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.

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

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

For this album we’re again going to put up the entire album. In August we’ll be putting together a digital release called Imaginashun – Power to the people, which will be chocker block with remixes from pro’s and bedroom producers from around the world, along with images from cartoonists, graffiti artists and illustrators.

DJ Vadim’s new album comes out May 25th 2009. We’re starting off putting up just 2 tracks, but more will follow…

I’ve embedded the first two tracks below. Get the stems at the CCMixter site.

Here’s what Mark has to say about the track:

This song has an interesting story. You see -  I traveled back in time with my music production laptop and a pile of virtual synthesizers to score a 50’s Sci-Fi B-Movie. “They Walk Among Us” is the result.

Will any humans survive? You’ll have to listen to find out. Extra points if you can tell me the Morse code message in the end of the song.

So If you like theremins, 50’s SCI-FI B-Movies, flying saucer sounds, big beats and ear candy I think you’ll really dig this track.  It’s been a lot of fun to put compose and mix – especially the creation of all the special effects.

It’s a fun track that calls out for a music video!

You can preview They Walk Among Us below:

The track is licensed with a Creative Commons license. Check out Mosher’s Reboot page for more free music downloads and information on his music.

Polyfuse’s One Quiet Moment is an extended dark ambient track, available for free download as an MP3 or in Apple lossless format. It’s free to use for non-commercial purposes, via a Creative Commons license.

via Trash_Audio

Digg founder Kevin Rose sat down, in front of a wall of modular synthesizers, with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails (NIN) and poses the most popular questions as submitted and voted upon by users of the popular social bookmarking site.

It’s a great interview, with lots of discussion around Nine Inch Nails’ approach to making money in a world of new media.

Do you think Nine Inch Nails’ approach can apply to musicians that aren’t established?

The top questions from the Digg community:

• Your business model still primarily involves selling music either digitally or physically. Why haven’t you embraced advertising as a business model?
• What is the most embarrassing song on your iPod?
• What advice do you have for up and coming bands who chose the internet for distribution over traditional channels?
• What tech gadgets, hardware, software, can you not live without?
• Have the plans to release a Year Zero mini-series on HBO fallen through? Or can we still look forward to a video representation of the album?
• What is your favorite thing you have seen done with your music by a fan of NIN?
• What are some of your favorite video games?
• Will any of the records of your side project Tapeworm, with TOOL frontman Maynard James Keenan, ever be released?
• Since you are a tech artist, are you planning an online concert?
• Is there tension between art director Rob Sheridan and basist Justin Meldal-Johnsen over coverage of the Scientology protest?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig appeared on the Colbert Report last Thursday talking about his latest book, REMIX.

Colbert challenged the audience to not remix the interview “with some great dance beat, and then it starts showing up in clubs across America.”

Lessig pointed out on air that because he didn’t waive his joint copyrights to the segment, he and Colbert are joint owners, and either can exploit the work freely. In this case Lessig has published the interview under CC BY, allowing anyone to remix or even commercially exploit the work for free.

Here’s a link to the interview accapella, along with a link to some remixes – “with some great dance beats”. 

Let’s see if this starts showing up in clubs across America…..

via CC

Nine Inch Nails‘ Creative Commons licensed Ghosts I-IV, which was released as a free download, is ranked the best selling MP3 album of 2008 on Amazon’s MP3 store.

Despite the fact that you could download Ghosts legally from file-sharing networks, and despite the fact that you could copy the album and share it with your friends, people, in droves, purchased the release at Amazon. 

I’ll be very surprised if more artists don’t try to reproduce NIN’s success in 2009. 

What do you think this means for artists that don’t have the high profile of Trent Reznor and NIN?

via CC

team9

From team9:

I’ve spent the last few months neck deep on an original album – the first since 2003. ‘We Dont Disco’ is an electronic soundtrack to the days of my life. A little bit ambient, a little bit pop, a little bit dance……its a little bit kind of thing. If you like it then great, its free to download and completely copyright free – yep, a first on this web site – and is licensed under a Creative Commons ‘Attribution License’. Please feel free to use any song in any which way you choose.

team9 has also released song stems for four of their tracks (Lines, We Don’t Disco Like We Used To, Five Times, and As We Travel), allowing potential remixers a simple way to re-imagine team9’s original tracks.

