Copyright Law and Music

Professor Lawrence Lessig, copyright activist and one of the founders of Creative Commons, was interviewed a few weeks back on the excellent radio public radio program Sound Opinions. You can listen to him discuss copyright law and its effects when applies to the music industry in episode #134 HERE or download an MP3 podcast HERE. Show notes are HERE.

Not Just Another Protest Song

Another Protest Song asks "What does a 21st century protest song sound like?"
Created by audio activists Angel Nevarez and Valerie Tevere of NeuroTransmitter, the site encourage musicians to add to a Creative Commons licensed database of political songs and share in the debate of what the power of music can do for today's political climate. Check out recent entries or share your own works HERE.

Good Copy Bad Copy

Good Copy Bad Copy is an excellent new documentary from Denmark that reviews the current state of copyright law and its relationship to creative culture, using a range of international interviews. Watch the entire hour long film below (also worth checking out is the work in progress Copyright Criminals)...



Thanks Kit!

Nine Inch Nails hammers another nail in the corporate music industry coffin

Following on the heals of Radiohead's announcement to leave their label and offer their latest album to fans at a price of their choice, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails announced his own departure from his label on October 8th.
Now Reznor is offering a similar deal to fans on the new album by Saul Williams that he produced. William's album Niggy Tardust will be available November 1st for $5 (if you click a button that says "I want to directly support the artists involved in the creation of this music") or Free (if you click a button that says "I'm not concerned about that.I just want the music"). Unlike Radiohead's release, however this downloads will be in 2 different MP3 formats as well as in lossless FLAC! Find out more here.

Pennies and Dimes

This is a video I created for the band Gaskets for their recently released Loose Change album/DVD, it's created entirely with public domain footage from the Prelinger Archive. and made under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. Here's Teddy Blanks, one half of the duo, with the story behind the song/video:

“Pennies and Dimes” is a song that was written when I was close to graduating college and entering what people call the ‘real world’. It deals with my own anxieties about the prospect of making a living as well as some of the frustrations I had with corporate consumer culture, informed by many of the ideas discussed in the “Design Rebels” class I took with Noah. It seemed fitting that Noah direct the video. He expertly cut together a hilarious selection of economic cartoons and food packaging assembly-line footage into an ironically optimistic visual accompaniment to an overtly cynical song.

Instant Karma

Amnesty International has created a new online widget as a means of further spreading their message about the violence in Darfur. The Instant Karma Mixtape, which can easily be added to MySpace, Facebook, blogs, and personal web pages, allows folks to listen to and buy the Instant Karma benefit album, as well as sign a petition, and learn more about their campaign all in one place. You can get the source code here.