Opensonics : Open Music Community News & Copyleft Media Resources

Open Music Search Engines 

Creative Commons Search

Find CC licensed media using Google, Yahoo!, Flickr, Blip.TV, and Owl music search.

DRM Free - Music Search

Allows you to search sites that offer legal, DRM-free music files for purchase or free download.

Free Music! / Música Livre Search Google

A custom built Google search engine from the ccNeLas blog for Open Music.

GarageBand - CC Music Google Search

This example via Google Netherlands searches the GarageBand mp3 music community for music licensed under Creative Commons. Uses the phrase: "This music free to share under a Creative Commons Music" site:garageband.com

GarageBand - Google Search Method

A Google search for Creative Commons music on Garage Band using advanced operators.

Open Media Directory

A clearinghouse for legal, podsafe music and video sources, including Public Domain works, Creative Commons licensed material, Copyleft works and other forms of licensed content. An Ourmedia.org project, this is a good starting point for exploring the wealth of open music sources and grassroots media currently online. The list may be republished and used commercially under the terms of the CC license.

Open Music Search - Google

A Google Custom Search Engine for finding legal media files, news and info about Copyleft, Creative Commons and Public Domain music. You can also add the search box widget to your own Website or Google startpage.

Ourmedia.org - Google Search

Provides options for searching domains ourmedia.org, archive.org, and blip.tv. Useful for hopping between the three, closely supported networks.

Podsafe Content Search

A swicki for finding podsafe resources and works. Useful for finding general information and websites relating to podsafe material and copyleft topics including Creative Commons.

Remix Networks 

Collaborative music-making communities

Artsforge.com MusicForge

MusicForge artists share loops, grooves and musical ideas via the Internet, using programs like Live, Acid, GarageBand and Digital Performer to create songs in a collaborative manner. Completed songs are posted. MusicForge also offers ArtsForge's Ongoing Online MIDI Collaborative. MIDI files are posted and anyone is free to take them and expand them.

BOJAM

An online music collaboration service connecting musicians to mix, record, and collaborate to produce original or popular music.

ccMixter

A community music site and tool for musicians to share ideas and build collaborative music projects. The site features remixes and audio samples licensed under Creative Commons.

Collaboration Central

Provides tools and resources for musicians to meet and collaborate. You get a members web site where you can detail your info and tracks, have a gig calendar and 25MB of free space for your tunes.

Dance-Industries - Download free copyleft MP3 music the right way!

A collection of music services focused on offering artists an integrated digital publishing and label environment, with global exposure to end-users and business markets. Offers: Artists a transparent reselling channel from their art. A music market where audio artists, visual artists, text artists, performers and their fans can meet each other. Artists a transparent reporting & income system. End-users a wide range and massive catalog of artists & songs. B2B an efficient and flexible catalogue for using music professionally.

eJamming AUDiiO

Connect, play and record with thousands of musicians and vocalists worldwide, in real time and in sync. FREE during the Public Beta.

F r e a k y W a v e s - free musician community

Offers a Track 'n' Stack methodology that allows users to compose freely with other users. Creators can upload audio and video projects for other users to build upon. Each project is owned by its Author, who is the person who created the piece by uploading its first file. (English and French language)

GroundZero Project

Social networking, feedback, promotion, and exposure for djs, music producers, artists, record labels and vocalists. Find artists and musicians to collaborate with.

Hobnox - Free Culture Media Network

an online entertainment and publishing platform, a network for creatives and their fans. Artists can present their content to the community, work on projects, collaborate and connect with like-minded artists.

Indaba Music

A place for musicians to find one another, create and remix music, and showcase their work. Record with the online session console, find musicians around the world, and blog about your new creations.

Jamglue

A social remix website with online mixing capabilities via web-based music making app.

Jammers Online Webring List

A cooperative of music sites and musical collaboration sites.

Kompoz.com

A resource for musicians to collaborate on projects with other online musicians. Provides individual project workspaces and supports CC licenses.

MacJams.com - Virtual Band Forum

Mac music community forum for collaborations and networking.

Minimum Noise

A music marketplace that allows you to crowdsource music production. You create a project, describing the kind of music you need and how much you want to pay for it. Producers participate by uploading audio clips that you can evaluate. You choose the one you like, transfer the money and receive the audio

Mix2r.com

A music collaboration site that allows users to upload and share music with the community under Creative Commons licenses.

MixMatchMusic - Evolving Music

A community and online mixing application that helps artists make music with others online, engage fans by bringing them into the creative process, and sell their songs, stems, and riffs.

MyBlogBand - creative music collaboration

Allows you to create virtual bands and collaborate with other musicians online. Listeners can discover new music and comment on productions.

Myna - Audio Editor

An online audio editor that allows you to upload, record, and remix audio clips online. Provides community tools for collaboration and licensing of tracks under Creative Commons.

NetMusicMakers.com

A music community that allows users to create a personalized virtual studio, access royalty-free sounds, sell music and get airplay over a fan-driven multi-channel internet radio network. Musicians can collaborate online, engage fans, and profit from their art.

