Those of you who read this blog regularly know I’m a big supporter of open-source and filesharing, including sharing of music.  The fact that the RIAA had the balls to claim they’re suing people to “protect” artists - when everybody who knows a damn thing about the industry knows it’s really about making it more difficult for independent artists to get heard - leaves me livid.  And the fact that they continue to get away with it burns me even more.

Fortunately, I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Posted: November 22nd, 2008 under culture war, open-source & coprights.
Comments: none

I suddenly find myself with a new respect for Courtney Love:

Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist’s work without any intention of paying for it.

I’m not talking about Napster-type software.

I’m talking about major label recording contracts.

Courtney Love Redefines Music Piracy, Salon.com

It’s the text from a speech she gave a while back, i don’t know how i missed this at the time.  Some of her info is a bit dated - high quality mp3’s actually sound pretty good and nobody uses napster any more - but the basic points she makes about the music industry and the people who run it are solid.

Posted: July 14th, 2008 under music, open-source & coprights.
Comments: 1

check this out:

my thoughts on the matter? I’m wary of the “universal license” or the “blanket license” that so many of the pro-downloading industry-type people seem to advocate because, as an independent artist whose music is distributed over the internet, people would be forced to pay the record companies that i hate for the right to download my music and I would never see a penny of that money unless i came to some sort of arrangement with the record companies - something i have no desire to do. Frankly, i don’t want to be selling my music at all, I want to abolish capitalism.  I ask people who enjoy my music to support it financially because I’m fucking poor, I need money to pay my rent, and it costs me money to make the music in the first place.  Not like I’m making much money off it, I get maybe one donation for every thousand or so downloads, but at least no one can accuse me of “selling out” or losing sight of why I started making music in the first place…

Read more »

Posted: July 12th, 2007 under economics, hip hop, music, open-source & coprights.
Comments: 3

6 years ago when i decided to release my first album free over the internet on the creative commons license most people thought i was nuts. Today not only is it much more accepted for artists to do what i did (and am still doing), it’s becoming more and more common. My new find for the week is Lunar, a guy from New Zealand who’s released his new album Hybrid Awaken on the same creative commons license i use and who has some serious chops. Ya’ll should check him out.

And, of course, if you haven’t heard Tim Fite’s Over the Counter Culture (free to download off his website) you should check that out as well. it’s good stuff.

As for me and my music, I’m going back in the studio with my band this saturday and next tuesday. Big ups to the folks over at Expressions for hooking us up. We’ll be recording 5 new songs. From there it’s just a matter of getting the melody (banjo and fiddle) parts recorded in on the stuff we recorded before John and Jeremy joined the band and getting everything mixed down. So it’ll be a while yet but we’re making steady progress. To compensate for the unusually long wait since my last album this one will be packed solid- 19 tracks so far and counting.

Also - I’ve got the online store on this site working (finally) and have buttons, cd’s, and super-high quality mp3’s for sale. I’ll be adding stickers next week and hopefully T-shirts soon after. Any money made off the store will go towards covering mixdown and mastering costs for the new album so please show your support.

Posted: July 10th, 2007 under economics, hip hop, music, open-source & coprights.
Comments: none