Lemonz Dream Blog

Magnatune is a record label with the motto We Are Not Evil. Based in Berkeley, California, it is the perfect antithesis of the trigger happy lawyer toting RIAA label. It is a strange one, as far as record labels go, but in a very good way. Some of many interesting facts about Magnatune:

• You can preview all of the music in its complete entirety without paying a single dime for as long as you want. In fact, you can use it as an online radio while you work.
• When you do want to buy the music, you can choose the price.
• Half of what you pay goes directly to the artist.
• You can get the music in one of these DRM-free formats: WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC, and in a rootkit-free CD.
• Good Music.
• You can podcast their music without paying a cent. Use it as an intro, outro, or segway music.

The last bullet-point is the raison d’être for this post. It may be old news to some of you, but all of the 5487 tracks by 206 different artists under Magnatune are Creative Commons licensed. This is a good deal for both the podcaster and the artist. Magnatune is an underdog in the music industry, but it is a company that totally gets the changes coming with the digital era and this podcast loving attitude is just one example of many.

There is an IT Conversations interview that I recommend with the Magnatune founder John Buckman here. He explains in depth how Magnatune is different from traditional labels and gives us his insight on how the music industry is changing in this digital era. It was interesting for me because I am also a producer of digital content and his perspective on things is refreshing. I sincerely hope that ventures like his succeed in taking a huge chunk of the business away from the crap pushing greedy cartel of the Big 5 record companies.

At this point I would like to do a shout out. Mr. Jade Leary is a Magnatune artist and a Podcast Maker user. His album The Lost Art of Human Kindness is the 9th highest valued Magnatune album of all time. So if you are into alt. rock you should definitely listen to Mr. Leary’s music here and check out his podcast here.

Magnatune — Podcast Our Music!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 29th, 2006 at 1:24 am and is filed under Podcasting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.