You can preview a track from the album below:

via CreativeCommons

Creative Commons licenses are designed to protect your rights to your music, while allowing people copy and share it. 

Creative Commons’ Eric Steuer notes:

This year, NIN released both Ghosts I-IV and a second album, The Slip, under a CC BY-NC-SA license. Both albums were downloaded for free and shared legally millions of times by fans under the terms of this license. At the same time, NIN found great financial success in selling cool, well-crafted, limited edition physical editions of both sets. Back in March, Wiredsaid the band made $1.6 million on Ghosts I-IV in its first week of release alone.

Additionally, Radiohead’s song “House of Cards” is up for several Grammys, including Best Short Form Music Video. The video’s animation data was released under a CC BY-NC-SA license earlier this year (see previous post).

Congratulations to Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead for the nominations. Also, congratulations to all of the other artists whose work was nominated for Grammys this year, including Brian Eno, Diplo, Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo (AKA Gnarls Barkley), My Morning Jacket, Gilberto Gil, Peter Gabriel, Thievery Corporation, and Cornelius – all of whom have used Creative Commons licenses and/or have supported CC over the years.

Musicians like NIN are using Creative Commons licensing, and giving away their music, to actually gain more control of their careers.

It remains to be seen whether unknown artists will be able to create new careers at the scale of groups like Nine Inch Nails, though.

The compilation was organized at the 8 Bit Collective forum.

Tracks:

• Little-scale: The day the world went away 
• SCSI: Down In It 
• Microchip: Survivalism 
• Kyotosapian: Heresy 
• Subway Sonicbeat: Eraser 
• Hartfelt: Hurt 

Weepr is a new free music application that is sort of like a software Tenori-On.

Not much information is available yet, and the site is in Italian, but you can download and try Weepr out here. Adobe’s Air is required.

It’s limited in terms of what sounds are available, and timing is a little shaky, but it’s free, and it’s distributed under a Creative Commons license, so you can change it and build on it, if you like.

There’s a 2008 Nine Inch Nails Tour coming up this fall, and it’s clear that NIN’s using the The Slip as a promo to build interest in its upcoming tour.

“Thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years – this one’s on me,” says Trent Reznor, and a fine thank you it is. While Ghosts I-IV (see our review) was an interesting (and successful) experiment, The Slip is a full-bore Nine Inch Nails album.

The album is a mix of environmental/ambient tracks & rockers, with a piano ballad thrown in for good measure.

The Slip gets off to a slow start with 999,999, an ambient track that sounds a bit Eraserhead industrial noise, and wouldn’t have been out of place on the Ghosts I-IV release. It quickly morphs into 1,000,000, a straight-ahead NIN rocker. It’s as blistering as anything NIN has done.

NIN keeps things moving with Letting You, and the more dance oriented Discipline. Discipline has sort of a post-disco feel, and ends with the sort of combined verse + chorus that Paul McCartney honed to a science with his 70’s Wings releases. Except this one is about needing Discipline.

Echoplex didn’t do much for me – we’ve heard all the sounds and themes before from NIN. Maybe a remix could help this one.

Head Down moves things back into hardcore NIN territory. It sounds like Reznor is running the drums through one of Metasonix’ bizarro tube distortion units. Wailing guitars, shouted choruses and alternating loud/soft sections turn this into a likely concert anthem.

Lights in the Sky is the piano ballad I mentioned earlier. It’s an attractive track, despite the crappy out of tune piano and despite the fact that Reznor has a relatively weak voice. The track works because it’s intimate and raw – you feel like you’re sitting next to Reznor as he sings it.

Lights in the Sky blends into Corona Radiata – which is one of the highlights of the album. It’s a simple ambient drone piece, but it’s really gorgeous. The first half of it wouldn’t have been out of place on Brian Eno’s Ambient 4: On Land. The second half gets a slow, distorted beat that feels like an irresistible force.

