Eww, Double Phridays

Meaning I went a whole week without writing an entry. And strangely nobody called to see if I was okay. Anyway, riffing along further on the Creative Commons tip, and an interesting intersection with, well, calling My Life in the Bush of Ghosts mainstream may be pushing it, but we're talking about David Byrne and Brian Eno here, not Buddy Weird's Online Variety Hour like I usually do.

And though the situation promises to change, there are no free downloads here yet, but "sometime soon" we're promised to see not just mp3s but track recordings for two songs, along with the option, if you're willing to klik some kinda enduser agreement and abide by a Creative Commons license, to take thus material and remix it for your own exquisite pleasure. While the terms sound a bit restrictive to me (it sort of sounds like you can only host your versions on the official site, which would be lame), it still interests me when artists of this profile start playing around with releasing their material. So watch this space for info on the remix downloads, and if you do something interesting with it (and play by the rules) send me a link and I'll showcase you on the site, seriously. It'll be like continuity and stuff.

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Phree Phreakin' Phriday... Staccato

I should say (or maybe, more probably, I shouldn't) that I don't really buy into the Creative Commons thing. I don't see that it really does anything besides generate a little boilerplate and add useless html to web pages to do a job that could be as easily accomplished by three lines of text. I retain copyright on my work. Everything I write is mine. Anybody wants use of it, they can be courteous and drop me a line. Reblogging is not mission critical, okay, you can wait a day to hear from me. Because unless you're, like, Sony or something I'm unlikely to object. Or if you're just too damn lazy to mooch over to my profile and shoot me an email, you could also just use it, and the chances are about a million to one I won't care or indeed notice. It's just text. Of course if worst came to it I might track you down and sue you in small claims court. I am confident I could persuade a judge to assess a value to any particular example of my writing of no less than five dollars, so watch it. Maybe you better just linky linky instead, no? This is the problem, as Staccato's slogan of "where we feature music that probably won't get you sued," probably unwittingly identifies. A license is no real protection against copyright infringement prosecution. It hasn't been put to any real tests yet but that's only because these free as in radical creation and distribution schemes don't yet have a big enough footprint among our most litigious citizens, that is to say, corporations. See, I figure, copyright is as strong as it gets. Everything past that is either redundant and encumbering (like the DMCA) or limiting (like Creative Commons). I don't know what horrible things you might do to my precious precious words. I might have to sue you on general principles over some outrage so dirty and low I can't even imagine it. I'm not about to water down my rights, I might need them. But that's just me. I understand people who go that way, and of course I'm not the slightest bit reluctant to link into their content to enliven my own. Stacatto is worth a visit, download whole shows or selected tracks from the newer ones. Frankly, once you get through the files not found and the weirdos (download in .ogg format? thanks, that's really helpful you damned hippy) there's not much trackwise business left. But of course it's about the show not the tracks. For them. I'm all about the tracks. Which is probably why the podcasting revolution is passing me by.

Scrivener downloaded... (please read the download etiquette note)
fleur arabe by AMINOS

Practice download etiquette: Rather than just clicking on MP3 links, please right click + "save as" (Windows) or control+click and "Download Linked File" (Mac). It will reduce the artists' bandwidth demands!

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Synthdude, a study in ten days

Now, I have a soft spot in my heart for anyone who decides to tackle a song a day project, even if, like Synthdude, they don't keep it up all that long. There are all kinds of failure, and as long as you aren't participating in the kind where you don't even try, you've got me swinging for your side. Points off for all the direct links to music being broken, though, but you can get to a selection of 'dude's stuff via the CNet's Download.com

Scrivener downloaded...
Through the Haze (No direct download link, use the Download Now links).

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The Scarring Party

Spooky cabaret brass with some messed up lyrics warbled in someone's best old-timey radio tenor. They seem a little exotic for Milwaukee but I'm probably just being prejudiced. After all, my men from Carbellion are from the big Dubya Eye as well. Anyway, The Scarring Party are well worth a visit.

Scrivener downloaded... (please read the download etiquette note)
Eat Your Young

Practice download etiquette: Rather than just clicking on MP3 links, please right click + "save as" (Windows) or control+click and "Download Linked File" (Mac). It will reduce the artists' bandwidth demands!

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Take the red pill and see how deep the analog hole goes?

It's no secret that the media conglomerates and their agents are nosing around finding some way to close the so-called analog hole. This whole a-hole business flared up back around '02, '03 and now we've got another outbreak of a-hole fever in the form of the Sensenbrenner/Conyers Analog Hole Bill.

There is an aspect of this I haven't seen discussed yet. Although it wasn't discussed in these terms, didn't the 2600 DVD lawsuit address the analog hole directly, and at least suggest that it is protected under fair use?

