Curt Smith, best known for his work as one of the two lead vocalists in English pop band Tears for Fears, released his new album, Halfway, Pleased, this past Tuesday (digitally and otherwise). Comprised of 15 hauntingly beautiful tracks (read a nice review here), Smith has chosen to release the entire album under a CC BY-NC-SA license, allowing people to freely redistribute, reuse, and rework the songs legally. From Curt Smith:

In addition to joining the ranks of major artists releasing their work independently under their own banners, Smith is issuing “Halfway, pleased” under a Creative Commons license, which gives fans the right to copy, distribute and perform the album’s songs, so long as the uses are non-commercial and properly attributed to Smith. “Nothing would make me happier,” he insists, “than for my music to be heard by as many people as possible. If people like the album and its songs enough to put it on their website or share it with their friends, that’s fantastic. I only ask that they not exploit my music in any way that generates revenue for them but not for me. Because at the end of the day,” he points out, “artists need to realize an income from their art… or they’ll have to stop making art in order to do something else to keep a roof over their heads.”