Chris pointed me to this promising upcoming documentary about ‘punk rock’ culture in the nineties, can’t wait to see the whole thing:
If ‘Grunge’ died in 1994 with the death of Kurt, Punk was now the biggest musical style in the world and was reborn into a new body through the likes of Green Day, The Offspring, Blink 182, Bad Religion and the hordes of successful bands on indie labels like NOFX, Pennywise and Rancid. This film documents the 90’s incarnation of ‘punk rock’ from the dark days of the mid 80’s to the resurgence of the East Bay punk scene, the Socal surf and skate movement to the eventual start of the Warped Tour. We follow the stories of the artists, labels, managers and producers that were part of punk rocks most successful time period… Ever.
Following the example of the Dutch post-rock band We vs. Death, the Danish singer/producer Tone, and more recently the one-and-only Nine Inch Nails, the Dutch punk band Antillectual will release their second album Testimony (2008) under a Creative Commons license (BY-NC-SA). Although Antillectual is still pretty unknown in the Netherlands, their approach - and tour schedule - reveals a band that looks beyond boundaries. The band has already played numerous shows throughout Europe and the United States, and will release Testimony in Japan and the United States later this year.
The day before yesterday the Danish record label Urlyd claimed to have been the first to release a physical album under a Creative Commons license. The album Small Arm of Sea (2008) by singer/producer Tone will simultaneously be available as a deluxe CD/DVD or old-fashioned vinyl and as a free and legal download. The physical editions of the album also have the words “Copy this album for your friends, please!” printed on them. This all has been made possible by using a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license and the support of KODA. This Danish music copyright collecting society will take care of the commercial exploitation of the music.
A great example of how free distribution of music can be combined with commercial exploitation! It also shows how online rhetoric is influencing the offline world and our society and culture in general.
For the Dutch readers, I would however like to refer to some controversyabout Urlyd claiming the first physical release under a Creative Commons license.
It almost seems that even the – normally utterly ignorant – Big Four understand the ‘problem’ of media piracy better than the European Union. While as we speak all major record labels have decided to give up on DRM, EU commissioner Viviane Reding has announced the plan to create a single European-wide market for online media content protected by a “truly interoperable, consumer friendly DRM system”. I think most people who know something about DRM will agree this plan is outdated, unfriendly to EU citizens and simply deemed to fail. DRM is defective by design!
To help remind the EU that DRM died in 2007, please sign this open letter!
