twist to the famous Beatles' song lyrics of "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm Sixty-Four ", he separated from his wife, Heather Mills McCartney just one month before his 64th birthday. There's a French tribute site called When I'm 64, where you can listen to different renditions of the popular song.

I recall Cherie Blair performing her own rendition of the song for her husband Tony during a diplomatic mission to China in July, 2003.

Moments earlier the prime minister had faced a hostile grilling from students at Tsinghua University over the death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly and the war in Iraq. (BBC) - Details can be found at Wikipedia David Kelly.

Media copies of Cherie's performance are widely available on the Internet but in her case I assume no copyright laws have been broken (fair use?). The Blairs are lawyers and know all about avoiding illegalities before any spin is put on the record. Perhaps Tony could have reciprocated such overt signs of affection by singing My Cherie Amour.

Mrs Blair wasn't the only one contemplating a career move at the time. Alastair Campbell, "Prime Minister's Director of Communications and Strategy" aka chief 'spin-doctor' resigned his position on 29 August 2003. There's a movie about political spin-doctoring called Spin that you can watch on Google Video. Can you feel the sting of nostalgia yet? Can you see the Real Me, doctor?

The UK Hall of Fame

Last night I watched the UK Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony on TV. Musicians of all nationalities are honoured for their lifetime achievements in music. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown was given the role of inducting the legendary Beatles producer Sir George Martin, now eighty years of age, into the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately Brown's rise to the podium took an unexpected turn, as members of the audience began to boo and heckle him. Although he bulldozed on with the introduction, the damage was done and the stalled PR exercise descended into the classic, spiraling nose-dive maneuver, so dreaded by politicians, known as negative spin. Given John Lennon was an anti-war activist who wrote the song "Give Peace a Chance", was it ever going to be any different? Did Brown really expect to blag a room full of Bon Jovi fans? Isn't that Tony's job? God only knows.

The Mashup Hall of Fame

Which brings me to Brian Wilson, who was also inducted into the hall of fame, this time by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd who were inducted in 2005 by Pete Townshend of The Who, previously inducted by Ray Davies of The Kinks who were inducted by footballer Geoff Hurst!

The Beatles were to cite Wilson's work as a major influence and according to Paul McCartney, the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album inspired the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Indeed The Beatles and many of their British peers had drawn heavily upon the musical ideas coming out of America during the 1950's and 60's. You can find out more about their early influences and listen to the oldest known recordings at Before They Were Beatles: The Quarrymen. Bye the way, Paul McCartney owns the publishing rights to Buddy Holly's music  and the Beatles covered his songs (see MPL Communications). 

Sadly this freedom does not extend to Clayton Counts and his Beachles creation Sgt. Petsound's Lonely Hearts Club Band. His treatment by EMI lawyers has been more along the lines of the Spanish Inquisition. Clayton joins the 'most wanted' list of other 'outlaws' hounded by EMI in the Mashup Hall of Fame, including Danger Mouse (Grey Album) and dj BC (Beastles). For more info on mashups and sampling see the following:

• Bannedmusic.org - Distributes music that has been the subject of lawsuits.
• Copyright Criminals: This is a Sampling Sport - Video documentary about sampling and book "Freedom of Expression".  
• FleetwoodMash - Mashup links, downloads, articles, forum, home of the "Fleetwood Mash" sample band project.
• Good Blimey! - Stream and download 2,747 mashups.
• Wikipedia Mashup - music, video, web applications.

Remember kids, (all you need is cash) to ask for permission before using copyrighted music.

Copyright Life Extension

Sticking with intellectual property and copyright issues, lets move on to information published on the BPI website. The BPI = the British record industry's trade association = RIAA.

Firstly: Gowers Review

"In December last year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer asked Andrew Gowers, formerly the Editor of the Financial Times, to launch a review into the UK’s intellectual property framework – deadline for submission of evidence was Friday 21 April 2006.  The BPI, the UK record companies’ trade association, submitted written and oral evidence."

And this recent statement: 'British consumers demand fair play on copyright for British musicians'.

"New research shows a majority of British consumers support the record industry’s battle for extended copyright protection for UK artists.

62 per cent of those polled agreed that UK artists should be protected for the same number of years as their American counterparts, by extending the term of copyright for sound recordings from its current 50 years to 95 years."

