As reported at BoingBoing (thanks John), Trent Reznor of NIN has released a GarageBand wrap of a forthcoming song. The 70 meg download opens directly into GarageBand. The terms of the license (which you’ve got to accept to play) aren’t too bad. Not the share-cropper culture (the star owns the remixes) that the lawyers for some icons have insisted upon (Mr. Bowie, e.g.) — NIN permits sharing of the remixes, though not for commercial purposes. Would be very cool, however, were the expressions of freedom expressible in a machine-readable form, and in a license that others could combine other content with, say, in a friendster-like application made for music.
“Not the share-cropper culture that some icons have imposed (the star owns the remixes) (Mr. Bowie, e.g.)“
As Michael Tiemann would say – Esse Quam Videri Mr. Bowie…
The earliest example of something like this I can think of would be Todd Rundgren’s The Individualist, which I’ve never owned or even had a copy of to toy with. Can someone knowledgeable compare the two efforts? I’d be fascinated.
Moby did something similar in the early nineties with “Everytime You Touch Me”. I’m not certain what the license arrangement was however.
I also recall a story about Limp Bizket soliciting “riffs” at an outdoor event a few years ago under the guise of a guitarist search. Without researching the information, I believe that participants waived all rights to their creations in order to take part. I had heard that several of these pieces made it onto the band’s next album, gratis of course.
A quick Google search turns up this account of the story.
George Clinton’s been publishing stuff since 1993 that you’re free to remix for non-commercial uses, and that’s cheap to use commercially.
Check out the Wired article Hey Man… Smell My Sample. Is Clinton’s quote the origin of Lessig’s use of “share-cropper”?
It is totally cool. A lot of people have been asking why nin.com aren’t running a fan remix competition – it’s because the NIN Hotline are running one instand. We’re closely linked with nin.com, and we have a bunch of prizes (vinyl, stickers, etc) up for grabs for the best remix. Seems to be pretty popular, especially now there’s a torrent of raw .AIFF files for folks on Windows/*nix/old Mac’s to download and convert. I think the last count was 116 remixes. Which, in less than a week, isn’t half bad.
It’s not the only thing that Trent’s doing that’s net based. He’s well aware of the fanbase on the net, so he’s making a PDF file downloadable once the album goes on sale (May 2nd/3rd) with extended artwork inside. The album artwork is pretty minimal – he’s said he gets frustrated with the jewel case format – so he decided to take the majority of it out and make it available for everyone to download instead.
Pretty interesting stuff IMO.
A small point with regard the idea that you have to “accept [the license] to play” is that clicking on a button should not be construed as a sign of acceptance. It often is, but it shouldn’t.