Este trabajo lo presenta a través del portal de música libre bajo la Licencia

Creative Commons.

Asimismo tiene disponible en el mismo portal de música el album:

Como muestra os dejo el tema "Full Moon" del Album Sky.

[audio=http://he3.magnatune.com/all/01--Full%20Moon--Bill%20Douglas%20-%20Ty%20Burhoe%20-%20Kai%20Eckhardt%20-%20Steve%20Smith.mp3]

]]> http://evolvingmusic.wordpress.com/?p=207 Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:36:48 +0000 Gavroche http://evolvingmusic.wordpress.com/?p=207

Have you heard the news? Apparently the long tail is flat. For those of you unfamiliar with the long tail, it's a theory coined by Chris Anderson (The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More) that describes the niche strategy of businesses that sell a large number of unique items in relatively small quantities. Because of the low overhead incurred through the selling of digital products, the long tail was supposed to help retailers of less popular items earn significant profit by selling small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers (instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items).

For musicians, the long tail of music was supposed to help redistribute the wealth a bit in the music industry. It was supposed to shift the industry away from having a few big artists that earn large profits to having many smaller indie/niche artists that earn moderate profits. The notion behind this was that through digitization, niche releases are more accessible to fans and thus easier to discover, purchase, and consume. Through this long tail of music, a musician's middle class was supposed to have been formed. Well, where is this musician's middle class that Gerd Leonhard and Dave Kusek wrote about a few years ago? Why has the long tail not proved to be commercially viable? Why aren't niche artists profiting from their art online?

I suspect that the long tail theory is still viable for indie and unsigned artists to make money from their works. It's undeniable that given the low overhead of making and distributing digital music, an artist could sell less and make more. Plus, there are more licensing/placement opportunities today than ever before and there are plenty of sites that help musicians leverage this. But still, why then is the long tail flat?

In my mind, there are three main reasons:

First, Creative Commons licensing has failed to help musicians monetize their works. Any notion of CC providing a viable profit mechanism for musicians is a pipe dream. The purpose of CC licensing is to expand the range of works available for others to legally share and collaborate on. It's clear that this is the direction that Copyright Law should go in. It's also undeniable that CC has a noble purpose that contributes to more creative works for the general public to enjoy. But, CC hasn't actually been leveraged to make artists licensing works under it any money.

While the reason I make music is not to make money, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing a little profit from my works. Perhaps, CC has overlooked this. With the vast number of works distributed under CC, how can their collective power be leveraged to compete against the market power of bigger acts. Isn't this what the long tail is all about? If CC doesn't figure this out, how can it reasonably expect to be an appropriate solution for distributing creative works? Right now, CC licenses seem like a better fit for reference works that people can use to share knowledge. But for unique works of art, the notions of sharing and monetization must be intertwined. Wouldn't you rather your favorite artists not get a day job so that they can always be making new music for you?

Second, long tail artists haven't been working collectively to distribute their music. It's hard to argue against the power in numbers; simply put, the more people that work together on a common purpose, the higher the chance that purpose is achieved. This is the underlying theory that the American Revolution was built on ("Join or Die" anyone?), that collective bargaining is based on, and that a shit ton of sites on the web base their successful business models on (Craigslist is a classifieds aggregator; eBay is an auction aggregator). So, why aren't long tail musicians taking advantage of this?

There have been some attempts to do this, and some are even successful. Magnatune, for example, aggregates CC works and sells them in an Itunes style store. But the biggest vault of CC works, ccMixter (CC's own music sharing/collaboration community), has no monetization whatsoever, not even ads (which its artists could perhaps see a rev share on). Why hasn't ccMixter leveraged the collective power of its community to make its members some money? Because of this, CC licensing seems to be more effective as a marketing tactic than a new rights management system -- license one song under CC, have fans share and remix it, and have this exposure trickle over to other songs which are sold.

Merlin is a good example of an organization that is thinking about the collective power of long tail musicians. Merlin is the world's first global new-media rights licensing agency that manages new-media rights for indie artists. The collective market share of Merlin artists is larger than EMI's market share. That's right, its market share is on par with the majors. Through this mechanism, indie acts can punch above their weight to eat like a bird and shit like an elephant. And while Merlin dropped the ball a bit on the Last.fm negotiations, it wil be successful if it can find novel ways to leverage the power of its artists.

