Jono Bacon, the Community Manager for Ubuntu and full-time metal head, recently announced a new musical project he is undertaking, SeveredFifth.

SeveredFifth is Jono’s new music project with the aims of seeing how far one musician can take the concept of Free (as in Freedom) music. Jono:

“Severed Fifth is really here to ask questions – both musically, and in terms of the new music economy.”

To accomplish this goal he is releasing his first album under the name SeveredFifth using a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.  This license is easy to understand to any member of the Open Source Software persuasion (the group with which Jono is most active in currently); you are free to make copies, redistribute, or modify it as long as you cite correct attribution and keep it under the same license. Jono:

“I chose that license because I wanted to secure some key rights for listeners of my music – rights that I feel are important as a listener. I think the choice of license is key to the aims of the project.”

Because Jono is empowering his fan base with the use of the CC Licenses, the community of listeners which form around the music are the ones who will improve the project the most.  The initial work of creating publicity materials such as the website and photography has been done by some of Jono’s friends, but without the contributions of community members the project can not succeed.

“I think the key ingredient here is assembling a group of people who have a shared ethos – this is what we do in Free Software, and this is what I am doing with Severed Fifth – its incredible what is possible when the right minds come together.”

I encourage everyone who has a musical taste which leans towards metal to head on over to SeveredFifth and sign up for the newsletter and join the discussion; great things are sure to happen.