Jonathan Coulton on CC

November 19, 2008 · Lessig

From the CC Blog:

The ever innovative Brooklyn-based singer songwriter Jonathan Coulton has teamed up with Creative Commons to release his greatest hits compilation “JoCo Looks Back” on a 1gb custom Creative Commons jump drive to help support our 2008 campaign. If that weren’t enough, JoCo and CC have also included all of the unmixed audio tracks for every song on the drive. That’s over 700mb of JoCo thing-a-week goodness. Since all of JoCo’s music is released under our Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, this is an incredible opportunity for the public to remix and reuse his fantastic music. Song files are in 320kbps MP3 and unmixed audio tracks are in 256 VBR MP3.

We’ll be offering the drives exclusively at our $50 dollar donation level (and above) until December 31st. Also included are a CreativeCommons.net account, an OpenID identity, and a 2008 campaign sticker.

Jonathan also wrote a wonderful commoner letter speaking on how he, as a musician, uses Creative Commons to support himself and his career. Read it here.

The letter is just about the most moving CC writing I’ve seen.

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Comments

Elise Ackerman says:

November 20, 2008 at 4:28 pm

Please pardon a somewhat of a random question from Remix. On page 38 you write that copyright law forbade a consumer from making 10,000 copies of his or her favorite LP to share with friends. I read this literally and was unable to find it referenced in the copyright statues. Was 10,000 literally the limit? Was it established by case law?

Sam I Am says:

November 20, 2008 at 7:26 pm

Larry, I have only the upmost respect for you. Please don’t set forth Jonathan Coulton as some exemplary paragon of virtue in the realm of Creative Commons. He’s a third rate hack of novelty trash who has no other option but to give it all away. Artists of talent will always require a payment. It’s just right.

And it’s amazing how much crap food folks will actually eat at an “all you can eat” buffet.

Awesome Robot says:

November 21, 2008 at 12:13 am

Dick move, Sam I Am.

As someone who has paid to see JoCo play live, I can tell you he no longer has to give it away to make money. He gave us a free taste, and build a fanbase on goodwill and talent. Sure he may be “novelty”, but in no way is his music third-rate or trash.