Third, long tail musicians haven't been presented with the right ways of creatively distributing their music so that they can actually make a profit. Despite the digital boom, it's still hard for unsigned and indie musicians to make much money form selling finished songs. While it's easy to give fans the option of buying a song, the reality is that more music is now being distributed than ever before and musicians have to compete against other long tail musicians and the many options consumers have to get the music for free.

What seems to be happening is that long tail artists are stuck on the notion of just selling finished works. If Merlin fails, it will certainly be because of this. Instead, long tail artists need to look to aggregating as many sources of revenue as possible, and to create as many value adds for their music as they can. A finished song should only be a part of the value proposition an artist gives a fan. If these value adds are engaging and give fans a new experience, they will convert casual fans into loyal fans and will give them a reason to financially support artists. While there are tools on the web such as Topspin, ReverbNation, and AWAL that currently target indie and unsigned artists, these services need to recognize that focusing on selling finished works may not be entire answer.

So how are we to aggregate and distribute the long tail of music so that its collective power starts making an economic fuss? How do we improve music discovery so more of these artists get discovered? And if we're not able to sell songs, what other kinds of value adds can we give fans to boost our brands and how do we monetize those value adds? The answers to these questions are at the heart of a the type of service that unsigned/indie musicians need to profit from their works in this new era of music. Soon, we will all find out.

"Ethnic", his first album, was released in 2004.

It is an enveloping sound rich with atmosphere and the pulsating life of percussion, an almost gothic expanse warmed with the vocals and instruments of distant lands. The album won the Just Plain Folks Music Award 2004 in the category "Best New Age/World Album 2004".

more >>> Shiva in Exile

more >>> Claire Fitch: ambient cellist

Conceived, designed, written and administered by John Buckman, who also runs the online record label, Magnatune, Bookmooch is a community for exchanging used books, like an online second hand book store-slash-literary swop shop. Book lovers from around the world gather on the site to swap books they’re tired of, for books they really want, that tickle their fancy or they might’ve been searching for. The site correctly states how ‘emotionally difficult it is’ for book lovers to get rid of books. This is a fantastic way to ‘find a good home for your books’, and keep them in circulation.

Intrigued by the term ‘mooch’, I’ve included the definition as per the site: "to obtain something without paying for it, or to borrow something without intending to return it." So, joining BookMooch is a way to get books without paying for them (apart from postage fees), and without any intention of returning the book (unlike a library) – but you can if you want to! Every time you give someone a book, you earn a point and can get any book you want in return, from anyone else at BookMooch. Once you've read a book, you can keep it forever, or put it back into BookMooch for someone else.

As the site is international, one can access it in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian and Chinese. There are also forums and statistics on the site for those who want to do more than merely log their books’ travels.

For bibliophiles looking for even more interactivity, there’s a BookMooch blog, a wiki, and a space on Second Life. There’s also a strong feel good factor as you can donate your points to certain charities in need.

There’s no cost in joining the website, only in posting your books. If you stick to swapping within our shores you’ll save on postage costs, but swapping books overseas will earn members more points. The points system is quite tricky to explain, but the site offers a handy table.

You can keep a "book wish list" that will let you know when books you’ve requested become available in the catalogue.

I think BookMooch is such a good idea! Bibliophiles around the world unite! ;)

Opção no.1 instale a biblioteca libgnomevfs2-extra no (UKX)buntu é só usa o synaptic ou o apt e tá tudo feito. Isso pode acontecer, essa biblioteca parece que não vem instalada por padrão, mas eu acho que na verdade isso não condiz muito com os outros buntus, eu uso o xubuntu então acho que seja mais a parte do XFCE que ficou dependente da lib.

Opção no.2 (essa eu não testei) a título de informação, na busca que andei fazendo para resolver o meu problema eu achei esse blog azulebanana.com ele faz uma mudança em um script python, eu não precisei usar esse artifício, mas tá aí outra alternativa.

Opção no.3 se nada disso resolver, dê mais uma olhada no google, é provável que achará um jeito de resolver.

.)

Starting July 1, Last.FM (or rather, CBS, I should say) will have an Artist Royalty Program, where artists get paid whenever their music is streamed from the site. The most important thing is that this program is intended for and marketed to unsigned/DIY artists, as Last.fm already pays royalties to signed acts via SoundExchange. According to Last.Fm: "This is a big day for DIY artists. We’re leveling the playing field by offering them the same opportunities as established bands to make money from their music. The young musician making music in a bedroom studio has the same chance as the latest major label signing to use Last.fm to build an audience and get rewarded."

