Hey YouTube! 750 indies have signed their declaration of war

musicthinktank.com

22 points·SquareLaw··3 comments

I'd like music to get distributed via BitTorrent, monetized with Bitcoin, licensed under the Creative Commons, and formatted using open formats without DRM.

That'd be hugely valuable to me. That means I can pay for music that I have control over, that I'm not banned from remixing because of an invisible contract I accept when I listen to the music.

^ this. But what is your plan to make this a reality?

My solution: support bandcamp.com (which gives away DRM-free music).

Bandcamp.com is great. But I also support artists who are releasing work into the Creative Commons or the public domain.

I've also been doing experiments with practice recording and one-off sound files in the vein of Cory Doctorow's 50% as good for much, much cheaper concept. With any luck, I'll have a stand up comedy show to put into the public domain within a year.

I try to boycott anything from the major label studios. (Though I did pay to see Transformers 4 and A Million Ways to Die in the West) For a while I've experimented with a Richard Stallman-esque boycott of any non-free works, that is, anything not in the public domain. Maybe it's my own lack of willpower in this area (I just love Transformers) but I've come to the conclusion that a Stallman-style boycott doesn't work well with culture, because culture is too important.

I want my kids to know the history of the culture they came from. But I also want to give them a culture of freedom and an understanding of the history we've lost as a result of copyright.

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