Creative Commons

Yoko Ono has announced a new remix competition.

Download the Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band’s The Sun Is Down! Sample Pack containing the a capella tracks of Yoko’s vocal, vocal effects, and loops of bass, drums, efx and Tenori On.

Create your own remix of The Sun Is Down!, using as many or few of the samples from the pack and any original audio you wish to add.

When you have finished your mix, make an MP3 copy that’s as high quality as possible, but still under 10MB in size. Email the MP3 of your mix, along with its name and your name, address, email and phone number to remix@YOPOB.com before 12 December 2009.

The Top Ten mixes will be decided by Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band.

The winners will receive special signed Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band prizes and will be featured on Ono’s site over the Xmas and New Year period.

Whether or not you want to enter the YOPOB remix competition – check out the 17mb  sample pack for some free, Creative Commons-licensed Ono weirdness.

We’ve given Trent Reznor and NIN a lot of credit for pioneering new ways of connecting with audiences via the Internet. Reznor has used free music downloads, Creative Commons licensing and fan remixes to reinvigorate his career.

Whenever we mention Reznor and his new media music experiments, though, the most common comment is that “sure – that works for an established act, but what about unknown artists?”

Reznor addressed that question at the NIN site today with a post that offers his “thoughts on what to do as a new / unknown artist”:

If you are an unknown / lesser-known artist trying to get noticed / established:

Establish your goals. What are you trying to do / accomplish? If you are looking for mainstream super-success (think Lady GaGa, Coldplay, U2, Justin Timberlake) – your best bet in my opinion is to look at major labels and prepare to share all revenue streams / creative control / music ownership. To reach that kind of critical mass these days your need old-school marketing muscle and that only comes from major labels. Good luck with that one.If you’re forging your own path, read on.

Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters.

To clarify:

Parter with a TopSpin or similar or build your own website, but what you NEED to do is this – give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Collect people’s email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special – make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them something YOU would want to have as a fan. Make a premium download available that includes high-resolution versions (for sale at a reasonable price) and include the download as something immediately available with any physical purchase. Sell T-shirts. Sell buttons, posters… whatever.

See the NIN site for the full article.

This video captures Michael Masnick’s Learning From What’s Working: Success Stories From The Music Commerce Frontier.

Masnick is the founder of TechDirt – a technology blog that has been a vocal critic of the music industry’s approach to technology, especially DRM and its opposition to P2P file sharing.

You can safely skip the first 2 1/2 minutes – but the rest is must-view material for musicians.

Masnick relies way too much on the example of Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and other musicians that were established by the traditional music industry.

More interesting are Masnick’s examples of the creative and bizarre ways musicians are connecting with fan.

Give it a view and leave a comment with your thoughts!

Moby reacted to the nearly $2 million judgment against Jammie Thomas-Rasset of Minnesota for file sharing 24 songs yesterday, calling for the RIAA to be disbanded:

argh. what utter nonsense. this is how the record companies want to protect themselves? suing suburban moms for listening to music? charging $80,000 per song?

punishing people for listening to music is exactly the wrong way to protect the music business. maybe the record companies have adopted the ‘it’s better to be feared than respected’ approach to dealing with music fans. i don’t know, but ‘it’s better to be feared than respected’ doesn’t seem like such a sustainable business model when it comes to consumer choice. how about a new model of ‘it’s better to be loved for helping artists make good records and giving consumers great records at reasonable prices’?

i’m so sorry that any music fan anywhere is ever made to feel bad for making the effort to listen to music.

the riaa needs to be disbanded.

$2 million for sharing three albums worth of songs is clearly insanity.

Using your public user ID to share music illegally, covering up your tracks by replacing your computer’s hard drive, lying about it and then not settling out of court when you’ve got no case is insane, too.

There are going to be a lot of musicians that say they don’t want to be any part of this insanity.

If Moby really wants to make the RIAA irrelevant, though, he should follow the example of Nine Inch Nails, whose free albums releases and Creative Commons licensing have led to huge sales.

DJ Spooky (Paul Miller) talks about the history of media and thoughts about media in culture.

He discusses and demonstrates the unexpected side effects of free speech, law, and copyright while showing the power of remixed art.

Miller always has interesting ideas and is a great advocate of free culture, but don’t expect him to connect all the dots!

via UNCChapelHill