Here's how royalties will be paid:

• If your track is played on their free radio service you will accrue a 10% of the share of Last.fm's net revenue from the free radio service.
• If your track is played on their personalized premium radio service, you will accrue the greater of either 10% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue from the personalized radio service, or US $0.0005 for each complete transmission on the personalized radio service.
• If your track is played on their free on-demand service, you will accrue 30% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue from the on-demand radio service.
• If your track is played on their premium on-demand service, you will accrue the greater of either 30% of the Share of Last.fm’s Net Revenue from the premium on-demand service, or US $0.005 for each complete transmission on the prepaid or subscription on-demand service.

While the royalties to be paid aren't much, they're a good start, demonstrating the larger issue of finding ways for DIYers to profit form their works. Since most people have their music on several (if not all) music discovery sites, hopefully other sites will follow suit (myspace, are you listening?). Imeem implemented a rev share program last year, but it has failed to produce any real revenue for unsigned musicians. With these moves, however, Last.fm has elevated itself past the clutter of music discovery sites, to become a premiere destination for on-demand music discovery. While I personally prefer music recommendation sites like Pandora, after I discover an artist on Pandora, I want to hear more tracks, see more content, and learn more about the artist. That's where sites like myspace, last.fm, and ilike come in. And while music recommendation sites would be crippled by paying royalties, sites like myspace and last.fm should do so.

Unfortunately, neither Last.Fm nor Imeem is the answer. Rather, they are both part of a solution that will require DIY musicians to aggregate many sources of revenue in order to make some money. But, there are not many of these sources currently available. A lot of DIY musicians have been distributing under Creative Commons ("CC") for the last 7 years, but nobody has figured out exactly how to monetize CC works. You would think that the collective strength of CC music could be leveraged to make some money for the artists, but this hasn't happened. The only caveat to this is Magnatune. For this reason, CC has proven to be a valuable alternative to copyright law for reference and informational works, but not for works of art.

So what other profit mechanisms are there for unsigned musicians? There are a ton of iTunes style sites where people can purchase MP3s, but lets face it, most people aren't buying tracks from us DIY guys. Certainly sites like PumpAudio, YouLicense, and AudioMicro have helped, but the go-to-profit mechanism has yet to be unveiled. Stay tuned!

Software libre para una sociedad libre de Richard M. Stallman

La cita de arriba es parte de una conferencia pronunciada por Stallman en el año 2001.  Magnatune, la discográfica no malvada, abrió sus puertas la primavera de 2003. Dos años después aparece Jamendo.

Stallman, el pensador más importante de la naciente era digital. Sin duda un pionero. Si bien actualmente tiene reconocimiento internacional, no dudo que la historia lo alzara a donde merece una figura de su categoría. Una mente preclara en nuestros tiempos.

One of the most popular methods of downloading digital music is iTunes. iTunes offers over two million tracks and counting for only 99 cents. Some of their tracks are also DRM-free.  They also offer a multitude of other media solutions (video, podcasts, etc;).  I however strongly encourage you NOT to use iTunes. There are much better alternatives in the market and the artists only get roughly 15-25% - I have heard that the average is 7 cents per track.  Also you do not own the song, you basically just 'lease' it.

amazonmp3 is a popular alternative to iTunes. They have about the same number of tracks but they are cheaper! Only 89 cents fper song. They have a multitude of album prices.  I saw one album for only $1.99. The best thing about amazonmp3 is that ALL of their songs are DRM-free and compatible with iTunes. Sadly, I could not find out how much the artists gets per track (enlighten me if you find out). If you like big labels and live in the USA use amazonmp3.

Magnatune is an independent music retailer. You can download of license the music. There is no DRM and everything is CD-quality with a bunch of formats to choose from.  They also let you share the music after you buy it for as low as $5. On top of that the artists gets 50% of all sales. The only downside I saw, which I am not sure if it was magnatune's fault of the artists, was that the album I purchased Surfacing by Roots of Rebellion (rr44). Please comment if you download so I can take the link down after three.

Jamendo is the perfect place for artists.  Jamendo supports six different languages so they attract people from all over the world.  They have over 5,500 artists who all use Creative Commons licences. All of their songs are DRM-free and cost nothing. If you do choose to donate the artists makes nearly 100%. Jamendo takes about 80 cents per donation of five dollars or more for bank fees and service charges. They also give 50% of its advertising revenues to the Artists who opted for the Program 'Revenue Sharing'.

