[linux-audio-user] Free Music Factory

[Rob]

On Wed March 15 2006 13:30, Juhana Sadeharju wrote:
> We could have an organized community where volunteer musicians
> make music similar to the top commercial songs. When the idea
> works, one may get top pop music for free.

I don't mean to be mean, but this idea makes me throw up a 
little.  You may have noticed that a lot of free software 
designed to copycat popular proprietary software has been paid 
for by corporations (the most obvious example being Openoffice, 
but also Mozilla during its time as an AOL property, Linspire 
nee Lindows, and Xgl at Novell.)  I think the same is true of 
commercial music; corporations pay for copycat songs, and the 
performers and producers do it for a paycheck, not to scratch 
their own artistic itch as producers of free music do.  The only 
function I could see this serving would be "Look how close to X 
my music is without infringing upon it.... hire me and I'll do 
more of it for you."

That, and I don't think most free musicians have bimbos and 
Autotune at their disposal, both necessary for the creation of 
generic soundalike pop music.  (I would mention hip-hop too, but 
that's way too personality-oriented to try to copycat.)

Finally, if your scheme were to succeed, it would only be 
competition to unsigned "house musicians", not pop stars or the 
recording industry, because companies that needed pop music for 
use in their TV shows or commercials would just use the 
CC-licensed stuff rather than keep paying the house musicians. 

> We need this kind of alternative way of making free music.
> For example, the recent free music CD announced here at LAU
> simply sucks. I don't know why.

While I haven't heard anything on the free music CD, I don't 
really think you'll make a lot of headway by telling people 
their music sucks.  I'm just saying.

Rob