Saturday, May 3, 2008

Free Is Good! Free Music is BEST!


Is there a new trend in music releases? Free is good! Free and Legal is Better! Click on the "ViVa" graphic to the left to download your copy of ColdPlay's new single "Violet Hill". Trent Reznor, lead singer of Nine Inch Nails upped the ante and just released their new album in multiple formats for free. Click on NIN below to get yours.

The website actually encourages you to share it and even add to it if you wish. The album called "The Slip" is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share alike license.

"we encourage you to remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc."

We all know how important copyright is. Click HERE to learn how to license your work!

It was considered a big deal when Coldplay decided to give away a song on April 29th from their new album but now we are seeing unprecedented generosity or a publicity stunt by artists giving away an entire album. For the longest time we overpaid to listen to the latest and greatest of bands we like but now they are just giving it away. Even if you don't like the music it must make you wonder... These are not artists starving for attention or looking for their start.

What is the catch? Is this a new trend? How long will it last? Time will tell.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Doug, do you think that copyright has gotten so hard to enforce that they are giving up or is it just goodwill?

Douglas Sadler said...

The creative commons is a response to current copyright law that is as unaccessible as the copyright it's self. I believe the purpose of creative commons is to create more access. The license is free and now allows content to be shared with a few restrictions such as requiring the user to source your material or not allowing someone to make money off of the content you willingly shared for free. I
would say some Governments (US) are more than willing to enforce copyright where as others don't get involved at all.

In the spirit of things I licensed the content of this blog!

Get your own license at the Creative Commons License.

http://creativecommons.org/

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