You can have a music collection of legal music that doesn't cost you a penny. However, if you like a band, please donate to support their music.

Eso pasó con el auge del p2p, y la posibilidad de compartir música gratis. Los medios nos hicieron tomar conciencia de que compartir era delito, y de que el término música estaría relacionado con piratería, robo, o más pacíficamente, píllalo gratis.

Si mi conciencia hubiera dado a luz hace unos pocos años, pensaría que la música tiene algo de todo eso. Que la música es tema delicado, y que su delicadeza la sufren sus creadores, los artistas, que navegan en barcos de casco un tanto frágil. Por fortuna, mi conciencia era ya adulta cuando la música tomó esta forma. No pueden decir lo mismo las empresas que buscaron oportunidades entre todo este embrollo, y cuyos fundamentos se cimientan sobre la filosofía de la música gratis, caridad hacia los músicos, y la raya de la legalidad.

Mi ruta por estas ¨nuevas¨ webs musicales comienza por Napster. En su homepage me comentan la disponibilidad de 6 millones de canciones, a 0,99€ mp3, o por una tarifa plana. Yo me confundo con telefónica, o me huelen a lo mismo, vaya. En Amazon mp3 me encuentro con lo más descargado y las ofertas del día, casi como El Día -valga la redundancia-. iTunes me habla de películas, audiobooks, TVShows, podcasts... y además me siento como en casa, porque yo soy ya del club, ¡todo el mundo tiene un iPod! Imeem me propone, de primeras, montármelo yo solito y hacerme mi playlist, que no sé yo si hoy me apetece... emusic me pega un grito, ¡50 canciones gratis! por favor, cómo si no tuviera todas las canciones gratis que yo quiera. Pásense por Jamendo, Magnamusic... más gratis ¡más vulgaridad! Encima, para arreglarlo, me dice en la parte inferior de la página ¨get your music¨ . Ay si supieran que mi sobrina aprendió a conseguir sus canciones en internet, mucho antes de saber que los Reyes Magos existían. En We7, de Peter Gabriel, leo algo de streaming, y también de que si quiero pago, y que si no, te robo tu tiempo mediante incursiones de cuñas de publicidad.

No sé qué piensan ustedes, pero yo no tengo este recuerdo de la música. Sí tengo memorias de paseos por las calles de ciudades, sorprenderme tras una oscura esquina una tienda de discos poco visitada, hurgar entre sus telarañas, descubrir sorpresas, llevármelas a casa, comprármelas y de padecer efectos colaterales como súbitos subidones de adrenalina. Similares sensaciones recorrían mi cuerpo cuando me atrevía mi pie en las tiendas de Londres de Tower Records o Virgin.

Cuando las pasiones se desestiman porque sí, empiezo a pensar que esta música es la leche... o perdón, quizás sea más propio decir ¿es la leche rica en calcio, es la Omega 3, o esto es la desnatada? ¡ O será que al final nos bebemos lo que nos echen!

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This serves to further reinforce the school of thought which maintains that giving fans access to free music (whether for listening or download) actually results in increased sales in the end (of CDs, digital music, concert tickets, merchandise etc.)

Here is one of my favorite Brad Sucks songs (in a fan-made music video done as a film project and editing test):

Carefully, Correctfully Wrong has an interesting way of describing Brad's sound: "...a smooth mix of indie rock and electro, mixed with sardonic lyrics and pounding disco beats. It's what the Scissor Sisters would sound like if they weren't trying to be the Bee Gees."

Brad Sucks is a great example of a DIY musician who has taken full advantage of the tools available to artists online. Other than his official site, you can find him on MySpace, CD Baby, ccMixter, Last.fm, Magnatune, iLike, Sellaband, Jamendo, MOG and Twitter to name a few. Not only does Brad Sucks encourage remixing of his songs, he invites fans to submit their remixes so he can post them on the site.

I love the simplicity of his site and the plethora of options he offers his fans for how to enjoy his music. On the home page you can view the progress of his next album, view his upcoming gigs (you can also "demand" to see him live...), buy the album there (or Amazon, iTunes, CD Baby etc). On the music page, you can listen to songs, download them for free, buy them on a number of sites, or make a donation etc.

Also. Is it just me or is this guy a freaking marketing genius? With a self-deprecating artist name like "Brad Sucks" and an equally likable album name, "I Don't Know What I'm Doing", and the simple almost child-like branding style, he gets your attention immediately and is not easily forgotten.