Peter Jamieson, chairman of the BPI, says:

“We are hugely encouraged that the majority of British consumers agree with us that UK musicians should receive as much copyright protection as their US counterparts.” 

"Our unique and internationally renowned industry would use a term extension to continue to invest heavily in the creative economy for future generations and consolidate the rights and works of our cultural ambassadors.”

If this was a Monty Python sketch it might be funny, however, No Rock&Roll Fun has some interesting thoughts on the fiasco that makes the BPI poll sound more like Cash for Questions or Cash for Peerages rather than a mandate from the British public.

Although the BPI prefer to give the impression of a record industry that's an organized and unified whole, in reality it's not. It's a competitive and chaotic market with hundreds of record labels, publishers, artists, management, etc, fighting for a piece of the cake, who frequently disagree and constantly negotiate. Many deals are fought out aggressively on the back of ownership rights and disputes like the current American case of Universal vs MySpace. Take a look at the legal issues and copyright lawsuits littering the landscape, it's not a pretty picture. Former Clash and Pink Floyd manager Peter Jenner, lifts the lid on the music business in a recent interview for The Register - Big labels are f*cked, and DRM is dead.

Contrary to what many copyright holders would have us believe, the notion that artists always get paid and treated fairly is unrealistic. For example The Beatles are currently suing EMI, who hold the rights to The Beatles sound recordings in perpetuity, for £30 million in missing royalties, and here's more: Beatles to sue over royalty claim. It's quite common for money get lost in a highly complex financial system.

For us lesser mortals, how many people working in the record industry will have adequate pensions in retirement? How expensive and risky is it for musicians to audit a record label's accounts? How can artists disagree with their 'bosses' in a variable price system and survive the 'bargain bucket'? How many artists and consumers know about the Sony rootkit? How much damage is being done by the Sample Trolls? For many people in the music business it's like working in a bubble that's about to burst.  

An extension on traditional copyright will effect all types of sound recordings and would potentially lock the recordings out of common culture. How? Instead of being abundantly available in the public domain they will remain restricted, privately owned and therefor scarce. Anyone wishing to use the material runs into problems trying to get permission from the copyright holder/s. In a world of limitless circumstances, the difficult process of finding the copyright owner becomes prohibitive and the creative incentive is lost. Where would Walt Disney be without the ability to draw upon the public domain?

Bear in mind some works that are already in the public domain may become re-copyrighted. In the UK, over 40 years of copyright free music will be forced back into private hands. Due to copyright infringement, what was once plentiful may suddenly vanish including, websites with movies, audio and MIDI files, guitar tabs, lyrics, photos, etc. Most songs are owned by businesses and not the original composer/lyricist, so any financial benefits to copyright extension are not necessarily passed on to descendants.

The Open Rights Group is an organization based in the UK raising awareness of digital rights issues. Release The Music is a campaign focusing on how the music industry is lobbying to change the duration of copyright on sound recordings from 50 years to 95 years. It provides information about intellectual property rights and the debate surrounding copyright extension. In particular I recommend listening to the audio files of Jonathan Zittrain’s excellent overview of what intellectual property and copyright is, and the recent public debate chaired by representatives for and against copyright extension. If you want to Get Involved you can support Release The Music by signing the online petition or blogging to raise awareness.

As this is a public ownership issue that affects everyone, opposition to the record industry's stance is useful for stimulating public debate. It's important to listen to the arguments both for and against copyright extension. If key people in the record industry believe public perception to be irrelevant this could have serious consequences for record labels in the future. A recent IPSOS European blog survey of 5000 people reveals a quarter of Europeans trust blogs. Negative spin impacts buying habits to the degree that "39 million people have not bought a product or service in the past because of comments read on the Internet from other customers or private individuals". The large growth in social media means issues of trust will become increasingly crucial to economic success in the future.

See also:

• Head to Head: Music copyright - Both sides of the argument are put forward with insightful comments from the public.
• Why the Public Domain Is Not Just a Mickey Mouse Issue - A concise overview of the field from a museum professional's perspective. 

MySpace or Your Space?

The problem the record industry has is one of poor public perception. In the real world, what counts is what people feel and believe but much of what we've been told in the past has turned out to be hype. The boundaries are dissolving and in the disintermediated era of New Media almost anyone can become an artist, label, publisher, distributor. In the real world, Grey Tuesday works and the unleashed dog is happiest when it's wagging The Long Tail.

