Jock Dynamite Records

Thanks to CC Rachel for the heads up about this label. All the music is freely downloadable under a CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License. I've just downloaded Mr Jabsticks' "I Think We May Have a Situation Here" - thirteen 192kbps MP3s of electronic weirdness - just what I need for this evening :P

The Fairness Principle

This is an interesting piece on fairness in Music 2.0. Of particular interest is Trent Reznor's disappointment about the number of downloaders who paid for Saul Williams' debut release. I have to admit that I didn't pay for it, but after listening to it, it's not the kind of album I would buy. This disappointment probably influenced his release decisions concerning the new NIN album.

More NIN

There's an interesting write-up of Reznor's latest offering at Coolfer.

An interesting aspect is that the music has been licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license. This is all well and good, but not all 'remixers' are mash-up artists. What we really want is access to the masters like Reznor provided in previous efforts to more engagingly interact with his fans. Perhaps they'll turn up on the NIN site at some stage.

Seth Godin's Thoughts on the Music Industry

A fun read here It's long, but here's the flavour:

The internet is the ability to get any song you want in front of the people who want to hear it with huge reach and no barriers. What matters isn’t how many, it’s who. Who are you reaching, who are the thought leaders, who are the people who are going to tell other people?

Nine Inch Nails from 0 to 300

The Register reports that NIN has released its new album a la Radiohead. Get 9 tracks for free, or pay to get more.

More on Facebook Music

Following on from Beatrice's post about Facebook Music, I decided to sign up for an account. At first it seems just like signing up for any other online distribution site requiring users to submit email address, band bio, images etc. But when I finalised all the personal details and was ready to sit down and experience the tedium that is uploading MP3s (**see my bonus little rant about this below) when Facebook asks me to "verify my account". What does this mean?

Well, in what I'm seeing as an ultimate step in copyright paranoia, Facebook asks you to submit an electronic image file (i.e. JPG, GIF or PNG) of some legal documentation that proves your identity (i.e. driver's licence, passport):

For legal reasons, Facebook can only authorize you to upload music to your Page if you verify that you formally represent INfest8. Please upload a valid form of legal identification (only passports, photo drivers licenses, or school IDs will be accepted) that identifies you as Steve Collins. You can upload a JPG, GIF or PNG file.

Why is this required?
In order to upload music to your Page, we need you to submit a valid form of identification that identifies you, the admin of the Page. By submitting a valid form of identification, you are confirming that you either own the copyright to the content you will be uploading or that you are authorized by the copyright owner to upload that copyrighted content to your Page. Please note that you can black out any sensitive information on your identification if you wish, other than your name and picture. We currently only accept photo passports, school IDs, and drivers licenses.

I guess that their trying to cover their backs from the outset so they don't run afoul of those poor old boys and girls in the RIAA.

EDIT: I should probably add that this verification process takes two business days. I assume that means that someone has to sit and go through every submission. Reminds me of when MP3.com used to vet each song for unlicensed samples - I ran afoul of that a few time myself.

**Having been using online distribution sites since 1998 I've signed up with many of them and every time I have to go through the tedious exercise of uploading the same tracks over and over again. What would be nice and probably more cost effective when it comes to server space, would be to have a central repository for MP3s that can just be linked to whatever social networking/distribution site you want to sign up with. Meh!

Facebook has finally launched is Music Section

Since last thursday Facebook Music is finally available.



Bands can now create their own profiles, upload songs, photos, videos, plus fans can buy tickets, merchandise and songs, thanks to deals with Music Today service and iTunes.



It will be interesting to see which strategic move MySpace will do next.......