Why Free Music?

I explain why I place my music under a copyleft license,
and give a Free compact disc to everyone I meet.

November 9, 2007

Copyright © 2007 Michael David Crawford.
Why Free Music? by Michael David Crawford is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

I don't charge money for my music -- recordings or scores -- and have placed it under the "Free-as-in-Freedom" Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License so more people can get to know my music than would be possible if I sold it, or restricted copying. I actually give a Free compact disc to everyone I meet!

Music makes us human: in its creation, we can laugh, cry, celebrate and mourn. We can love and hate. We can allow our souls to soar. Music speaks to the very core of our sense of Freedom.

Drying The Ink On My Compact Discs

Furthermore, setting my music Free is The Right Thing to Do. I am inspired by Richard Stallman and his Free Software movement; my music is "Free" as in "Free Speech" rather than "free beer." It's a matter of liberty and not price.

It's risky. Musicians have to eat. I plan to earn my keep by selling tickets to my shows, as well as T-shirts, posters, and other tokens of our mutual love of music. I hope that by making my music available to you for Free, you can learn to love it as I do, and will be there to attend my performances when the time comes:

I have studied piano intensively for several years, preparing to enroll in music school to study musical composition. I want to write symphonies!

The Recording Industry Association of America has threatened thousands with lawsuits for sharing music over the Internet. But it's important to understand that, in America anyway, our Founding Fathers created copyright to benefit all of society, not merely copyright holders.

The framers of the US Constitution intended "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" by granting creative people temporary monopolies. But I feel that the power of computers and the Internet to send digital works, created in love, completely and faithfully anywhere on Earth, at near-zero cost, outweighs by far the benefit to society of work created in order to gain copyright's monopoly. So enjoy this music, and pass it along to your friends.

I love my music, so I set it Free. If music loves me it will return, all the greater for its freedom.

The Internet Revolution and Free Music

By mumble

I asked for comments on my rough draft of "Why Free Music?" in several Internet forums. A Kuro5hin member named mumble - like myself a "Dirty GNU Hippy" as Free Software advocates are known - contributed a complete rewrite.

I added "Why Free Music?" to my compact disc jewel case insert, to explain to those who receive my CD why I'm giving it to them. The final draft you see is quite similar to my first draft. It was a tough call for me, whether my case insert should have the above piece, or mumble's rather more dramatic take below. In the end, I decided to print "Why Free Music?" on my case inserts, but to post mumble's piece on my website here as well. -- Mike

The advent of the Internet and the Web sparked a revolution - the Information Revolution.

No longer is information difficult and expensive to copy - virtually unlimited amounts of information can now be copied and distributed at near zero cost. This is the revolution inspired by Gutenberg's Press magnified a thousand fold!

In this new age, copyright seems quaint and redundant. There are stall-warts, many of them big and powerful! They are the ones that made their money the old way. But their time has come, and gone. It is our turn now. Music is culture, our culture, that should be shared freely by all, not locked behind high walls, leased out to only those that can pay the ransom.

But I am only one, and the most I can do is humbly share my music. Please listen to my music, and share it with everyone you wish.

Who knows, maybe one day I will become famous and write great symphonies. And you will already know my name.

- Michael Crawford.