Linux Journal has a great interview with John Buckman from Magnatune, the non-evil record label that sells Creative Commons licensed music on a sliding scale. It’s turning out to be lucrative for the artists involved, with the average musician taking in $1,500 in royaltes last year and the top artists making over $6,000 in royalties…

LegalTorrents is a new site offering 5Gb of electronic music from a variety of labels, all licensed under Creative Commons. What makes this site unique is the large downloads are shared among everyone downloading, thanks to the P2P technology of BitTorrent. Once you download a client and load up a music torrent file, you’ll be…

The world-renowned music college encourages people to share music lessons via file-sharing networks Boston, Massachusetts USA – Berklee College of Music, the world’s largest independent music college and the premier institution for the study of contemporary music, announces the launch of Berklee Shares. The groundbreaking new program provides free music lessons under Creative Commons licenses…

If you’re in Los Angeles, you might want to check out Chairman of the Creative Commons, Lawrence Lessig, along with former recording industry head Hilary Rosen tonight and tomorrow at USC’s Bovard Auditorium. Tickets are $10, and Creative Commons will be there giving out information and licensed music CDs (more about the CDs shortly).

The Christian Science Monitor recently published an article focusing on independent labels and musicians. While recording industry album sales were down 11% overall in 2002, some independent outfits saw sales increases of 50 to 100 percent, all while eschewing mainstream radio play.

We have made several recent musical additions to the Creative Commons Featured Works registry, and noticed more musicians online using the licenses. Here’s a random sampling of licensed music that has caught our eyes (and ears): Christine McCarthy, Horton’s Choice, Joshua Ellis, The Phoenix Trap, Clyde Federal, brokensoundcard, The Walkingbirds’ recent songs, and some war…

MusicBrainz, one of our collaborators, has announced they’re releasing their database of music metadata under a CC license. MusicBrainz metadata lets you take all your assorted music files and organize them with consistent title, author, and album information.

Gamelan Nyai Saraswati, a group of Gamelan musicians from central Java playing in North Carolina, offer recordings from their performances under a Creative Commons license. More about the ensemble and their music is available on their site.

“People are always looking for what side to be on, and there isn’t just one side. . . . I think we’re looking for a kinder, gentler, more equitable model where more people can make a living off of this stuff.” The wise words of Jenny Toomey, musician, policy wonk, and Executive Director of the…

The Future of Music Coalition will host their third-annual Policy Summit January 4 through 7 in Washington D.C. The FMC3 summit will bring policymakers, academics, lawyers, activists — and, of course, a number of premier musicians — together for a discussion of artists’ rights and technology’s influence on the music industry. Glenn Otis Brown, Creaitve…