The Four of Us are Dying is another gorgeous track – but this time it’s gorgeous industrial noise. The track has a drum machine line that kicks it off and that runs through it, over which mellow, but powerful guitar and synth lines are woven.

The album finishes off with Demon Seed, a tight, clean rocker. It builds to a massive climax, dies away to almost nothing, and then comes back for another minute of rocking out. It’s a satisfying end to the album.

Overall, NIN’s new release The Slip is an excellent release. It delivers all the things you expect from NIN, it builds on their last release, Ghosts I-IV, and it even has some a couple of tracks that are likely to burn up some air time.

In addition to being a great free release, The Slip is released with a Creative Commons license – which means you can share the album with your friends, put it in your podcast or remix it. And, since you’re my friend, I’ve got one of the highlights of release, 1,000,000, available for you to download below.

You can download The Slip via the NIN site. Email registration is required. The album is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. All downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits.

as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com.

the music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. your link will include all options – all free. all downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits.

for those of you interested in physical products, fear not. we plan to make a version of this release available on CD and vinyl in july. details coming soon.

You can download free high-quality MP3s of The Slip via the NIN site. Email registration is required.

NIN says:

we encourage you to
remix it
share it with your friends,
post it on your blog,
play it on your podcast,
give it to strangers,
etc.

Nine Inch Nails continues to be the most progressive mainstream group at experimenting with new options for releasing and licensing their music. They have already released several hours of music that you can podcast and share legally, and they have an extensive lineup of free music podcasts, too.

Track list:

1. 999,999
2. 1,000,000
3. letting you
4. discipline
5. echoplex
6. head down
7. lights in the sky
8. corona radiata
9. the four of us are dying
10. demon seed

Not only is the deluxe edition of NIN Ghosts I-IV one of the most beautiful box sets ever, they’ve thrown in some extra music.

The deluxe edition was limited to 2,500 copies ,which sold out within 36 hours at $300 each. It includes two CDs, a data DVD with multi-tracks for remixing, a 24 bit/96 kHz Blu-ray disc, four 180-gram vinyl records, a 48-page book of photographs and two Giclee prints in high-quality luxurious packaging numbered and signed by Trent Reznor.

Here are links, via Sendspace, to download the extra tracks:

• Ghosts 37 [mp3]
  
• Ghosts 38 [mp3]

via califaudio

NIN has become the band to watch, if you’re interested in the future of music:

• The group recently released Ghosts I-IV under a Creative Commons license, which means you can share it or use it in your podcast,
• The group offers an extensive collection of user-generated NIN remix podcasts.
• NIN also is encouraging fans to make and share videos for the group’s tracks.

Kompoz is an online community for musicians creating new independent music based on the open licensing models of the Creative Commons, which promotes sharing, re-use, and derivative works, while still retaining attribution and other rights for the original artists. Kompoz provides the platform, Web-based tools, and social network for musicians to collaborate with other musicians anywhere in the world.

“Kompoz now includes top social networking features to make it easier for our members to connect and collaborate”, says Raf Fiol, founder of Kompoz. “We’ve built a strong community that will help shape the new vision for open collaborative music creation, mixing, and publication.”

Kompoz’s social networking features include:

• Personal Member and Community Blogs
• Meebo Chat (meebo)
• Member-driven rating system
• Public track commenting
• Private Messaging
• Project and public discussion forums
• “I’m Kompozing With” Friends feature
• YouTube video integration (API)
• Public and private playlists
• Embeddable Flash players
• CustomURLs for member profiles
• Google member maps

Core Features Include:

• Individual project workspaces for each collaboration.
• Upload tracks directly to each project (hosted by Kompoz) without FTP or special software.
• Download a single file, an entire track, or an entire project with one-click for import into a multi-track recorder such as Pro-Tools, Sonar, GarageBand or any other offline digital audio processing software.
• All uploaded files are automatically encoded for fast online streaming playback.
• Support for MP3, WAV, and WMA formats. Others comming soon.
• Search for music projects by genre, artist, tags/keywords, license type, and more.
• Create and share online profiles with the global music community.
• Create friends lists, favorite project lists, and more.