First Mate Doof Jacobs of the Good Ship Liberty

MpFree

 

A Pirate Music Haven in a Sea of Corporate Sharks

 

What's this I spy through my trusty technoscope? On the not too distant horizon there's a fabulously decadent galleon and she's taking water fast. Flying the flag of Babylon, the scurvy hulk is sinking under the weight of its ill-gotten gains. Word's gotten round that mp3 buccaneers pulled the plug. So what be this mp3 I hear ye ask? Aye 'tis a tool of trade for pirates to be sure, but the story behind the story is all about the free flow of information, in this case music.

Mp3 is a way of saving music as digital files that can be transferred via the internet. Downloading this loot takes about 30 minutes per track via a dial-up modem. A digital copy at near CD quality is then stashed on your hard drive. To hear it, you'll need to net yer self one of the many free mp3 players charted at the end of this report. Now technically you don't own it, but its digital form makes it rip-roaringly easy to copy and redistribute.

Mutinous minstrels tired of music industry shenanigans have taken to building mp3 web sites as great places to stash tunes. Some are ripping the mainstream Robin Hood stylie, whilst others hawk their own tracks for an honest income. Our crew is one of the many who are combining the best of both of these ideas using mp3 to give their own goods away for free. This kind of unregulated trading sends dread shivers up robber barons' spines and is rocking the foundations of corporate music empires. While for all you liberty-loving listeners (with internet access) it's a glimpse of a wide open ocean with free passage to all ports of call from the well-travelled old worlds of rock and pop to the most exotic and previously uncharted sonic paradises.

The X on Organarchy's music treasure map is www.mpfree.cat.org.au. This is the site of our ever-growing archive. As we make our tracks we upload them there for all you techno lubbers to freely plunder.

Aye mates, one simple file transfer does away with all oppressive copyright and publishing restrictions. It takes the wind out of the sails of the DJ white label triads. Non-productive middle meddlers are made to walk the plank. Hierarchical power imbalances between music makers, distributors and consumers are sent straight to Davey Jones's locker.

What will all this skulduggery lead to? An end to the ownership and commodification of music itself no less! I tell ye true, it gladdens an old salt's heart to see it thus.

For up till now the only truly swash-buckling way to distribute Organarchy's pieces o' eight has been by the very act of performing live, at free parties. Another tactic was handing it over at gigs on small runs of recycled cassettes. But this bogged the crew down in a lot of fiddly rub-a-dub-dubbing and photocopycutnpaste.

By contrast, a few short weeks after the mpfree site was launched word got back that pushbike ghetto blasters were pumping out our merrie tunes at Critical Mass rides in San Francisco. Arrrgh, this sort of 'prairie fire' distribution was not possible in ye olde days of the cassette networking scene.

So good friends, set sail for http://www.mpfree.cat.org.au and dig up some of Organarchy's buried treasure. Or view the source code and see how easy it is to start your own mp3 mutiny.

Map references

Gnutella—One of many programs that lets users share mp3 files in a global grass roots roundtable. www.gnutella.com

And another: www.audiogalaxy.com

Copyrant—more scribblings from the pirate's pen at www.cat.org.au/catalog/Copy1.htm

Mp3 resources:
www.netby.net/Vest/Lykken/Fnast/Mp3players.htm
www.jiveturkey.org
www.mp3.dk