Teenagers need friends, music, bands, lifestyle, and these things are readily available online, nothing will ever stop that type of impulse, just look at the rise of MySpace and YouTube. Telling kids not to download music illegally is about as effective as telling musicians not to sample other people's recordings with a digital sampler. Reinforcing negative messages can be counter productive. In the presence of such tools we're like the apes reacting to the monolith in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some see these tools as weapons of mass destruction but in reality it was the so called 'illegal' downloading of music that opened the flood gates to selling music online. Copyright was the barrier used to stem the tide of illegal file-sharing, DRM was the secret weapon and iTunes became the gatekeeper. The Beatles have yet to make their music available online, although it came to light in the Apple vs Apple court case, once The Beatles catalog has been digitally remastered it will happen. The absence of Beatles music online has likely encouraged illegal file-sharing of their music. 

When Universal the world's biggest music group goes up against the world's most popular social network the outcome is sure to generate interest. Young people don't really care about the business but the business relies on them and it's dangerous for corporations to alienate their customers. Youngsters just want somewhere to hang-out, chat, evolve. That's where MySpace is successful, it can bring the street corner into the home. It also provides a solution for parents and children of a certain, critical age, to engage; a social tool and common ground where parents can witness the way youths connect in the real world. MySpace hits precisely at the intersection of culture where parenting issues and teenagers converge. This is hot territory for advertisers, promoters and marketers. If you ever need to understand the phenomenon, watch a group of teenagers multitasking in a Web 2.0 social space (instant messaging, MySpace, etc). Young people instinctively get it, Rupert Murdoch and others have it, the record labels want part of it. This is the Day of The Longtail.

What If?

I wonder what The Beatles legacy would have been had they released music under Open Music licenses; a future-friendly, flexible system that protected the artist's commercial/non-commercial rights but provided the opportunity for others to freely share and build upon their creations. It's easy to imagine how the movie and soundtrack to our lives would be very different visually, audibly and musically; fueled by an open, abundant and sustainable reservoir of creative ideas. But can such a sytem ever really exist?

In an imaginary copyleft world many of the things I've mentioned would not happen and the spin on world events would take another turn. The Beatles were arguably the most influential band of the twentieth century. Their iconic status and music reverberated throughout the chambers of society and culture globally; including the arts, business, technology, politics and religion. They were the first band to be globally transmitted on television, in front of an estimated 400 million people worldwide. Just like The Beatles and other bands of the time, musicians today are using the latest media technologies to promote their ideas. Of course the Internet and Creative Commons licenses didn't exist back in the 1960's...but they do now. Amen.

As Alexander Graham Bell once said:

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

When it comes to intellectual property, controversy is never far away. Bell was generally accepted as the inventor of the telephone, having obtained the patent with financing from his American father-in-law on March 7, 1876. He managed to get the patent before other developers that were working along similar lines did at the time. However, a century later, on September 25, 2001, the US Congress declared by resolution that it was the Italian American, Antonio Meucci, that actually invented the telephone. That 95 year copyright extension rings a bell. 

"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it."
John Lennon

Assorted Beatles Booty

• Abracadabra: The Beatles: Revolver - A free e-book telling the story of the Beatles 1966 album Revolver. Published under a Creative Commons license.
• The Beatles Complete Songbook and The Beatles MIDI collection - Chords and tabs to the whole Beatles Discography.

Beatles on Film

• YouTube - A compilation of all of George's scenes during his appearance on Eric Idle's RWT Christmas special, December 26, 1975.
• YouTube - John Lennon 1980 interview - Sitting in studio control room, talking about musicians making music.
• YouTube Monty Python - Ringo, Lulu and the Its man on episode 28. 
• YouTube The US vs John Lennon - trailer to the movie. Website.  

Beatles Parody Bands, Mashups and Spoofs

• Beatallica MySpace - "Like a crazy edition of Marvel's "What If?" comic, Beatallica takes the beautiful songs of The Beatles, changes the lyrics and mixes them with the never-ending thrash of Metallica."
• Digger Digger Dogstar's Beatles Album Covers
• Wikipedia All You Need Is Cash (The Rutles)
• Wikipedia The Rutles - Apparently The Beatles Loved The Rutles - A Ruttle Remembers: Talking with Neil Innes
• The Rutles MySpace
• The Rutles Tragical History Tour
• YouTube - The Rutles as they appeared on Rutland Weekend Television on November 12, 1976. Birth of the Prefab Four.
• YouTube - The Rutles Intro - post Monty Python, Eric Idle introduces the phenomenon and shows some of their highlights.

