artists in the creative commons

[pafufta816]

recently i found out something i was unaware of, that the knife's newest album "tommorow in a year" (which is just an amazing album) is in the creative commons. i was very pleased to see this type of move by such a well known artist. for those of you who are not familiar, creative commons is a license for works which encourages; sharing, free-distribution, and the right to use the product however you wish (remix, file-sharing, editing, sampling, etc.) granted you do it for a noncommercial purpose and cite the original license of the work. this does not negate the artists ability to produce physical copies for sale, as the knife do not offer this album for free but instead use regular cd/digital distribution.

we all know about nine inch nails and radioheads contributions to the realm of CC's. i thought it'd be interesting to list good CC resources, artists and releases here. i am not encouraging file sharing but please be aware that works in under CC license are in fact legal to download and share, as this is intended to promote a free and open landscape for arts to flourish in. to put it another way, the following albums i am listing are entirely legal to download however you can find them, i will not link to them, but i would encourage you to pay for them if the option is available from the artist.

some good, recent albums done under CC license;

the knife - tommorow in a year and all remixes/singles (any derivative work such as a remix or edit of a CC work must also be of the same license, so the portable remix of seeds is also public domain)
nine inch nails - ghosts and the slip
how to destroy angels - s/t
radiohead - in rainbows
christopher willits - the song "colors shifting" from the album surf boundaries was dedicated to the public domain


if anyone knows of some other artists whom are working in the public domain/CC realm please post here. also some great links for educating and learning about CC

http://creativecommons.org/ - legal info and up to date news on CC. great place to go to find out about contributing your works to the public domain, provides legal documentation for licensing your works as well
http://ccmixter.org/ - a vast website of resources, all public domain. contains samples and sample packs of anything you could dream of, free releases from artists, remix competitions from unsigned artists as well as well known artists (such as christopher willits or dj vadim). please check this site out if you are a producer and in need of samples, they provide a huge and extremely valuable service, for free, to artists and producers.