Fair Music For All

Free Artists + Fair Play = Fair Music

In the realm of intellectual property, what constitutes ‘fair’ is a legally contested notion, decided on a case-by-case basis. Increasingly, how institutions decide the definition, and how ‘those in the market… are trying to avoid any risk of copyright exposure’ (Lessig), is the ground for heated public debate, particularly amongst artists and their adherents. Given recent reforms and strictures, the time is certainly right for the launch of the Fair Music Initiative, which seeks a globally accepted standard for ‘fair music’. Announced to Cooperation Commons by Andreas Hirsch of Electrolyte, the initiative’s manifesto proclaims the following seven aims:

1. Unlimited freedom of musical expression.
2. Free access to musical expressions.
3. Justice of contract standards securing fair remuneration for the artists.
4. Adequate use of technology for a fair distribution of revenues instead of creating new monopolies.
5. Wide support for fairness and justice in the music business as key elements of cultural diversity.
6. Full recognition of the cultural character of musical products instead of limiting them to mere commercial artefacts.
7. A code of conduct for the music business, so that fairness and justice become the norm and not the exception.

Through the project, Fair Music will ensure that the artist receives their ‘fair share’ of every CD bought and every song downloaded, whilst maintaining complete artistic freedom of expression.

By aggregating recent discussions surrounding the effect of copyright laws on innovation and remuneration, the initiative is clearly seeking to light the path towards an emancipation of artistic practice. The maintenance of cultural diversity looms large on the agenda, the importance of which my colleague Andrew Garton often eloquently and passionately illustrates.

The site points to Good Copy, Bad Copy, a recent Danish documentary which I viewed via Second Life at the iSummit ’07, as well as Before the Music Dies, a title with fair warning to us all. Personally, I can’t envisage a world without (what my artistic friends term) ‘noise’ - beautiful, diverse, profound, and above all, fair to all concerned. Get involved and sign the petition and contribute your thoughts about a free culture future.

His Boy Elroy

Being a supporter of Creative Commons, I look to the success of the ccMixter site as a thriving online community where artists are allowed (well, entreated to!) to ‘rip, mix, and share’. Pulsing with the vibe of open source, the site hosts thousands of samples from musicians across a range of genres, all available for legal sampling and reuse, subject to the specific licence which attaches to the track (clearly stipulated). Interestingly, the site statistics point to the prevalence of BY and BY-NC licences to date:

Samples
Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike 5
Noncommercial Sampling Plus 14
Sampling Plus 40
Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) 67
Attribution (3.0) 135
Attribution Noncommercial 306
Attribution 880

A Cappellas
Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike 1
Sampling Plus 8
Noncommercial Sampling Plus 9
Attribution (3.0) 37
Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) 87
Attribution Noncommercial 197
Attribution 198

File formats encompass mp3, aac, ogg, flac, and wav. The patterns of use of material, their provenance if you like, are tracked, showing which tracks have been used by which artists in which remixes. Users can ‘create their own remix radio station’ from a random pool of ccMixter’s remixes by selecting a style, such as acoustic, experimental, electronic, trip hop, hip hop, chill, down tempo, and drums ‘n’ bass.

In collaboration with services such as Magnatune (where ‘you pick the price!’ for music), ccMixter regularly hosts remix competitions. Currently, the sites are offering the audio source files to Natchoongi from multi-platinum recording artist Salman Ahmad. They are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (BY-NC). Salman observes:

‘I think what Magnatune and ccMixter represents is the future of music promotion, distribution and marketing. I've already been through the guerilla school of music in my life so taking on the future is something I've always been waiting for!’

Previous competitions have offered tracks by J Vadim, Vieux Farka Toure, Christopher Willits (who recently visited Brisbane!), Fort Minor, Crammed Discs Cibelle, DJ Dolores, Apollo Nove, Copyright Criminals, Lisa Debendictis, WIRED CD, Beastie Boys, and Chuck D.

Yesterday I was delighted to discover the work of 'His Boy Elroy', in particular the piano-driven down-tempo track ‘Revolve’ which was winner in the Creative Commons/Wired Magazine Fine Art of Sampling competition. Download it yourself through iTunes and be inspired!