Eclectic Echoes

Magnatune: We Are Not Evil

Magnatune is a record label. But they want you to know they are not evil. Guess what… they’re right. A record Label that gets it. Magnatune allows you to listen to hundreds of MP3’s from their artists, share them swap them whatever!, they also have genre-based MP3 radio. If you like what your hear, buy the CD album.

50% of the purchase price goes straight to the artist and–You Decide The Price!

They recommend 8$ for an album, but the drop down price selector on the purchase page supports $5–$18 per downloaded album. All the music is also registered on FreeDB. They also offer licensing for commercial use. Genre’s include Classical, Rock, Electronica, World, New Age, and Metal.

So far I’ve listened to samples of Andreas Haefliger (Mozart Piano Sonatas), James Edwards (Baroque guitar), Ehren Starks (piano and cello), Kourosh Zolani (hammer dulcimer), Michael Masley (hammer dulcimer) and Paul Berget (modern interpretations of Renaissance Lute). All of them were very good. Yeah I have some er, Eclectic tastes in music.

To qoute their “The Big Ideas” page:

• all music should be shareware. Just as with software, you want to preview, evaluate, and pass along good music to others–in the process of buying it.
• find a way of getting music from the musician to their audience that’s inexpensive and supports musicians. Otherwise, musical diversity will continue to greatly suffer under the current system where only mega-hits make money.
• musicians need to be in control and enjoy the process of having their music released. The systematic destruction of musician’s lives is unacceptable: musicians are very close to staging a revolution (and some already have).
• creativity needs to be encouraged: today’s copyright system of “all rights reserved” is too strict. We support the Creative Commons “some rights reserved” system, which allows derivative works, sampling and no-cost non-commercial use.

Man they really do get it! RIAA are you listening?