Deep Hub

Following the free, creative commons-licensed release of “The Slip”, Nine Inch Nails went on tour. They planned to make a DVD of the concert, but the video production company pulled out at the last minute, leaving Trent no other option but to allow video cameras into the arena for the last few shows of the tour.

Afterward, NIN unofficially released video and audio from the soundboard for those shows as torrents on the Internet, and a group of fans got together to start editing the DVD together. They’re producing discs as regular DVDs and Blu-Ray, printing, packaging and shipping them for free. Trent Rezor gave away an album, and now his fans are showing him how much they appreciated it.

The fan site is called This One Is On Us, and though the DVDs are not yet ready, they have created torrents for the audio portion in 320 Kb MP3 and FLAC format.

See the trailer for the DVD:

We learned via SXSW Baby! (related story including interview) that musician Moby has made a collection of music available for free to filmmakers. Details:

‘film music’, is for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short. the music is free as long as it’s being used in a non-commercial or non-profit film, video, or short.

There’s quite a lengthy form to fill out for each track you want to use with lots and lots of checkboxes to cover all eventualities. If you want to use any of the otherwise free music in a commercial project, you’ll be making a donation to the humane society. That’s not so bad.

(image source)

In the early morning of May 5, 2008, Nine Inch Nails once again made history by releasing an entire album of previously-unheard songs (except for “Discipline”) for free. It’s completely free. They’re not even asking for donations. Trent Reznor, the band’s principal architect, explained it this way:

(thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years – this one’s on me)

What’s more, the entire work is released under a Creative Commons license (Attribution, Non-commercial, share-alike) which basically means you can do anything you want with it, provided you don’t charge anybody for the pleasure of listening to whatever you create with it. If Creative Commons is new to you, I encourage you to read more about it.

The source files used in the album are available at remix.nin.com. Enjoy!

Adrian McEwen, a fan of the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) Conference, took it upon himself to put together a DVD of some of his favorite TED talks. Since more than 200 TED talks are available under a Creative Commons license, Adrian was free to do so, and we think that’s way cool.

Adrian’s goal was to make the talks more accessible to a non-geeky audience. A Taste of TED on DVD was just launched a couple of days ago, and given the way that torrents work, you’ll want to jump on the bandwagon sooner rather than later. I’ll hereby commit to seeding it for at least a week.

What’s more, Adrian remembered to make both an NTSC and a PAL version. It’s important to acknowledge your international audience.

I just found out about two huge sources of free audio samples licensed Creative Commons (Attribution, Commercial works allowed):

• More than 10 GB of sound samples created for the One Laptop Per Child project, but available to everyone (About / Torrent). Includes music cues and sound effects.
• Roughly 3 GB of “tempo-based sample library of synthetic loops” by Matthew Davidson, whose work also shows up in the OLPC sample library (About / Torrent).

Stephen Fry (wikipedia entry) is a legendary entertainer with a lot to say. He’s been in the (mostly British) public eye for the last 25 years and has started podcasting his thoughts in what he calls “Stephen Fry’s Podgrams”. He’s eloquent, funny, succinct, and he doesn’t want me to link to his web site.

The terms of use of his web site, managed by The Sampsonian Co Pty Ltd (trading as Stewart and Sampson) and their licensors, specifically forbid me from creating a link to any part of his web site without express permission.

You can get to it from the Wikipedia link above, though. They’re not afraid to “break the law” in the name of creating a working Internet.

I’ve sent an e-mail to the Sampsonians, asking if they are serious about forbidding such free publicity. I’ll let you know how they respond.

“Let the wiki win” is what the man said by way of announcing the wiki dedicated to himself.

It’s this kind of brief geeky poetry which has garnered him such a large, dedicated following. Not only was it smart for the “geek rocker” to create a wiki (most of his fans have been taking an active role in making him famous for years, already), but because he understands his audience, he made a Star Wars pun to get their attention. Bravo.

Musician and music distribution pioneer Trent Reznor last night released the new single from an upcoming album. It’s called “Discipline”, and is available for free right now. There’s no official word on the copyright situation of the song (“Ghosts”, released just a few weeks ago, is Creative Commons), but the raw audio is available for remixing.

The MP3 metadata includes the comment, “Go to www.nin.com May 5″, so there’s a very good chance a full album will be available that day.