'A Film, an Album, and a Lawsuit' excerpt from BBC - h2g2 - The Rutles - the Band

"At the time that All You Need is Cash and The Rutles were released, the rights to the Beatles' back-catalogue were owned by publishing company ATV. Missing the point by several miles, the company sued the producers of the Rutles' music for infringement of copyright. Rather than fighting the case, the decision was made to hand over half of the rights to the Rutles' songs to ATV, instantly halving Innes's income from his music. As a final insult, Innes was obliged to add the names of Lennon and McCartney or George Harrison to the writing credits on his songs."

Britpop

• Ask MetaFilter Britpop and New Labour - About the relationship between 'Britpop bands' and the Labour Party.
• Britpop Mainstays & Requisites - A LaLa.com Internet radio channel of various British bands though not necessarily Britpop era.
• Wikipedia Britpop
• Wikipedia List of Britpop musicians

Free Culture and Copyleft Links

• Creative Commons Videos - Watch the videos and support the Commons.
• Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig
• A Musician's Take on File Sharing, DRM, and Copyleft Licensing
• The Creative Anti-Commons and the Poverty of Networks 
• Wikipedia The Beachles Sgt. Petsound's Lonely Hearts Club Band
• Wikipedia The Grey Album
• Boing Boing: EMI wants millions and your IP address in revenge for Beachles

Further Resources

• 59 Amazing Sketches of the Monty Python - A collection of videos on YouTube.
• Artists' earnings and copyright - A review of British and German music industry data in the context of digital technologies.
• EMI Group plc results for the six months ended 30 September 2006
• Wikipedia Concept album 
• Wikipedia Mashup (music)
• Wikipedia The Beatles
• Wikipedia The Beatles record sales, worldwide charts
• Internet Archive - Beatles

Mashup Bands, DJ's and Song Cover Vesions

• Copy, Right? - An MP3 blog devoted to cover versions of all kinds.
• Kleptones - Internet only mashup albums.
• Second Hand Songs - A cover songs database
• The Who Boys - Various mashups in different styles.

Quick Links to Videos in this Post

• When I'm Sixty-Four: Spin - A surreal expose of media-constructed reality. W.A.S.P. The Real Me - A cover of The Who song.
• The UK Hall of Fame: Give Peace a Chance - John and Yoko at the Montreal bed in. "Elected" - a 1972 Top 10 UK hit for Alice Cooper.
• The Mashup Hall of Fame: Monty Python - The Spanish Inquisition
• Copyright Life Extension: "Encore" - A Beatles video mashup for the Grey Album.
• MySpace or YourSpace?: The Long Tail Party and Day of the Longtail - promo videos for the book. Copyright Criminals: This is a Sampling Sport - documentary about the art of sampling and creating music.
• What If?: Amen - "This fascinating, brilliant 20-minute video narrates the history of the "Amen Break," a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969. This sample was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music -- a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures. Nate Harrison's 2004 video is a meditation on the ownership of culture, the nature of art and creativity, and the history of a remarkable music clip."

Technorati tags: artists, awards, bands, Beach Boys, Beatles, Bell, Blair, Britpop, Brown, celebrities, Cirque du Soleil, copyleft, copyright, creative commons, downloads, famous, George Martin, love, mashups, Meucci, open media, public domain, Monty Python, news, record industry, remix, Rutles, releasethemusic, satire, songs, sound, spin, video, war

This is a useful tool for situations where you need a universal file converter but are unable to use installed software. Most popular formats are available and the service provides a temporary method for sharing files with many people via the URL. Suggestions for other conversion functions can be made on the site's message board.

More media tools in the Toolbox

tags: audio, archives, conversion, documents, files, image, mobile, mp3, music, movie, phones, ringtones, sound, text, tools, utilities, wap, zip

Podcast Spot is a new podcast hosting service launched by Paramagnus Developments. The service offers a flexible, feature rich package for uploading and distributing audio and video files, including a free account to test Podcast Spot and prepaid accounts for Storage or Professional levels. Free and Professional accounts include all features, while Storage accounts are for podcasters running their own websites.

