Sunday 30th October 2005
Creative Commons and robotic voices
Here’s an email I sent to Magnatune today about their recent change to the Creative Commons downloads they offer. I’ll let you know if I get a response.
For years now I’ve been licensing Magnatune albums under the Creative Commons license. I think it’s a wonderful idea, and I presume from your page on it, you think so too:
http://magnatune.com/info/openmusic
I’ve been promoting magnatune to my friends and family for years. I play your music at houseparties. I write about you on my weblog. I’ve made the occaisional CD for my parents, and written on the label that it’s from magnatune and that it’s fully licensed. I mention you every time someone is talking about music downloads. All in the spirit of the Creative Commons.
http://www.gravitystorm.co.uk/shine/index.php?s=magnatune&submit=Search
(I would also hand out your cards, but I keep emailing you asking for them, and still haven’t got any.)
But now you’ve stuck the robot voices in your creative commons licensed music. That sucks. I can see why you want to do it for your radio feeds, but messing with the Creative Commons stuff is just silly. I want to listen to creative commons music. I don’t want your music under normal terms and conditions; for me, it’s very important that it’s creative commons. It’s what I believe in, and I thought you did too.
Still, I can use the creative commons license to strip the speech out of the tracks, and then use them as I normally do – that’s the benefit of the license you use. But it seems silly to make me have to do that.
Please, please, reconsider degrading the creative commons idea like this.
How about supporting the company that supports the Commons? Magnatune is a business; in Utopia, people try, then buy, but in reality, there are enough freeloaders around that Magnatune can’t just give away music and still be successful. At least, not successful enough to support the artists they sign and to challenge other record companies that are still relying on outdated business models.
Magnatune is working on replacing the robot voice with a human voice, which should be nicer. The voice helps people identify the music and encourages them to buy. You see it as a degradation of the commons; I see it as a way to ensure they can continue to build the commons by offering full tracks for non-commercial use. The alternative? Copy the other online music sellers: 30 second previews, DRM, no choice over audio format or bitrate, reduced rights and royalties for artists, etc.
Comment by Nathan Jones — 3/11/2005 @ 1:56 am
(Sorry about the moderation)
I do support the company, but not (yet?) financially. In a similar way to supporting free/open source software by doing things other than giving the project a donation.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and there’s more than one alternative to way the rest of the music industry works.
And in my Utopia, only scarce resources are allocated by markets.
Comment by Andy — 3/11/2005 @ 10:35 am