Monday, March 08, 2004

Notes from a non-evil record label Notes from a non-evil record label. John Buckman, the founder of the Creative Commons-licensed music-label Magnatune, has a very good blog where he talks about the trials and tribulations of running a record label that is non-evil. I received two great African music CDs recently. These are musicians from Africa, recording in London. However, I can't accept that CD for Magnatune, because the recording is totally owned by a producer in London, who would then receive all the sales royalties, and none would go to the actual performers. This situation, where the recording company or producer owns all the rights to an album, is the norm in world music... Basically, I'm not willing to have Magnatune prop up the "world musician gives up all his rights to his recordings" system which mostly exists today, and that philosophy limits what I can sign (and also what gets submitted). But, like "free trade coffee" I think people expect Magnatune to do this "fairness audit" on their behalf, and trust that half the money from their purchasers really does go to the musician. Link (Thanks, Christopher!) [Boing Boing Blog] 7:33:27 AM  comment []    trackback []

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