I spent quite a few years feeling a bit uneasy about music and computers, aware (yet not really caring) that my huge music collection was, ummm, yeah. But I was so irritated by the music industry with their bogus “copy protected” CDs and their insane drivel about how much piracy was costing them (as if I would ever have been able to afford a 4000-song music collection by paying 15 quid for a CD when I’m only wanting one track from it) and all that kind of nonsense, so I was on the lookout for another option. Slightly over a year ago, I discovered an unusual music website, called Magnatune. It’s got a few great features, which are great for a variety of reasons.

Firstly, I like their “We’re not evil” slogan. Since the RIAA quite obviously are evil, even if that’s not what Magnatune are directly saying. From a customers point of view, it’s unusual because you can listen to all the songs, as often as you want, before purchasing - and you get to pick the price you’re willing to pay for each album! The artists are the ones with the best bit of the deal - they get half the purchase price of each album, and retain the rights to their music. A normal record deal will see the artist with neither of these - almost no artists make any money from record deals, aside from a handful that make fortunes.

If you want to license the music for commercial purposes, it’s all done online, immediately, which is cool. And, if you’re eagle-eyed, you might just spot the little thing that makes it perfect for me…

…One of the licensing options is the Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike Creative Commons license. Sweeeeet. So I can download the albums, listen to them, copy them, make CDs of them for my parents to listen to in their cars, and potentially a host of other non-commercial things - bounded only by my imagination. So I’ve licensed over 50 albums from them at the last count, and I listen to them all the time. Totally legitimately, and not even a tiny voice of moral doubt in my head. And how much does it cost to license them this way? Zero. Nadda. Completely free - and that’s one of the best things about Creative Commons licenses.

Soon, I’ll start mentioning my favourite albums here - but if you want a quick recommendation, I couldn’t do better than to point you towards my all-time favourite “The Depths of a Year” by Ehren Starks. Enjoy.