About ccMixter
ccMixter.org is a community music site that promotes remix culture and makes samples, remixes, and a cappella tracks licensed under Creative Commons available for download and re-use in creative works. Visitors are able to listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in a variety of ways including the download and use of tracks and samples in their own remixes. Most sampling or mash-up web sites on the Internet stipulate that users forgo their rights to the new song once it is created. By contrast, the material on ccMixter.org is generally licensed to be used in any arena, not just the ccMixter site or a specific contest. The ccMixter site contains over 10,000 samples from a wide range of recording artists, including high profile artists such as Beastie Boys and David Byrne.
As a cultural phenomenon, ccMixter represents a direct response to what some say is the increasingly litigious attitude of organizations like the RIAA—one which prevents artists from appropriating elements of others' work for creative reuse in their own.
The site originated as a project of Creative Commons but in October of 2009, Creative Commons licensed the name 'ccMixter' and transferred operations to ArtisTech Media, a company run by members of the ccMixter community. The project maintains close organizational ties to independent minded, open music labels such as Magnatune and BBE. The site runs on ccHost, an award winning open source multimedia content management system that is able to keep track of how content is being remixed.
In February 2009, Victor Stone, project lead of ccMixter, posted a "memoir" detailing the history and philosophy of the first four years of operations at the site.
(from wikipedia--read more)
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ccMixter Featured Mix
The WIRED CD: Rip. Sample. Mash. Share.
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jason on 04/05/2010 at 03:00PM
ccMixter's Secret Mixter
ccMixter is a community music website, and a big inspiration to our work here on the FMA. ccMixter focuses on remix-friendly audio, and its users offer sample packs, a capellas, and stems under collaboration-friendly Creative Commons licenses. The site has built up a thriving community that ranges from up-and-coming amateurs and hobbyists to worldclass professional producers.
Victor Stone -- the major force behind ccMixter since its inception in 2004 -- wrote a fascinating memoir about the first four years (which you can read here, CC licensed naturally). In one section, he recalls that the site originally came about as a place to host the results of the Creative Commons/ WIRED remix contest. The site would go on to host contests by the likes of Vieux Farka Toure, Fort Minor (of Linkin Park), and the Copyright Criminals documentary. Over time, the community started to suffer from what Victor calls "remix fatigue"; more importantly, the idea of a remix contest that promotes a certain artist seemed at odds with the community-oriented nature of the site. As Victor puts it in his memoir, "contests were a construct of the commercial economy and simply didn't fit into ccMixter's sharing economy".
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The last couple years, ccMixter has found some really cool ways to engage the community in projects that are better suited to the sharing economy. Last month's March Mixup Madness, the Secret Mixter, is a great example. MC Jack in the Box, producer and host of ccMixter's Cool Music Show podcast, explains what the Secret Mixter is all about: I've picked a dozen of my favorite tracks from the most recent version of the Secret Mixter, in a variety of genres, which I think truly represent what this project and the community is all about. |
The full results of last month's mixter are available here. And if you want to dig deeper, ccMixter recently launched the beta version of their new music discovery tool, dig.ccmixter. Dig is a great way to tap into some of the amazing sounds coming out of the ccMixter community, with advanced filtering options and featured picks. So "dig in" if you haven't already, and we look forward to more ccMixter-curated mixes on the FMA.