Features include:

• Location = yourname.podcastspot.com
• Flexible Storage Space that can be upgraded at any time.
• Unmetered Bandwidth.
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• Audio formats supported include: AAC/M4A, MP3, OGG, RA, WMA.
• Video formats supported include: AVI, MOV, M4V/MP4, MPG, RM/RV, WMV.
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• Automatic P2P with BitTorrents for any format.
• Powerful Syndication for your episodes (your default feed), categories, tags, comments, episodes for each category, episodes for each tag, comments for each episode.
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Podcast Spot visitors have a wide range of options for exploring, playing, downloading, sharing and subscribing to content, including:

• Streaming audio and video.
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• Playlists, XSPF and M3U.
• RSS feeds.
• OPML outlines (a list of all podcasters using the service). Grazr View.
• Community Search Engine. 

Users can browse community content by what's new today, new podcasts, new episodes or popular tags. There's also an option for exploring shows published under Creative Commons licenses. There are further browsing options at the individual podcaster level to help visitors filter content by categories, popularity, audio or video.

Pricing Options:

• A Free Account provides 25MB of storage per month.
• A Storage Account costs: $5 for 100 MB storage per month; $10 for 300 MB; $20 for 650 MB; $40 for 1400 MB.
• A Professional Account costs: $7 for 125 MB storage per month; $14 for 350 MB; $28 for 750 MB; $56 for 1600 MB.
• Reserve Upload Quota costs: $5 for 100 MB additional storage with no time limits; $10 for 200 MB; $20 for 400 MB; $30 for 600 MB.

Professional and Storage accounts are prepaid products. You can purchase 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or 1 year at a time and you can upgrade or extend whenever you need to.

See it in action with this welcome message from the creators explaining the service and get the latest info via the Paramagnus Blog. 

tags: audio, creative commons, distribution, downloads, feeds, hosting, music, paramagnus, podcast, podcasting, podcast spot, rss, video

This is the first in a series of free music posts under the title "Free Music Lunch". Throughout the series I'll be highlighting Open Music projects and independent artists that offer original music in various flavours of free. Most of the music will be available under copyleft licenses such as Creative Commons and some works will be in the public domain. This is music you can explore on a deeper level, unconstrained by DRM and conventional copyright restrictions. In some cases, permission will be granted by the copyright holder to sample, remix and mashup the music. 

The raw ingredients 

Don't expect hype about the latest free tracks from major record labels, or highly polished studio productions, that's not what this series is about. The focus is on independent, grassroots music creation; involving low budgets, accessible technologies, recycled culture and creative thinking.

As we discover the artists, their music and creative processes, we will also become aware of the tools they use to create and communicate. Observing the anatomy of digital music sharing will hopefully lead us to discover more new music and learn about the art of participation. 

Don't mention the J. word

In light of the decision to scrap the award for best jazz act in this years MOBO awards (aah, the sweet smell of commercialism), it seems only fitting to bring to the table, some new music with strong jazz influences. The Music of Black Origin awards have courted controversy before and it's sadly ironic, that jazz musicians have to protest outside the Royal Albert Hall venue to make their voice heard. Jazz is, after all, at the heart of just about all black popular music. Last year the important stylistic origin, Gospel, was rested, perhaps next year it will be Reggae or another serious genre.

However, controversy brings attention and in a live TV broadcast from outside the venue, where jazz musicians were playing music in the streets, MOBO founder Kanya King MBE, lightheartedly mentioned how the situation was helping protesters to raise the profile of jazz music. No doubt the musicians had a slightly colder perspective of events. Given the popularity and demand for live jazz music in London, the MOBO decision is difficult to understand. Was the jazz catagory dropped due to the restrictions of broadcasting time and prioritizing for an intended audience? Are the Mobos good for black music?

The upcoming London Jazz Festival is the UK’s largest annual celebration of jazz. In 2005 it was voted Best London Festival in the music category of the 20th Time Out Live Awards.

"In 2005 the London Jazz Festival reached over 60,000 concert-goers with 206 groups playing 165 events in 35 venues, presenting a fantastic programme of new commissions, special projects, education work and premieres. Across the capital the Festival achieved more sold out shows and rave reviews across more venues than ever before. Furthermore live broadcasts and recordings by BBC Radio 3 – which reaches over two million listeners every week – enabled a nationwide audience to enjoy the incredible music-making that occurred throughout this year’s Festival both on air and online." Serious.org.uk

 The 2006 London Jazz Festival runs from Friday 10 to Sunday 19 November.