The constitutional argument against the DMCA that 2600's lawyers made, that it represented a restriction of fair use rights, which was rejected by the court on the basis that it was still possible exercise fair use, was widely ridiculed at the time. The image of pointing a camcorder at your TV to make a "copy" of a DVD was held up as indicative of the kind of technologically clueless approach to the realities of the digital environment that made rotten legislation like the DMCA possible in the first place. But take another look at the language in the decision:

the DMCA does not impose even an arguable limitation on the opportunity to make a variety of traditional fair uses of DVD movies, such as commenting on their content, quoting excerpts from their screenplays, and even recording portions of the video images and sounds on film or tape by pointing a camera, a camcorder, or a microphone at a monitor as it displays the DVD movie.

Although the technological means described are crude, this is nothing less than a description of the analog hole. I can see no legal difference between pointing a camcorder or microphone at your television and recording a signal directly from the analog outputs on your computer, or indeed recording audio or video directly off the sound or video card of your computer...

This language suggests a legal precedent for a constitutional objection to any analog hole legislation. Just one more reason for electronics manufacturers to refuse to get on board.

All right, enough politics. Next week, back to my favorite kind of phree musique - the kind the artists want you to hear.

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Phelony Phreaking Phriday! G2P, the search string your mother warned you about

Now, as I've noted generally Phree Musique USA is not about the duplication and distribution of music against the wishes of the creator, let alone the copyright holder. It's not that I am one of these people itching to advocate that it is very wrong and bad to download Usher MP3s for free or whatever. I did a lot of cassette taping of stuff like my siblings' 80s alternative and new wave vinyl as a lad, you know, and it doesn't seemed to have turned me into an utterly depraved degenerate or put Sony out of business. And neither, frankly, will G2P. There is nothing much to this little hack (I'm not denigrating it, I couldn't have figured this out, I'm just saying it is not in its operation hugely technical or anything). Basically whatever you enter as the search text, it creates a search string in google with the syntax intitle:index.of "mp3" +"ARTIST NAME" -htm -html -php -asp "Last Modified"

What happens when you enter a music artist or group's name is that you find many results where someone, somewhere is hosting MP3s by that artist. Who knows why, maybe it is for their personal enjoyment or some little project among friends, maybe it is authorized and legal though probably it is not. I worry a little that relatively harmless people, even by P2P standards, may get rather randomly hassled as a result of this sort of thing. Then again, if you make Madonna tracks available on the internet, it's kind of a buyer beware (or giver-away beware I guess) situation.

Scrivener downloaded...
Why nothing at all of course. That would be ILLEGAL Nonetheless, always remember to...

Practice download etiquette: Rather than just clicking on MP3 links, please right click + "save as" (Windows) or control+click and "Download Linked File" (Mac). It will reduce the artists' bandwidth demands!

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minibosses

Yes, yes, more NES. What is it about the Nintendo, particularly the classic NES, that inspires so much musical homage? The minibosses describe themselves as "a phoenix based band dedicated to playing nes music with two guitars, a bass, and a drum set. we love playing, it's really fun." Clearly they disdain capitalization as well, but the only real issue at hand is simply this: these covers of Nintendo classics quite simply thrash. Which is perhaps the point: the source material is solid. Those NES hits just had catchy damn hooks. Put the classic rocik band setup behind it and you're rocking hard.

Scrivener downloaded... (please read the download etiquette note)
Ninja Gaiden Live

Practice download etiquette: Rather than just clicking on MP3 links, please right click + "save as" (Windows) or control+click and "Download Linked File" (Mac). It will reduce the artists' bandwidth demands!

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Jane Siberry: "I want everyone to leave feeling like they got a good deal"

About fifty million people like myself have had this revelation about creative production - skip the middleman, essentially - and gotten all excited about the coming revolution in which artists throw down the shackals of the Media Lords and give everybody a much better deal. Jane Siberry is clearly walking the talk with her Sheeba Records. I worry, though, because I fear we are all somewhere about a third of the way into a crushing lesson in the ways of this bad old world.

Case in point: what am I to make of Siberry's "Self-Determined Transactions" policy? Does it belong on the "Phree Musique" blog? Make no mistake: you can get music for free here. Go to the store, join the 19% of freeloaders (statistics on download behaviors are just one of the fascinating distinctions of the site) downloading the music for free. The process is a little more intensive than the usual fare here at Phree Musique USA. You must create an account and proceed through checkout as if it was an ordinary transaction. While in her letter on the pricing policy Siberry exhorts listeners to go with their gut and not feel guilt about their decisions, something about going through the usual process of commerce, but electing not to pay, is guilt inducing. You're following "the rules" but it still feels like you're cheating. On the whole, it is a little out of character for this blog, which is mainly about just plain old free stuff - click a link, get a song, end of story. Still, the whole setup is interesting enough to merit inclusion. And there even seems a reasonable chance that the meager entertainment budget will get tapped to "do the right thing" and actually purchase some songs.

