Magnatune blog

CC article I wrote goes to press, other Magnatune press sightings

An article I recently wrote entitled "Using the Creative Commons in the Real World" went to newstands today. This article appears in the March 2005 issue of Five Eight Magazine. Five Eight a music industry trade magazine based in London.

The article can be read online here.

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Podcasting news has an interview with me about how Magnatune thinks podcasting is a great thing. Read it here

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UK-based music business analysts Music Ally profile Magnatune in their industry newsletter. Read it here

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Internet Radio Show "The Revolution" interviewed me recently and featured several songs by Magnatune artists. You can hear the interview here.

Jamendo: a p2p & mp3 music site

I received a nice email from Laurent Kratz, who runs Jamendo, an interesting web site hosting independent musician's music. Their idea is to let musicians upload their albums and album artwork, and let others download the music via P2P networks, as well as previewing the music as mp3 streams.

Instead of charging the artists (or visitors) for use, the site is advertising supported, both with google adwords-based ads on the left column, and with ads on the free mp3 stream preview.

The site is clean and refreshingly not over-designed. Jamendo is based in Luxembourg, with users typing reviews in French and English, which makes for a fun world-mixed community.

London Restaurant is "Not Evil"

If you've worked in the restaurant business, you may be aware that some restaurants take all the "tips" for themselves, or in other cases, take a percentage of the tip total.

I was amused to find the concept of a "not evil" restaurant here in London.

In London, many restaurants add a 12% service charge. What's interesting is that this restaurant explicitly states that the tip amount goes to the staff, not the restaurant. This is very much the concept of "not evil" that goes into Magnatune's "50% goes to the musician", as opposed to "buy this CD, maybe the musician will get paid, but maybe not".

If you're in London and visiting the Holborn area, eat at "Cigala", a charming rustic-Italian restaurant on Lamb's Conduit.