One day, I had downloaded songs of the internet. And normally, some people would be screaming “Piracy! That’s illegal!”. But this is different. Little do most people know, not everything off the interwebs is pirated music. Jamendo is one such place that lets artists share their musical talents to the world, and it was here when I downloaded their Valentine’s playlist that I wondered how do I find these legally-shareable music years, or even just months from now if I put them in with the rest of my music? Do I make a separate “Creative Commons” folder? Even then, do I make “BY-SA”, “BY-NC-SA”, and “BY-ND” subfolders?
Note: BY-SA, BY-NC-SA, and BY-ND are among some of the combinations of Creative Commons (CC) licenses: BY – Attribution, SA – Share-alike, NC- Non-commercial use, and ND – No Derivatives. For more info on CC licenses, go to http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/.
My idea is a simple one: what if you can add the Creative Commons license of a piece of music directly into its ID3 tag which was somehow machine readable? That way, you can easily distinguish or search for music by license in Rhythmbox or your favorite music player.
Probably, the most common CC combination is the BY-NC-SA, which allows you to share music to others and even adapt or incorporate them into your own work, as long as its non-commercial and you share it with the same license.
I think this feature would be of great importance to people who regularly need the use of music for commercial work, such as freelance audio/video producers and restaurant or coffee shop owners, as playing CDs they bought in a local record store might possibly consitute a copyright offense. They could easily do a quick search in Rhythmbox or their favorite player for CC music that doesn’t have NC in their license.
The Jamendo blog is great for discovering new CC music. And if you appreciate the free music that much, you can easily send a donation directly to the artist. This is a better business model than paying for a CD where only a small fraction actually reaches the artist.
Have an CC NC-licensed music you want to play in public? Licensing a CC work is still by far cheaper than paying Sony, BMI, or whatever big record company, period. For as low as 8 euros a month you can sign-up for a Jamendo Pro Radio to play music in your bar or coffee shop (And if you do, put in “punong_bisyonaryo” as your referral code as a way of saying thank you for sharing you this info).
Well, to get you started on free music, why not check out the Jamendo Blog for great, new music!
Happy FREE listening!
