vosotros: music for you-all

For the last several months, I have been working closely with Gabe Noel to develop our contribution to the tumultuous world of online music. Initially we set out to start our own record label, however, the more we examined the reality of digital music and the changing face of the industry, it was clear that we needed to take a different approach.

I met Gabe in 7th grade Spanish class in Chicago, where by comes the origin of our name. Vosotros is a Spanish verb conjugation roughly meaning “you-all.” But since it is only used in Spain, the vosotros form was always ignored, which quickly became an ongoing joke between us.

The dynamic of our relationship is as follows: as a multi-instrumentalist and composer, Gabe has an endless supply of musical ideas - it is my job to help synthesize these ideas and make them accessible to you-all. Early on in the project, we had discussed releasing a compilation of Gabe performing across a variety of genres. This idea eventually led us to our current focus: a live monthly showcase (vosotros presents: live@land) and a complimentary podcast (vosotros presents: the lazy susan).

Each month, Gabe forms a new band among friends. They record a song together for the podcast and then perform for the first time at that month’s show in Little Tokyo. Each of these songs are released with a non-commerical, attribution, share-alike Creative Commons license and are available for free download from our website and via iTunes. Additionally, every band that performs at LAND releases a song through the Lazy Susan as accoutrement. Our hard work on this aspect of the project has been rewarding and has served to build a small community of vosotros supporters.

Although we will continue to support the podcast and live@land concert series, we are preparing our first full-length release as a label: Quiet Orchestra. Quiet Orchestra is a 12+ piece electric ensemble. The group came together for the first time in early March, recording a full album over the course of two days. The project will be released digitally later this summer and will include both music and film. As we discussed heavily in class, the biggest challenge will be trying to balance the promotional benefits that Creative Commons provides with the reality that the project is also available for sale. Cory has shown it can work for books - and I intend to make it work for music.

White Paper on SCA Copyright Policy

For my end of the year project I wrote a white paper critiquing USC School of Cinematic Arts' (SCA) copyright policy (found here - PDF) as it represents a non-academic and corporate approach to content ownershipthat is detrimental to both SCA students and SCA itself.

The white paper (PDF) focuses on understanding SCA's current policy, why it must change its IP policy on a very basic level, and finally why adopting Creative Commons licences presents SCA and it its students with a myriad of positive outcomes. The paper contains important information that isn't discussed on a regular basis with the SCA student body, hopefully acts as a valuable resource for these students in helping them contextualize their rights to ownership.

If you guys agree ideologically, please don't forget to sign the petition online asking SCA to change their policy.

Edwards and Obama Request Creative Commons licensing for Democratic Debates

Lawyer, academic, and Creative Commons founder Larry Lessig posts Obama's request to the DNC for public domain/CC licensing for the debates, then posts John Edwards' letter roughly 12-hours later.

UPDATE: BoingBoing blogged on the decision that "CNN debate coverage will be made available without restrictions at the conclusion of each live debate." No word yet as to what video file formats they're planning on using.

Creative Commons Internships

There are two great sounding internships up for grabs at Creative Commons this summer. One is in Technology and one is in Media+Community Development. Both sound absolutely amazing. Applications are due March 1st, so if you want in, get cracking.

jam + crescendo = jamendo

jamendo is one of several new sites attempting to flip the script on the gasping, grasping music industry by providing free, Creative Commons-licensed music to a community of listeners who can donate and support artists that they like. jamendo's unique distribution system minimizes their bandwidth overhead by providing album downloads via BitTorrent and eMule. Much of the site content reflects its French origin, but there's an honest effort to globalize the site by encouraging translation and narrow-by-language options. As an electronica fan with few options in a narrowing media environment, I was honestly surprised by the quality of electronic music being presented on the site.

From the Jamendo FAQ for Artists:

"Why put my music online for free? That is the most important point, also the most obvious! To convince you, we let yourself answer to these questions [sic]:
What is the share that an artist has on its CD sales?
How many artists can really make a living from the sales of their albums, without making concerts?
Among general public, how many young people still buy CDs?"

Booyeah.