Brad Sucks genuinely understands the power of encouraging direct artist-fan interaction by giving his listeners what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. And by letting them have a voice.

And he definitely does not suck.

Now available for the very first time, Magnatune Memberships allows you to hear Magnatune music without any announcements or interruptions between songs! Starting at just $9 a month, you can stream over 500 albums and mixes into iTunes or player of your choice. Listen online all day, every day wherever you are. For serious audiophiles, we recommend our Download Membership, an "all you can eat" plan that lets you download any of our music, whenever you like, as many times as you like, and in any format, including CD quality WAVs. BONUS: BOTH PLANS include access to our new two hour, talk-free podcasts.

I checked out the details of the two plans. For $9 a month you can stream the company's entire catalog of music, and for $18 a month you can download the company's entire catalog of music. Let me repeat that part: for $18 a month, you can download every album on the site to your computer. (Magnatune only asks that you not strain its servers by using a downloading robot.) You also get access to streaming audio and members-only music podcasts. Under both plans, 50% of your subscription fee goes to the musicians whose songs you downloaded and/or streamed. Pretty sweet.

I do not recognize a single one of the artists listed on the site. But what I do recognize is if I really want to expand my musical horizons, Magnatune is a great way to go - particularly if I want to explore baroque, classical, medieval, and electronic music. And there are some fascinating oddities, such as Professor Armchair and his "demented 19th century children's music".

I'll have to think about whether membership is right for me, or whether I'd prefer to cherry-pick tracks that I like. But I'm really impressed with the company's pro-customer, pro-artist policies.

I attended the monthly High Tech Lunch in Berkeley, California where the guest speaker was John Buckman, the founder of Lyris and later, Magnatune, both of which are still going. John's current startup, called BookMooch.com, founded in August 2006, is an exchange site where readers swap books from their home libraries with one another -- for free.

When you sign up with BookMooch, you post your "wish list" of books. Then a member who has one of your desired titles in her library offers to send it to you. The sender pays the postage (so you get it for free, free!), with the implied social contract that you will, in turn, pay to ship a book from your library to fulfill the wish of a fellow BookMooch-er, tomorrow. Walah! Complete reciprocity. The ledgers balance. This is a very cool kind of free.

BookMooch is cool for all kinds of reasons. Check it out. But the real value in John's talk came when he listed his slew of tips for how an exchange -- or really any site -- can create value off a free-model (i.e., by building a business someone will want to buy); and even generate revenue off of it (literally, make a 'free' model pay!). So here they are:

1) Don't pay for labor. Get volunteers. If your idea fosters enough passion, you'll find 'em. BookMooch was built by an all-volunteer army. Obviously this is the best way to keep your costs low.

2) Let users get before they give. Most exchange or free sites makes users give before then can get. John says this is backwards, and slows growth At BookMooch, users get something first. Then they give. The idea here is to foster the emotional buy-in or commitment in your site that would ordinarily be created by the $ticker price. "It might sound odd," John reported, but in his experience, "people actually don't like to take something for free ... just look at all those Hare Krishnas at airports, no one will take their flowers. Most people would rather pay a nominal fee for the flowers. You'll find they'll want to honor your 'gift' with some reciprocity of their own." This might be called a guilt trip. But once BookMooch users have taken a book, they always send one. Which fuels the transaction rate.

3) Fewer rules, more speed: The minute A BookMoocher sends a book s/he earns reputation points and is able to add another book to their wishlist. On most exchange sites, parties have to wait until a transaction is complete to get their "points" and move on to a second trade. By rewarding people right away, Buckman says BookMooch enjoys a faster rate of transactions, and therefore, faster growth. The happier and more active his users are, the more books they add from their home book-shelves to John's inventory. At 18 months, BookMooch's catalogue of pledged titles in now 480,000 -- the U.S.'s #1 book distributor Ingram Book, has 1 million titles. (But BookMooch has no stocking costs!) BookMooch trades 3,000 books a day, which fosters new inventory additions. So John thinks he'll reach the 1 million mark in just 9 more months! Such an stock of used books-- otherwise lying idle in homes and that, until now, would have been impossible to quantify--is so valuable, John noted, "that Amazon will just have to buy me."

