Jamendo and MP3tunes: Free music for free lockers

Mike Linksvayer, July 25th, 2008

Jamendo, a music site with over 10,000 CC-licensed albums, has teamed up with MP3tunes:

Give it a try at www.mp3tunes.com/jamendo - you’ll find 10 exclusive playlists of the best in rock, hip hop, jazz and more from Jamendo. Sign up for a Music Locker - it’s free to try - and then with a single click get each playlist you like added to your to your collection. You can also add personal music from your computer in your Locker with free, easy-to-use software.

This is very cool. Heavily curated playlists are one way to address the discovery problem. Using freely licensed music is how internet music startups can get the economics of all other internet startups. Unsaid in the announcement linked above, all of the playlisted tracks in the Jamendo/MP3tunes collaboration are licensed under CC BY-SA, allowing commercial use and recalling a recently posted quote from Lucas Gonze on commercial use and “empowering businesses to build support systems for your music.”

Creative Commons Salon NYC Followup

Fred Benenson, July 25th, 2008

Despite the humid weather Wednesday night, around 60 New Yorkers made it out to our July Salon at The Open Planning Project. After presentations from Livable Streets Network, Wikia Search and Max Silvestri’s hilarious Silvestri’s facebook foibles, we adjourned for pizza and beer on TOPP’s wonderful deck.

Check out my flickr photos from last night, and Nick Grossman from TOPP’s post on it here.

Many thanks go to The Open Planning Project and Brooklyn Brewery for supplying us cases of their beer. 

The next CC Salon NYC will be in mid-September, so look for the invite soon.

Upcoming ccSalon - SF

Melissa Reeder, July 24th, 2008

This time around, the SF Salon’s theme will focus on Creative Commons in the realm of film and media. We’ve got an all-star line-up of inspiring folks who will be talking about how CC and open and shared culture are all vital and exciting components of the media world. The night will start off with Jolene Pinder, an Associate Producer at Arts Engine, Inc. in NYC. Jolene will be screening a short CC-licensed film and talking about the various ways in which Arts Engine uses CC licenses. Next, CC’s very own Creative Director, Eric Steuer, will be talking about the soon to be launched film maker’s toolkit. And last but not least, Robin Sloan, Product Strategist from Current TV will wrap up the evening.

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, August 13, from 7-9pm.
The event will be held at Shine Bar in San Francisco.

We hope you will join us for what is sure to be an entertaining and memorable CC Salon!

The Case Studies Project Keeps Growing

Greg Grossmeier, July 24th, 2008

Only one month after the official release of the Case Studies project and already the response has been great! As you saw from my one week update the media response has also been very positive.

We aren’t resting on our laurels yet! There is more to be done but here is what is new:

• We are now up to over 110 case studies which is up from 90 when we publicly launched the project. Thanks to everyone who has helped and added case studies!
• With all of the activity going on in the Case Studies project it might seem hard to know what is going on. Not any more! We enabled a feature on the main page so you can see the last edited case studies.
• The future of the Case Studies project is looking great also. To see what is planned and what is already done check out the Case Studies Roadmap.
• Also, be sure to check out the new featured Studies on the main Case Studies page.

Again, a big thank you to everyone who has participated in the project thus far. There is always room for more contributors though!

Deerhoof & CASH Music team up for “Fresh Born” experiment

Eric Steuer, July 24th, 2008

One of my favorite bands, Deerhoof, has teamed up with innovative media company CASH Music (we’ve talked about CASH’s great work here, here, and here) for a very interesting project. In a sly nod to the ubiquity of pre-release music leaks, the group has issued the sheet music for its upcoming single “Fresh Born” under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license in advance of the October release of Offend Maggie, the band’s new album on Kill Rock Stars.

It’s a neat experiment in encouraging interactivity: Deerhoof’s recorded version of “Fresh Born” isn’t even available yet, but there are already several great recordings of the song - all made by other people - floating around online. Visit the CASH site for the most up-to-date collection of links to versions of the song. Lucas Gonze has made the music easier to work with digitally by retranscribing it with music notation software. Also, be sure to check out New York public radio station WNYC’s cool video of Deerhoof fans using their sight-reading abilities to collaboratively create a rendition of the song.