Since the amount one pays is wholly self-determined, it seems petty to nitpick about pricing, but I'm the kind of jerk that just went ahead and ordered the song for free, and so quibble I will. .99 for a download is too steep. Yes, yes, iTunes set the precedent. It's the "going rate." It's what the "market will bear." No. The point is to distinguish the alternative from the mainstream, and a price break would be a great place to start. Well, the obvious objection is that you can elect to pay whatever you think is right. But the statistics show that natural inclination - over 80% of purchasers - elected to pay the suggested price. I feel like more might elect to go through the signup and purchase process if that suggested price looked like a deal rather than the old standard. I could of course be utterly wrong. Anyway - my other small issue is that the full album pricing is inconsistent. Sometimes you end up getting a price break for downloading the whole album, sometimes it costs more than doing individual tracks would.

But put all that aside and check Sheeba Records out. The music is solid, vocal driven and lyrical. Try a couple of freebies and see if Siberry's experiment works.

No direct downloads possible with this set-up, just visit the store

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Phree Phreakin' Phriday Returns: The Current (UPDATED 3/13/06)

I can't say it's perfect but Minnesota Public Radio's The Current is the best alternative station on the Minneapolis FM dial. And now they even have some free stuff. While it's a pretty stingy track per week, it is a free download... and there is a lot of other music content on the site, if you're into, you know... streaming. A good way to get onto other loci of artists doing free samples, anyway.

UPDATE 3/13/06

I received the following request via email this morning:

Hi there,

I’m the Director of Marketing at Quango Music Group and I’m writing because you have a free download link on your site for Bitter:Sweet’s single “The Mating Game”.

First, thank you so much for supporting the band and featuring them on your site. That link was originally intended for a specific promotion with The Current (Minnesota Public Radio) and our promotion with them is now over. We’d be grateful if you could now remove the link from your site, and link instead to their ecard so that your viewers can still preview the band’s music without necessarily downloading it.

Your support and cooperation is greatly appreciated.

Best regards,

Jared

Jared Barboza

Director of Marketing

Quango Music Group

Now I'd like to make a few comments about this. First, as it's noted in the FAQs, I am happy to honor any requests about the linking of content on this site from artists or their representatives. There are a lot of legal grey areas on the internet and at times I think that the intellectual exercise of debating their outcomes can distract us from more basic principles - like simply respecting productive artists. My email is in my profile. I will reproduce communications from requests to explain editing decisions that are motivated by outside input.

Second, take a look at how polite and friendly that letter is. I bet there are a lot of Directors of Marketing of Music Groups who could learn a thing or two from Jared Barboza about professional communications. That letter was so nice I couldn't wait to come over here and revise this post.

Finally, on a more personal note: Jared Barboza: Fantastic Name. You could do anything with a name like Jared Barboza. I mean, you could Direct Marketing at a Music Group sure, easy. But you could also pitch in The Show, or be an Ultimate Fighting Challenger, or the new up-and-coming hearthrob bad boy on the latest late-teen evening drama.

Here's that link - you can preview songs from Bitter:Sweet album The Mating Game (due out March 14) through a flash-based music player there. Check it out, it's really quite good.

Bitter:Sweet

And you can check out the new weekly download at the Current's website, first link above. The download links are midway down the page in the right-hand column

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Preserve Your Cylinder

Whenever I'd glance at that link for the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project I'd think it's something silly. Like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Oboes. No, it is in fact the CPDP of the University of California, Santa Barbara's library's Department of Special Collections. So there.

This is another case where any potential legal issue (remote though they seem) is set aside not out of any sound legal foundation, it's just ignored. Or at least if it was looked at at all, it wasn't talked about. Doesn't matter. The powers that be aren't really interested in this particular analog hole, I imagine.

Which is, I realize I didn't get around to explaining, an ongoing digitization of a major archival collection of cylinder recordings. The project summary mentions two primary donated collections comprised of 7200 cylinders but the total is comprised of several lesser contributions as well so who knows how much old (literal) wax these guys are sitting on. This is why the internet exists: as long as there is technological civilization these recordings will continue to exist, I suspect. The tracks are higher quality than you might imagine. I imagine this could be a deep resource for anyone needing a retro soundtrack or remix component. Head over to the Browse menu, it is easy to get lost in the collection of currently almost 6,000 tracks.

Scrivener downloaded... (please read the download etiquette note)
12th St. Rag by the Imperial Marimba Band

Practice download etiquette: Rather than just clicking on MP3 links, please right click + "save as" (Windows) or control+click and "Download Linked File" (Mac). It will reduce the artists' bandwidth demands!

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The Phree Musique Store