This week’s featured content is Rick Prelinger‘s new film Panorama Ephemera, produced entirely with short government clips from the 1940s-1970s. For those in the Bay Area, it will be shown at the San Francisco Cinematheque on Sunday, June 13 at 7:30 pm. The clips range from the everyday normal to the absolutely bizarre and together…

The BBC recently announced they’ll be opening up their archive and applying Creative Commons licenses to the works. A group of interested folks have started a list to talk about the release and produced a petition to support the decision.

CC staff favorite and Magnatune artist, Brad Sucks recently started releasing the source to his most popular song, Making Me Nervous, and asking folks to contribute remixes. Like the Jim’s Big Ego remix project we’re got going on here (which can get your remix onto national radio), Brad’s now got six remixes (1, 2, 3,…

The New York Times published an article about how the music industry influences song choice on American Idol today. I’ve long suspected that contestant song choice was limited to what the show could afford to pay in licensing costs ahead of time, since the choices of songs to cover seem limited. A producer of the…

This Thursday’s Frontline on PBS is covering the modern music industry in an episode titled “The Way the Music Died“. It follows the industry rise after Woodstock in 1969, through music genre changes, and eventually how Napster and the Internet changed everything. It sounds interesting for musicians and music fans alike.