4) Create a fantasy currency: Like reputation points. (Not such a novel tip, but you'd be surprised how few startups do it because it's a pain.) Every time you engage in a transaction you earn points. Also try a rewards like a PowerMoocher, to create clout. We all like status, so the lure of it keeps users involved, and trading, and further builds the network.

5) Create a secondary market for your fantasy currency: BookMoochers can use their reputation points to help other "poorer" Moochers acquire a book. And they do it. Who knows why, but they do, which, again, builds the network. (Volume of transactions will be important when Amazon comes to size up a valuation of BookMooch!)

6) Use a toolbar/browser plug-ins to link to "the outside world" -- especially your for-Fee competitor. BookMooch has a browser plug-in that will alert you, when you're on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, if the book you're searching for is available for free on BookMooch. Similarly, the plug-in will tell you if a book you're looking for on BookMooch is available on Amazon (the crawler simply looks for books' ISBNs on those sites). The plug-in saves some users money by diverting them off Amazon. But in the cases where a user can't wait to "mooch," this also has the effect of throwing a little revenue Amazon's way. And guess what? BookMooch gets a cut, which happens to be the site's ONLY source of revenue. About 1/100 trades generates an Amazon sale. So far, it looks like BookMooch generates about $40,000 in book sales for Amazon every four to eight weeks. But with no costs, whatever BookMooch's "cut" is, goes straight to the bottom line.

So, BookMooch isn't making tons of money right now, but if the site continues to add users, transactions and inventory at its current pace this trickle of revenue-share will really swell. Hey, money is money -- especially in our new "free" world.

The idea in the CBDE was to bring together people from different walks of the creative industry (music, cinema, publishing, photography…) whose common point is the zeros and the ones: digital works and concepts.
…so as to exchange on intellectual property, open rights, business models, digital marketing, creativity, its stimulation, its canalisation...

If it wasn’t for Suw Charman-Anderson and Michael Holloway from the Open Rights Group (a growing NGO community focusing on Digital Rights Issues) I would have probably stayed home and the other guys may have crossed each other on the pub. So thank you guys for setting up and animating the whole day!
The project has a wiki, at our disposal beforehand - a great thing, given the variety of the people attending.
On Monday we warmed up with a notion-shower by Suw, then got in the shoes of Radiohead and their In RainBows experiment and finally had some real entrepreneurs of the digital era sharing their vision:
A great Tom speaker and Reynolds author of “Blood, Sweat and Tea” distributed under a Creative Commons Licence.
John Buckman, multi-entrepreneur, mostly known as Magnatune CEO and as Bookmooch owner.
And finally, David Bausola and Rob Myers, the principal conceptual stormers behind the project “Where are the Joneses?”.
What are the Joneses? Based on a series-like format, it is mostly a transmedia chameleon; the product is shaped by its environment and its audience, the significance changes depending the angle you choose to look at it.
Nobody knew in advance where the joneses were, the public decided the how-what-where, sending them around Europe to find their siblings, participating themselves in the scenario, in the acting etc.
Mr and Ms Jones, if you came to France you might have recognised Laurent Godard as your sibling : he’s the father of Flateurville, a “discussional” building of a village to finally come up with a film. How? Through regular interactions with the audience, in a “salle de jeux” every Thursday evening. More to discover “sur place” if you happen to be in Paris.

The whole experience made me more aware of the fact that prediction is a quite autistic procedure in digital business, you'd better keep it away if you want things going on smoothly. Well I suppose that it had always been like this, long before I woke up, but in digital business where cycles are faster and faster, prediction seems really outdated.

So, just for the pleasure of philosophizing a bit, prediction may have been only a temporary solution for the industrial first era of business, serving to bridge the gap of the missing dialogue with the "consumer".

John Buckman made this quite clear to me when discussing on his Magnatune and Bookmooch activities where he applies a trial-error-adaptation schema.

“listen” and “reply” in a way that makes sense, seem to form the principia of digital business for those who do it. The commercial transaction being replaced by a commercial natural language dialogue? trial and error this question as well…

Shall this be confirmed, does it mean we're finally moving on from Industry to Internet? spring feels good...

(to be internetically correct, if someone who reads this is on the south hemisphere, enterring fall, please replace the season by the metallic mecanism as far as spring is concerned, it also feels good)

To get back to last Monday,

My personal favourite gadget presented that day is CCMixter, a pool-tool of music creativity on a “molecular” level : you can post and find samples, remixes,  a capellas and build on them since they are licensed under creative commons. Quite solid concept, as it connects the two extremities of the 2.0 value chain: the artist with the user. Plus it teased some of my memory parts referring to other music tools, like C-sound. I wonder what applies in the case of music-code copyrights...