 Food for thought ... 

"Whether right or wrong, ...imagination is shaped by the pictures seen... Consequently, they lead to stereotypes that are hard to shake." Walter Lippmann, (Public Opinion, 1922, 95-156) via Wikipedia Stereotyping.

"It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf." Walter Lippmann Wikiquote

And so, in support of the free spirit of jazz and liberal copyleft tradition, here are some open music projects and downloads where jazz is still a main ingredient.

Free Music Lunch 01 - Menu

• Revolution Void - collaborative nu-jazz releases
• Lucky 7's - modern jazz septet
• Open Music Factory - independent musicians community
• Heritage - Prince Albert Hunt's Texas Ramblers - Public Domain 4U
• Jazz Juice - free music download sources

Revolution Void

Revolution Void Records is a netlabel run by jazz pianist and electronic music producer Jonah Dempcy. The label puts out remixes, collaborations and original music, by Jonah's Revolution Void project and other artists, in styles such as downtempo, electronic jazz (nu-jazz) and instrumental hiphop. Jonah uses Creative Commons licenses which make it easy for people to share and promote his work. Here's a video on YouTube which uses his track Weekend Amnesia as the soundtrack to episode 1 of Father Underground Returns.

The latest offering from Revolution Void is a 10 track instrumental album titled Thread Soul. It was released on 7-25-2006 under a Creative Commons Attrib-NonCommercial license which allows users to freely modify and distribute the album, for non-commercial purposes only. 

Thread Soul is the follow-up to the excellent Increase the Dosage album released in 2004.

"Whereas Increase the Dosage had a slew of guest musicians including Seamus Blake (Mingus Big Band), Matthew Garrison (Herbie Hancock) and Michael Shrieve (Santana), Thread Soul focuses more on grooves and soundscapes than live improvisation. Nevertheless, Thread Soul contains its fair share of jazz improvisation, thanks to guest performances by bassist Lucas Pickford (Brian Blade) and saxophonist Cochemea Gastelum (Fred Wesley, Robert Walter's 20th Congress). The end result is a mix of midtempo breakbeats, instrumental hiphop and ambient electronic with a penchant for jazz improvisation."

Stream all tracks (.m3u) - Download via the Internet Archive or via BitTorrent at LegalTorrents.com

You can also get Revolution Void albums and lots more jazz via Jamendo. Their streaming music widget lets you share albums directly on your webpage.

If you're interested in learning more about Jonah's piano technique, check out his informative CastPost blog. You can play audio and video recordings on jazz music and jazz lessons. 

Lucky 7's

Lucky 7's are a septet of musicians from the New Orleans and Chicago Jazz scenes. This is modern, improvisational Jazz, with a traditional acoustic sound. The lineup includes drums, double bass, vibes, trombone and tuba, cornet, tenor sax and bass clarinet. They have some free mp3 downloads available under a Creative Commons Music Sharing License. 

Open Music Factory

The Open Music Factory is an independent musicians community where you can find all types of musical projects. Musicians collaborate by using the forums to communicate and post audio files which can be hosted at the Internet Archive or elsewhere. The site advises:

Before sharing any original sound recording on the net, never forget to upload it to Creative Commons.
That gives you a good anti-piracy protection on your creations.

You can do this by using the ccPublisher tool. For information about copyrights, including CC licenses, see the forum section for Artists Protection. Other collaborative communities also use CC licenses, notably ccMixter and NINJAM (more on these in the future - here's a link to dozens of ccMixter projects tagged Jazz).

There are currently several collaborations at the Open Music Factory featuring strong jazz influences. You can find all the projects in the section for Open Music Collaborations.

It's interesting to watch the ideas develop over time and you can track the changing versions by reading through the comments in each project thread. The influence of jazz is often seen in online collaborations where the role of improvisation and riffing on ideas comes to the fore.

Here are a couple of drum tracks hosted at the Internet Archive, from a work in progress called MYAGOA - Flying High (New Age- Jazz Fusion style) Other versions at FoneticFreek on SoundClick .

Two 4/4 percussion parts at 85 bpm in MP3 and OGG formats. No rights reserved - CC - public domain.

• myagoa drums
• myagoa tabla

 You can find more jazzy breaks and samples at Freesound.

Heritage

It's impossible to talk about jazz without mentioning the blues, so here's something to wet your appetite... 

