Last week on this weblog: USB memory and hardware media player vendors take note — you can ship your device with great music without asking for permission, because permission has already been granted. Today: Magnatune and Hana Micron Launch TunePlug Portable USB Drive With Pre-Loaded MP3 Music From Leading Independent Artists This isn’t exactly a…

London-based music business magazine Five Eight has published an article by Magnatune founder John Buckman titled Using the Creative Commons in the Real World in which Buckman explains how he chose to use a CC license for his record label. Also, Buckman in response to a question on his blog regarding source material: I’m in…

The developers of the amaroK media player for KDE have used the tracks from the WIRED CD as content for their demo Live CD. Boot the CD in a PC and you can try out armaroK with zero installation. Great idea. USB memory and hardware media player vendors take note — you can ship your…

The final winners of the Freestyle Mix, and the Milita Mix contests have been announced on Mixter. The top eleven Freestyle Mix entries have won a spot on the Creative Commons release, The WIRED CD — Ripped. Sampled. Mashed. Shared. (playing off the original WIRED CD), and free passes to the M3 Music Summit in…

The Florida chapter of Free Culture made their presence known at the University of Florida Law School’s Music Law Conference. They wrote about the experience here on their blog, and also made a remarkable visual display which can only speak for itself. The photos were taken by Gavin Baker:

The Fine Art of Sampling Contest has drawn to a close and we’re fortunate enough to have great judges picking the winners. For the Freestyle Mix, WIRED music editors and contributors Eric Steuer, Philip Sherburne, Adrienne Day, Hua Hsu, and Geeta Dayal will be making the final call. For the Militia Mix, Brian Hardgroove of…

While not Creative Commons licensed, we were gratified to hear that a web-only release from Maria Schneider won a Grammy at the recent awards, despite the fact that her CD was only available from ArtistsDirect, and not in any record store. Reuters has a good wrapup and it’s our hope this is the first of…

Over on our Mixter site, we’re nearing the closing date on the Fine Art of Sampling contests. Saturday, Feburary 12th is the last day to submit your entries into The Freestyle Mix contest pool and the Militia Mix pools. The top prize on the Freestyle Mix will be appearing on an upcoming mix CD released…

Engadget has a great tutorial about how to build a low-cost music and vocal recording studio using a new Apple mini, a few audio components, and some instruments. They include some step-by-step help working with Garageband as well. If you’ve been recording music at home with poor results or wanted a way to create your…

All Creative Commons radio show Staccato’s episode 7 features an interview with Magnatune record label founder John Buckman, our current featured commoner interview. Also check out a San Francisco television interview with Buckman and Magnatune artist Artemis. MP3s of all 326 Magnatune-published albums are CC licensed. Listen.