<nettime> Announcing the Free Music Archive

[David Mandl <dmandl@panix.com>]

The Free Music Archive is a social music website built around a  
curated library of free, legal audio.  It's spearheaded by WFMU, but  
the freeform radio station is just one of several major curators  
collaborating on this project.  WFMU is joined by fellow radio  
stations like KEXP (Seattle), webcasters like DUBLAB (Los Angeles),  
netlabels (Comfort Stand), venues (ISSUE Project Room), and amazing  
online collectives like CASH Music.

Inspired by Creative Commons and the open source software movement,  
the FMA provides a legal and technological framework for curators,  
artists, and listeners to harness the potential of music sharing.   
Every artist page will have a bio and links to the artist's home page  
for users to learn more about the music they discover via the Free  
Music Archive.  We also seek to compensate artists directly.  Artist,  
album, and song profiles will contain links to buy the full album from  
the artist and/or label’s preferred vendor(s).  Users can also “tip”  
an artist if they like what they hear, sending a donation directly to  
the artists’ PayPal account.  Artist profiles include tour dates,  
encouraging users to step away from the glowing computer screen and  
see some real live music.

While the Free Music Archive is free and open to anyone regardless of  
registration or other requirements, written and audio content is  
curated, and permission to upload/edit content is granted on an  
invitation basis.

The Free Music Archive is made possible by a grant from the New York  
State Music Fund.  The NYSMF was established by the New York State  
Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors with settlements  
from Eliot Spitzer's investigations into the practice of “payola” or  
“pay for play” by major recording and broadcasting companies.

More info:

http://freemusicarchive.org/about

--
Dave Mandl
dmandl@panix.com
davem@wfmu.org
http://www.wfmu.org/~davem


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