Cheese.
Accuse me of writting cheese, “come on Georgia, stop name dropping and all”
Nope nope, cheesy or not, the sensation of this seminar was like a cute baby incarnating the taste for openness, the playfulness of creativity and the cosiness of legally-correct digital business.
loved it.
Cheers.

Georgia

Why bands should consider online music licensing (2)

Ok, so we all know that living off our music as bands is no walk in the woods, unless were speaking about woods infested with blood thirsty grizzlies. So what other options do we have besides making money at the door and selling awesome t-shirst with complementary coffee mugs at shows? For those of you who haven't thought about licensing your music, here's a little video that might enlighten you.

So where to find the supervisors and content creators that seek out original tunes for their projects? Well hooray for internet and online music licensing agencies ! These sites are poping out of nowhere these days, probably because the demand for fresh new talent has increased. They attract the media companies and they allow musicians to create profiles exposing the music they submit. Here are 3 websites we discovered that are worth looking into.

YouLicense.com

This site's model is simple and intuitive. It allows artists to create a profile and upload their tracks. You describe your tracks with a rather hefty tag system that allows companies to search, find and listen to your music. These companies can either browse the sites musical repertoire or post job offers to musicians called 'opportunities'. You, as a subscribed member can check out what opportunities are available and submit your work. Anyone can post these opportunities so you'll find many different types of offers with rates scaling from a couple of bucks to thousands of dollars. The gigs proposed aren't always explicit as you are generally served a rough description of what you must submit, but the general feel is there. YouLicense is a new comer so you wont find more than 10 simultaneous offers at once, but its growing fast as well as its community. Definitely a site worth following up on.

PumpAudio.com

Pump Audio act as music brokers: you submit you tracks and they run it through their vast list of media contacts. Once they find a company interested in a track you produced, they license it to them. You then perceive 50% of the revenue generated by the deal. You retain the whole copyright for your songs and your agreement with Pump is non-exclusive, meaning you can continue doing what ever you want with your tunes. You only allow them to place your music. If they get results, you get results, and they are connected to major clients such as Nike, Kellog's, Kodak, MTV, NBC studio, New line cinema etc. Then to say if they will bring you any business is hard to say but they have earned millions of dollars for indie artists, generating over 80 000 placements in TV last year.

Magnatune.com

Magnatune is a independent record label with a roster of over 200 artists. They sell the music for fans and they sell the licenses for producers, content creators or individuals. The proceeds are also split 50/50. Like Pump your music is pre-cleared and you keep full control over it. Here you can browse the catalog and purchase a license or a song at very affordable rates. It's like an online music store besides that you can buy the right to use the tracks for commercial use. This goes so against the current 'iTunes' philosophy of grasping on to DRM protected songs where the consumer is the one who gets ripped off in the end. Of course this type of music website isn't for everybody but it just goes to show a different angle to the relationship a record label can have towards its artists.

These aren't the only websites that deliver pre-cleared musical content, others are out there and they all have their own particular model. Next Wednesday we will cover a couple more. Any feedback is most welcome.

Keep on murffin !

What is a free format?

Free Formats are the likes of Ogg Vorbis (for audio), Ogg Theora (for video), Matroska (for video), FLAC (for lossless audio), ODF (word documents), Jabber/XMPP (Instant Messaging) and many more.
These formats are licensed under a Free Software License. This is opposed to non-free formats, like MP3, WMA, WMV, AAC(+), DivX, and many others.

Why use free formats?

This is an easy question to answer: To protect your freedom! Non-free formats aren't freely distributable, or even freely usable. They require a company to give you the permission to use it.

While it might seem far from reality, using non-free formats means a risk of you not being able to access your data in the future. Using a free format means you always have the right, and possibility to use access what's rightfully yours to access.

Free formats will probably not contain copy-prevention software, such as Microsoft DRM or Apple FairPlay, because there would be no point in implementing it, seeins how this could be easily circumvented. This is possible because source code of the format is available for free distribution and free use. That means anyone who knows how to write computer software (and there is quite a few of those people) could write a decoder that removes the copy-prevention technology.

What I want to know...

... is where I can find a portable mediaplayer, which is what the general public refer to as an mp3-player, that only plays free formats, like Ogg Vorbis.

