http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,61282,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

Loca Records wants to foster experimentation and freedom in music by building a stable of free music which can be shared, remixed and manipulated by anyone. Songs are not locked by digital rights management technology.

The music is available for free in MP3 format, but the company sells its CDs and vinyl in retail stores throughout Europe. Artists earn a percentage of any record sales; Loca Records makes its money through record sales, gigs it promotes and merchandise.

"You're free to copy it, give it to your friends and you can play it. If you're really interested, you can sample it and then re-release it," said David Berry, managing director of Loca Records and an artist himself, known as Meme.

"I do worry that copyright is getting out of control. This gives us an opportunity to create a new culture and a new sound. If we are greedy and we lock down our culture now, there will be nothing for the next generation," Berry said.

The company has published the work of six musicians so far. In January, it will release its first album complete with added music source code, including samples, MIDI files, the score, drum sounds, any text files and the arrangement itself.

Complete story at Wired

I've gotta look into this more, sounds pretty cool though.

Whoo Hoo(alexandertheegreat does a victory dance)
2 first posts in one day!!!

"The company has published the work of six musicians so far."

Not exactly earth-shaking.

Yeah, but you gotta start somewhere.

yes you gotta start somewhere, and this is a good somewhere who knows it could take off in a totaly cool way.

It's a good business model to show the industry that it can work. The only problem is that it takes the CONTROL away from the label which is what the industry doesn't want.

But is this quality music? I am not asking for myself, I am just wondering if the content is such that it can be a successful model.

Quality of content is paramount to success.

good question

But what is considered "quality" music, I can call something my nephew listens to as garbage but than he could love it. I can listen to DMX on my cable at home through my entertainment center and then come to work and accept listening to internet radio and not complain. So quality is not something you can stick a label on, because we learn to adapt to the "quality" offered to us good or bad, eg: riaa music... (we have just gotten tired of the press-on-nail style of music)

I for one am glad that someone is trying to offering what we want, free music to do with what we want. To me it is like the ballads of old, one person sings a song of something or someone great and passes it on to be changed, added to or things taken away etc.

"Artists earn a percentage of any record sales; Loca Records makes its money through record sales, gigs it promotes and merchandise."

In case anyone didn't notice this part, the company is taking a cut of the live shows and merchandise. This has been touted as the "new model" by some big companies too. Robbie Williams has the same contract - I think his company is EMI and they take a cut of touring and merchandise.

gigs they promote....

What if Robbie Williams does his own tour without the labels help? or another promoter? unless they have a clause in his contract that EMI alone can arriange his public apearances there's a way around it. if they have a clause like that then the stranglehold is even worse than before

Maybe only 6 artists here, but it is not a new or an exclusive idea; if anything, certainly among certain genres of music, it is a trend. For example, back last August OpSound announced exactly this sort of music sharing: It is a kind of laboratory for looking at how artists can release music in a manner synergistic with the internet's capacity to encourage communication and sharing When I posted that, I did hear from Loca, and also gave them my theory as to why I heard of their initiative long after I'd heard of OpSound (in fact, they had to tell me themselves) and that lesson is one which tends to be overlooked by a lot of these collaborative creation initiatives -- if you don't tell anyone, nobody will know.

So far as I know, the CreativeCommons was the first place to announce the successful release of a collaborative MP3 forged by musicians who never met; the initial guitar track was downloaded, embellished, remixed and reposted many times now, although, for my personal tastes, the experiment is far more interesting conceptually than in the result, but hey, it's a first try, you gotta give 'em a break.

for the curious:

About OpSound: http://www.teledyn.com/mt/archives/001177.html
Commons Jam: http://www.teledyn.com/mt/archives/001101.html

Tours cost serious money, that's why it almost always comes out of the royalties to be paid to the artists. Not all tours make money, even the big name artists lose money on tours.

Merchandising is the key revenue maker on tours and in general for labels.

If I was a music company I would give the artists the album sales money and try to get as much of the merchandising as possible. As incentive for the band to put out quality material I would tie a small share of the merchandising sales to the record sales. But most of the money made on tours is for the vendors. Tours mostly generate revenue for the artists/labels in merchandising and exposure/album sales.

We promoted a concert in Hawaii for a charity, raised a very respectable amount for them too. But the beer, food and soda vendors made over 10x what the event brought in. The cool part was the drink vendors gave 50% of the profits to the charity as well.

This really is momentous news. Not because Loca Records and their 6 acts will necessarily revolutionize the industry alone, but theirs is one alternative model that can work. They're not the only one. Many new business models will probably crop up. Some will die off. Some will survive.

But what's really cool is a combination of a few things.

First, copyright laws will likely get more & more restrictive for a while. Second, companies like Loca Records will start to compete promoting free sharing. Third, big music industry "product" sucks and will continue to get worse. Last: The real talent and new innovations in music will come from indies and those who participate in the new business models.

Put it all together, and which kind of music do YOU think the public will flock to? Crap that costs an arm & a leg that you can't copy and isn't portable, or good music at reasonable prices that is portable and you can copy?

The RIAA's days are most definitely numbered.
~zippy