Another Simuze compilation

We just released another eclectic music compilation with twelve Creative Commons licensed songs together with Mindz.com . The songs range from lounge-like electronics to R ‘n B and from dirty garage rock to indie pop. You can download this release directly (50MB zip) or have a look at the homepage where you can also find our previous free, gratis Creative Commons licensed compilations. I hope you’ll enjoy the music!

From the press release:

The Dutch open music platform Simuze released another free music compilation to promote its artists today. Music lovers can enjoy the twelve eclectic tracks on Mindz Music vol. 1 – the first collaboration with the new Dutch social network MINDZ.com – selected from the varied offer of Creative Commons licensed music on the platform. This is an excellent opportunity for those who’s Dutch is a bit rusty to experience some lovely music from the Lowlands. Anyone can legally download the compilation for free – including artwork and English documentation– in a zip file from: http://www.simuze.nl/live/download.php

 About Simuze.org:

Simuze.org is an on-line music platform for musicians and music lovers, based in the Netherlands. The goal is to combine the essential need of musicians to spread their music with the possibilities to distribute content through the Internet, in order to gain the much-needed exposure to promote their music. Simuze acknowledges and embraces the fact we live in a digital age that offers new creative possibilities, where people are used to discovering and exchanging music for free on the Internet. Because of this, all music on the platform is distributed under a Creative Commons license, which allows musicians to declare that the music they have uploaded to the website – under certain optional conditions – can be copied, remixed and shared for free, on a legal basis.

 

Since the launch of Simuze.org – in July 2005 – over 400 artists have uploaded more than 1500 songs. The music available on the platform ranges from obscure avant-garde experiments to finalists and winners of prestigious Dutch music contests. With over 100,000 unique visitors on a monthly basis, Simuze is becoming an important channel for Dutch musicians to promote themselves. At the moment the platform is still in its public beta stage, but in 2008 a new version of Simuze will be launched. This version will include a huge increase in functionality and usability for both musicians and music lovers, and also a beautiful new design.

Downloading is not the same as stealing

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/soRDTbkZSM0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

You probably have had the same experience as I had with legally purchased DVD’s. Before you can watch the movie, you’re forced to watch an anti-piracy advertisement propaganda. I never really understood this. Why are you trying to indoctrinate those that actually bought the film legally? It seems to miss the point completely. C’mon I already bought the film, don’t bother me with propaganda otherwise I’ll download the movie, which is usually:

• cheaper (ISP account + power)
• quicker (the more popular, the faster a download works, at least using Bitorrent)
• more convenient (no need for leaving the house to visit a store)
• no silly DVD-region encoding or other lame artificial digital rights restrictions

Writing the above makes me wonder why I bother to buy films at all?

Anyway, some people decided to create an answer to the over the top, stupid and annoying anti-piracy propaganda and created a short film (view it above this post in crappy YouTube galore or download it using bittorrent) which ridiculous the rhetoric of ‘downloading equals stealing’ dogma.

In case you wonder why downloading is not the same as stealing: downloading a film or music does not mean that I take away your film or music. The metaphor of physical objects versus digital information does not work. Period. You can make unlimited copies from a digital work without quality degrading between copies. In fact it would be hard to tell which is the copy and which is the original. Perhaps cloning would be a better word to describe this process?

Some food for thought….at least for me

DRM bad idea….no really!?

‘DRM was a bad idea’.

That’s the title of an article of the Dutch website / magazine Emerce. It is a quote of entertainment lawyer Fred E. Goldring of Goldring, Hertz & Lichtenstein who apperently said this during a panel at CES in Las Vegas yesterday.

It seems that not that many news outlets have picked this yet (or search engines haven’t updated their indeces yet) as I could only find one other article. This time in English (see here ). In this article the exact quote is:

Goldring added, “DRM was a terrible idea from the consumer’s point of view, but it did help the music space evolve.” The fact about music, he said, is that the industry is competing against “free.”

source: Betanews 2007

Interestingly this is the same person who said in 2004:

“People used to bitch that you can’t compete with free,” Ken Hertz of Goldring Hertz, Lichtenstein and Haft LLP, which represents artists and has lobbied for the universal licensing of content for use on the net.

“Now everyone has accepted that you can compete with free, offering something that is better than free.”

source: BBC NEWS 2004

Apperently offering paying customers songs encumbered with DRM or suing music fans with lawsuits is not the way to get or keep customers. Let alone competing with ‘free’. It took ‘em almost four years, but at least it did ‘help the music space evolve’. Yeah, right.

At least the music industry seems to finally take small steps in a more positive innovative direction. Something they should have done at the beginning. Let’s hope other industries will learn a lot quicker and don’t even start with DRM, although some people in European politics clearly did not get the memo.

Sign the petition and make sure the politicians get the memo!  Stop DRM once and for all.