Prince Albert Hunt's Texas Ramblers - Blues In The Bottle (March 28, 1928) Duration: 3:26. Download and stream via the Internet Archive. 

Recorded on March 28, 1928 in San Antonio, Texas. This recording is considered one of the first of what would be later categorized as "Western" or "Texas" Swing, popularized later by Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys. The style is a unique amalgam of blues, ragtime, jazz and old time fiddle music. Michelle Shocked claims that Prince Albert Hunt chose to live "on the wrong side of the tracks." He was shot to death outside of a Dallas bar in March of 1931.

Public Domain 4U Has a collection of around eighty, early blues recordings, converted to MP3 format. These are public domain recordings that are free to download and share. 

Jazz Juice

Sources of freshly squeezed jazz, 100% pure copyleft .

• 15 Megs of Fame - Songs in Jazz is a catalog of blues/jazz pieces free to share under a Creative Commons music sharing license.
• ActoGuitar and Berklee Shares offer free music lessons under Creative Commons licenses.
• Dogmazic Jazz has a growing catalog of CC licensed jazz recordings for download in MP3 and Ogg formats. There are also thousands of streaming audio channels.
• Internet Archive Jazz Search provides access to a huge collection of free media files and CC/public domain materials.
• Magnatune Jazz Podcast listen to artists on the Magnatune netlabel.
• Oddio Overplay - Super Sound Sites use the search engine to find jazz related projects.
• Opsound: Genre jazz podcast on Odeo listen to experimental/electronic artists from the Opsound Community. The Odeo widget can be embedded in webpages.
• Open Media Directory explore dozens of music and video sites, many of which offer jazz related music.
• Remix Commons Jazz find unusual mixes under CC licenses.
• SoundClick CC License search the musicians community for free jazz music.
• Starfrosch Jazz get the latest free mp3 downloads from musicians and netlabels using copyleft licenses.

The music mentioned in this post is generally podsafe, however, you should check individual licenses before using content in webcasts.

Further resources:

• BBC - MOBO Awards 2006
• Rowolo Netlabel List a source of websites offering free music releases.
• Western Union to Sponsor MOBOs
• Wikipedia Free jazz provides info about the term and goes some way to explaining what free jazz isn't.
• Wikipedia List of Independent Record Labels and Netlabels 

tags: audio, blues, breakbeat, copyleft, creative commons, downloads, free, free music lunch, jazz, lessons, mobo, mp3, music, musicians, netlabels, nu jazz, open music, public domain,

Cruxy the new digital content marketplace from ONTV is now open to the public. Anyone with original digital content can register for free and distribute their work using the pay-per-download model. Cruxy aims to provide a platform where artists, fans and promoters can come together, interact and make financial transactions, built on community trust and without DRM restrictions. 

An Open Economy for Digital Content
Cruxy is all about creating an Open Economy for artists and experts. It is a service that allows anyone to distribute and sell their content simply, without overhead, and without giving up any rights.

Artist Pages and Widgets

Every Cruxy Artist Page is a digital download store with Distributed Marketplace widgets that can be embedded on websites. Original content can be sold through the Artist’s Page or through any website or blog using the widgets. Artists choose the retail price they wish to charge and select standard copyright or Creative Commons licensing terms for their materials. Secure payments are handled by PayPal, see the Publisher FAQ for details of service/transaction fees charged by Cruxy and PayPal. Artists maintain complete rights and ownership over their original works.

Features include:

• Open registration to all digital artists and fans
• Artist's Page and store with its own address (https://mystore.cruxy.com), RSS feed, media previews
• Artist's Page may be customized with a logo, description, links, etc.
• File storage and delivery using Amazon S3
• Non-DRM content throughout
• Provision for standard copyright or Creative Commons licenses
• Financial transactions handled via PayPal Website Payments Pro
• Street Team (launch pending) allows fans and supporters to promote artists and earn money for themselves

Easy to use

Cruxy makes it extremely easy for content creators to upload and sell media. The clean design and simple navigation are a big plus on the usability side. Most people will have no trouble setting up a store within minutes of registering, which means more time can be spent creatively on the business to hand.

