MICHA.ELMUELLER

… free music

Tymphony — I wish i could erase (instrumental, symphonic)
My Bubba & Mi — Apple Spell (folk, acoustic, country)
pornophonique — Sad Robot (electronic)
Nine Inch Nails — Ghosts II – 14 (rock, industrial)

… article

Auf die Universitaeten bezogen, ist das das Bild der Uni als Ermoeglichungsplatform. Studenten muessen von Ideen getrieben sein. Die Universitaet sollte dafuer sorgen, dass ideengetriebene Studenten ihr Potential bestmoeglich zum Nutzen der Menschheit entwickeln und umsetzen koennen. Dabei gilt es, den Studenten ein Fortbildungsangebot anzubieten, wissenschaftlichen Austausch zu beguenstigen, durch gute Ausstattung das Experimentieren zu ermoeglichen, und nicht zuletzt muss durch gemeinsame Werte eben diese Welt am Funktionieren gehalten werden.

–Markus Schnalke, Die Universitaet

... free music Tymphony -- I wish i could erase (instrumental, symphonic) My Bubba & Mi -- Apple Spell (folk, acoustic, country) pornophonique -- Sad Robot (electronic) Nine Inch Nails -- Ghosts II - 14 (rock, industrial) ... article Auf die Universitaeten bezogen, ist das das Bild der Uni als Ermoeglichungsplatform. Studenten muessen von Ideen getrieben sein. Die Universitaet ...

I regularly participate in events by the Chaos Computer Club. I’ve been to the camp and held some seminars here in Ulm. Besides that we have a radio program at a free radio station here in Ulm: /dev/radio is on every two weeks for two hours at 13:00. 102.6 Mhz / Radio freeFM. Free radio means that anybody who becomes a member of the non-profit association and pays a small annual fee can get his own slot. /dev/radio plays only free music. Meaning music under a free license, preferably Creative Commons.

In one of the last broadcasts matou and hannes set up a challenge to submit a proposal for a jingle. A few hours before deadline I decided to give it a try. This is what I came up with:

soundcloud direct link

The morse code in the beginning was originally created by matou via a smartphone morse app. I applied various effects and did some editing on it. The background song is licensed as CC-BY-NC and is called “Rooted in Peace” by rocavaco. It is available here.

I regularly participate in events by the Chaos Computer Club. I\'ve been to the camp and held some seminars here in Ulm. Besides that we have a radio program at a free radio station here in Ulm: /dev/radio is on every two weeks for two hours at 13:00. 102.6 Mhz / Radio freeFM. Free ...

There are some very good artists releasing music under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license out there. This means that you are free to download, share and remix the music, as long as you give credit and share derived work under a similar or the same license.

How do these artists make money from their music?

Giving your music away for free does not collide with making money from it!
I actually think most people are willing to pay, under three conditions:

• It just has to be really easy for them to pay. PayPal donations are not easy! Flattr for example is.
• They get to decide how much money they want to pay.This means that you don’t attach a price label to digital content. Flattr has the great concept where you always know: no matter how often I flattr this month, I won’t spend more than the money I put in it at the beginning. There is no way of loosing track about how much money you spent.
• They pay voluntarily. This includes of course that you are not restricted to first paying and then downloading a song but rather get a completely free song and pay whenever you want and only if you want.

I am pretty sure that there is no way of financing Britney Spears or Lady Gaga this way. But creative, independent music? Probably.

You can’t do anything against music getting illegaly distributed via torrent, usenet, etc.. I think it is a much better concept to take this as a fact and see the pros in it: It is very easy to share and distribute music today, which makes it very easy to get popular and get a large fanbase these days.

My utopian vision of the digital content future is that there is a “Pay/Flattr/Donate” button for the artist on last.fm, on youtube, in your torrent client, etc..

Actually there are several problems (at least in germany) right now: The GEMA forbids artists who are with them to license any of the work they do under a free license. It is also forbidden to double license work, with for example a commercial and a free license.

In my opinion the reason why most artists releasing free music are not very popular is simply because many people just don’t know them. So these are five completely free songs, which I wanted to share.

• Emerald Park — Ume
• My Bubba & Mi — Satisfied mind
• Brad Sucks — Understood by Your Dad
• Shearer — Say My Name
• nocreeps — R.I.P

If you want to read further on this topic you should check out these sources:

• Another blog post by me: Damn good free music
• Concept for the “Kulturwertmark” by the CCC
• Comment on the “Kulturwertmark” at Breitband Podcast

There are some very good artists releasing music under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license out there. This means that you are free to download, share and remix the music, as long as you give credit and share derived work under a similar or the same license. How do these artists make money from their ...