Why I want this?

I want this because I do not wish to contribute to non-free formats. Simple as that. Give me some tips, if you got any.

If I don't find any players that fit my wishes, I might just have to build one. There are som decoderchips available.. I think. I'm not really into building electronic devices, but something like this could probably be used to build an all-ogg-player.

Xiph - The authors of, amongst other things, the Ogg Formats.

For Music in Free Formats, see Magnatune & Jamendo.

BEST OF:

Deezer: Απεριόριστη μουσική απλά και ξεκάθαρα. Αναζητάτε όποιον καλλιτέχνη ή κομμάτι θέλετε και το ακούτε. Μπορείτε να δημιουργήσετε δικές σας playlists, ενώ υπάρχει και η δυνατότητα να δημιουργήσετε έναν έξυπνο ραδιοφωνικό σταθμό που σας προτείνει κομμάτια ανάλογα με τις προτιμήσεις σας. Αρκετά μεγάλη ποικιλία τραγουδιών και πανεύκολο περιβάλλον χρήσης

RUNNER-UPs:

Q-Trax: Ξεκίνησε πολύ δυναμικά ισχυριζόμενο ότι είχε συμβόλαιο με τις 4 μεγαλύτερες δισκογραφικές του κόσμου (πρακτικά όλη τη μουσική παραγωγή εκτός από κατι ελληνικά ποντιακά και νησιώτικα), αλλά κατέληξε σε φιάσκο, όταν αναγκάστηκε να παραδεχτεί ότι ήταν ακόμη στις διαπραγματεύσεις... Anyway, τη σήμερον έχει -λέει- 25 εκ τραγούδια, οπότε μπορούμε με σιγουριά να πούμε ότι είναι η πληρέστερη πλατφόρμα δωρεάν μουσικής. Το κατεβάζετε and that's all! Λειτουργεί ως πρόγραμμα P2P.

Last.fm: Από τις πολύ δημοφιλείς υπηρεσίες για δωρεάν μουσική. Λειτουργεί κυρίως ως σταθμός ο οποίος παίζει τραγούδια ανάλογα με τις προτιμήσεις σας και μαθαίνει από το γούστο σας. Μπορείτε να δημιουργήσετε και δικές σας playlists, ώστε προσθέτοντας κομμάτια εκεί να ακούτε μόνο τα τραγούδια που θέλετε.

Jamendo: 7500 δίσκοι και 4500 καλλιτέχνες είναι διαθέσιμοι σ' αυτό το εύχρηστο project που βασίζεται πάνω στα Creative Commons. Στην ίδια γραμμή κινείται και το Opsound, ενώ το Freesound Project αποτελεί forum ανταλλαγής αρχείων υπό CC, οπότε εκεί μπορείτε να βρείτε και πολλούς ερασιτέχνες καλλιτέχνες.

Soundclick: Αν και λίγο δύσχρηστο γιατί απαιτεί πολλά clicks το soundclick έχει μεγάλη ποικιλία και είναι παραμετροποιήσιμο ώστε να μπορείτε να το φέρετε στα μέτρα σας.

Magnatune: Για έναν περιορισμένο κύκλο διαθέσιμων καλλιτεχνών και τραγουδιών το Magnatune σας δίνει τη δυνατότητα να ακούσετε δωρεάν απεριόριστα τη μουσική τους και αν επιθυμείτε να την αγοράσετε προσφέρετε όσα θέλετε με κατώτατη τιμή τα 5 δολλάρια/δίσκο. Ακριβώς επειδή οι καλλιτέχνες πληρώνονται μόνο όταν κάποιος αγοράσει τη μουσική τους και μάλιστα σε χαμηλή τιμή, το Magnatune δεν έχει μεγάλη ποικιλία, αλλά σίγουρα είναι μια καλή προσπάθεια.

Ποτέ δεν είπαμε ότι δεν μπορείτε να βρείτε ό,τι μουσική θέλατε στο ίντερνετ πανεύκολα. Τώρα όμως μπορείτε να το κάνετε και νόμιμα. Αν γνωρίζετε και άλλο αξιόλογο site στο είδος drop us a line.

• Música Lliure: portal de música lliure en català
• musicalibre.es: recursos sobre música lliure
• Magnatune: free mp3
• Jamendo: libera tus oídos
• laMundial: música copyleft

I si voleu més opcions, les trobareu a l'apartat de música per a podcasts de Podcastellano.