Copyrights and Copylefts

Content creators can choose to distribute their works under standard copyright licenses (all rights restricted) and Creative Commons licenses (some rights restricted). The latter are designed to be more flexible when it comes to sharing files online such as in podcasts and on P2P file sharing networks. There are so many possibilities for the monetization of CC licensed content that I would expect to see rapid growth for these materials on Cruxy. For example, there already exists a huge amount of suitable material of high quality, that could be distributed through this platform, including netlabel catalogs, short movies, audio books and tours, podcasts, digital stories, photos, etc.  Artists making their material available under CC licenses can learn more on the following blog post: Selling Creative Commons Stuff on Cruxy? 

Street Teams

This is a key marketing and revenue generating component designed to motivate and drive the widgetized distribution model. Allowing 'fans' in on the revenue sharing is a good viral move although there's going to be plenty of experimentation for all concerned to find a balance in terms of download pricing.

The crux of the matter 

All of the above features make Cruxy a powerful, flexible and open digital distribution platform. This openness is reflected in the website Buyers Guide which states:

"Some artists may have full previews available elsewhere on their blog page, website, or through a content sharing site like Blip.tv or Youtube, so it’s worth looking around if you want to learn more before buying."

The Cruxy team recognize the benefits of other media sharing resources, hence the widgets. Beyond free digital downloads, there are ways of adding value to content that give people the incentive to buy. The browsing experience itself, quality packages, convenience, community buzz, choice of format, DRM-free, are all things people are attracted to.

Cruxy distributes a comprehensive list of supported media types including various formats for audio, video, images, animation, design, multimedia and text documents. Potentially, all types of non-DRM content can be purchased, from ringtones to Flash animations to text documents to podcasts, all from one central community-style location. By combining choice with convenience, Web 2.0 style and looks, flexible licensing, revenue sharing, fast downloads, fair prices and secure transactions - Cruxy  represents an exciting development for content creators and is sure to generate a lot of interest.

tags: artists, audio, bands, content, creative commons, cruxy, distribution, downloads, flash, images, marketplace, multimedia, mp3, music, ontv, promoters, shopping, text, video, widgets

"Today, the Swedish Pirate Party launched a new Internet service that lets anybody send and receive files and information over the Internet without fear of being monitored or logged. In technical terms, such a network is called a "darknet". The service allows people to use an untraceable address in the darknet, where they cannot be personally identified."

 

"But there are much more fundamental values at stake here than copyright," Rickard Falkvinge says. "The new technology has brought society to a crossroads. The only way to enforce today's unbalanced copyright laws is to monitor all private communications over the Internet. Today's copyright regime cannot coexist with an open society that guarantees the right to private communication."

"The Heritage Orchestra is a pioneering cross-genre 40 - 60 member ensemble that ignores classical elitism, and refuses to be a part of the new glossy classical-corporate movement; both of which are diminishing the long-term integrity of orchestral music in the UK. So whilst the British music scene struggles between purest and popular representations, The Heritage Orchestra leads a defiant new musical direction fueled by daring reinterpretations, complex collaborations, fresh compositions, and the most exciting performances in town." Source. 

"We're mapping the open source world by collecting objective information on open source software. Search our site for the most current software metrics and project information on open source software projects."

• Real Information: Ohloh collects hard project information from the project’s source code and the source control system used by the project’s development team.
• Recent Information: Ohloh constantly indexes open source projects so that Ohloh users have the latest information available on the projects that they view.
• Comparative Summary: Ohloh provides a quick summary of how a project’s metrics compare with other open source projects.
• Powerful Search: Ohloh makes search easier, allowing users to search categories and projects quickly and reliably.
• Automated Data Collection: All of Ohloh’s information is collected automatically. If a user suggests a new project, Ohloh can quickly get that project on the system.

• Audio: Working with audio technologies, files and podcasting.
• Video: Learning about video, videoblogging, filmmaking and documentaries.
• Multimedia: Animation, digital story telling, games, graphics, oral histories and screencasting.
• Images: Digital photography and artwork.
• Text: Blogging, journalism and writing for the web. 

• Copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
• Make derivative works
• Make commercial use of the work 

Technorati Tags: audio, creative commons, dj, downloads, electronic, hip hop, mix, mp3, music, netlabels, podcasts, podsafe
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Technorati Tags: ambient, audio, chillout, Creative Commons, electronic, improvisation, jamming, konzert, live, mp3, Munich, music, musik, performance, playlist, podcast, spheric lounge, streaming

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Technorati Tags: audio, player, podcast, podcasting, video

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Technorati Tags: CC, Creative Commons, Flickr, Flickrlilli, images, pictures, photos, search, tools

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