HPR1144: Who Owns Your Files

Summary: Indie and Creative Commons Soundcloud - This is a music and audio sharing site, primarily. Free Music Archive - Lots of CC-licensed music. Jamendo - One of the premiere CC music sites. Bandcamp - I just learned about this site from my friend Craig Maloney, who does the Open Metal Cast. This site has Creative Commons music from bands who want to build a relationship with their fans and sell them music. Good artists like Amanda Palmer are here. e-Books When it comes to books, you really are at the mercy of the individual publishers. Most music labels have finally come to accept that no DRM is the best way to go, but must book publishers are still being dragged into the 21st century kicking and screaming. But there are some good places to find e-books that respect your freedom. Project Gutenberg - This is the granddaddy of the DRM free book sites. Project Gutenberg makes available books that are in the Public Domain, i.e., where the copyright has run out. These are mainly older books, but a lot of classics are in here. They make books available in all of the major formats. Baen Books - This publisher specializes in the harder Science Fiction, but they really understand the new media landscape. They not only offer most of their books DRM-free and in multiple formats, but they also have the Baen Free Library, where they offer selected books free of charge. The hope is that with the first taste free, you will want to buy more. And it works. I went there to see what they had, discovered that they had the entire collected works of one of my favorite authors (James H. Schmitz) for sale, and bought the lot of them. Tor/Forge - A major publisher in the Science Fiction and Fantasy fields, they just moved to going DRM free a few months ago. They did this because other publishers had been successful in so doing. Angry Robot - Along with Baen, a pioneer in selling DRM-free books in the Science Fiction and Fantasy fields. Avon Romance - A major publisher of romance novels, they just announced that they are experimenting with DRM-free ebook sales. O'Reilly Media - The premiere publisher of technical books, they pretty get everything right. They sell e-books without DRM. When a new edition of a book you already bought comes out you can "upgrade" for a nominal fee (e.g. I upgraded my Kevin Purdy "Android" book for $1). And with older books that they think are no longer worth in print, they are removing the copyright and making them freely available. ManyBooks.net - This site has a lot of overlap with Project Gutenberg, but also has some newer works that have been made available, such as Charles Stross's Accelerando. Fictionwise - Although h