NINJAM

A free program that allows people to make real music together via the Internet. All participants can hear one another. Each user can also tweak their personal mix to his or her liking. NINJAM is cross-platform, with clients available for Mac OS X and Windows. Supports CC licenses.

OpenMusic - Drupal Social Communities

A network of Drupal myspace like music social communities that interconnect to form a massive universal network.

Open Music Factory

An independent musicians community open to all types of music projects. Musicians collaborate by using the forums to communicate and post audio files. The site advises using CC licenses and uploading via the "ccPublisher tool" to the Internet Archive, although any file hosting service can be used.

RiffWorld - Guitarist Community

An online music collaboration community for RiffWorks%u2122 users. RiffWorks recording software includes automatic track creation, loop recording, guitar-oriented effects, InstantDrummer, professionally recorded drum tracks, RiffLink online collaboration, and RiffCaster instant song posting.

RemixGalaxy - online community for dj's and music enthusiasts

A web community that offers a large inventory of music in multitrack stem format for remixing and the tools you need to customize or remix your favorite songs. It allows you to create cool music, show it off, get feedback from other members and leverage the knowledge base of users to learn more about remixing. Stem packages have two purchase options. The Basic Pack includes 2 stems, an acapella and an instrumental. The Expanded Pack includes 5-8 individual stems covering the major elements of the song. Every package also includes a high quality MP3 (non-DRM) version of the finished song.

SoundCloud - We Move Music

An audio distribution platform for receiving, sending and sharing music. Provides free and Pro options for artists, record labels and other music professionals.

Tracks and Fields - Music Remix Community

Make music with musicians and producers from all over the world. Remix songs using the free online 8 track sequencer and audio sample library.

Tribe of Noise

A music community that connects artists, fans and professionals. The music is uploaded by independent artists under a Creative Commons 3.0 by-share alike license in MP3 format. All music may be freely and lawfully shared.

TuneRooms

A community for music collaboration, promotion, and distribution using CC licenses.

YourSpins

Remix music online - Blog your mix - Share and meet other remixers. Select artists make .di tracks available for fans to remix using the special YourSpins flash media player.

WeMix.com

An online music creation community and user-generated record label that allows unsigned singers, rappers, songwriters, producers and musicians of all types to get discovered and create music with Ludacris and other top artists.

Free & Open Source Software 

campware.org - free software for a free press

Free and open source radio management software that provides both live studio broadcast capabilities as well as remote automation in one integrated system.

CcHost Wiki

CcHost is the software engine powering ccMixter.org. It's an Open Source project that anyone can use to download, install and build media sharing communities.

GetDeb - Software for Ubuntu Linux

Extends the existing software options for Ubuntu (and derived) Linux distributions by providing major updates and software not yet available on the official Ubuntu repositories.

Google Code - Project Hosting

A Google service for the open source community that allows developers to upload projects which are then made available to others via the directory and search engine.

Linux Audio Dot Org

A not-for-profit consortium of libre software projects and artists, companies, institutions, organizations, and hardware vendors using Linux kernel-based systems and allied libre software for audio-related work, with an emphasis on professional tools for the music, production, recording, and broadcast industries.

NGO-In-A-Box Audio Video Edition

A collection of specially selected free and open source Software (FOSS) tools, documentation and tutorials. A useful hub for audio and video projects with further links to free culture projects and resources.

Ohloh

Indexes thousands of open source projects to help you determine the right type of software for your needs.

Open Source Alternative - Find Open Source Alternatives to commercial software

osalt.com helps recommend a open source software alternative or replacement for commercial products and even shareware. Remember that open source software is also a freeware alternative.

Open Source Toolset - Meta

Describes some of the open source/free software tools and standards used as part of content collaboration on the Wikimedia projects.

Rockbox - Open Source Jukebox Firmware

An open source replacement firmware for mp3 players that runs on a number of different models.

SWiK - Open Source Software Wiki

A community driven resource for open source software. Projects and content can be found using the search engine and by browsing tags. The zeitgeist provides a good source of developer news and related links. All original text on SWiK is available under a CC Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license.

Ubuntu Studio - Let your Creativity Fly

A Multimedia editing derivative of Ubuntu with a wiki for Ubuntu Linux musicians who wish to use Ubuntu as their Digital Audio Workstation.

DISS Media Resources 

DISS Media Lists

Hundreds of hand picked links to useful audio and music resources including: Computer Help, Toolbox, Music Databases, Music Matrix, Audio Technology, Books, Web Zeitgeist, Musician Blogs, Search Engines, Sound Toys, Media Distribution.

Freeware Portable VSTi Hosts

PC and Mac standalone applications for running virtual instruments (VST plugins).

Web Buzz Explorer - Collective Intelligence

A categorized list of tools and services for tracking social media. The sources allow you to scour online news, track personal projects, watch trends, discover new media and build your own social applications. Whether it's the best blog stories, music mashups or viral videos, these sites will help you find the most recent and most popular emergent data.

YouTube - DISSmedia's Channel

Exploring the ideas, institutions, laws, symbols, and values common to Social Media and Open Culture.