The Best Media in Life is Free: December 2006

Saturday, December 30, 2006

ROUND-UP: Posts from December

Previous Round-Ups:

And now, the posts from December:

E-Books:

E-Books for Holiday Reading

Music:

Audio/Misc:

ADMIN: Happy New Year!

So, I did some new year cleaning up, and updated my website. You can now find a large assortment of netlabels and other fun stuff referenced in my links page. And did you know I keep a music page where I have a running list of every Creative Commons song I have posted to the blog? It's at 103 songs now, and my favourite ones are highlighted. Stay tuned for my 2006 round-up. Happy new year, everyone!

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

MUSIC: More from Tom Paul

I am off work this week and next, and finally had a chance to sit down and listen to more of Tom Paul after my earlier post on him. He's good! He has two albums on Magnatune. I've listened to both of them, and here are my favourite tracks:

Btw, Magnatune has just put an embedded player in. You can preview the albums now without launching a media player. Handy! I am going to spend some time on Magnatune this week digging up some more great music.

Labels: artist, Magnatune, music, netlabel

Sunday, December 24, 2006

E-BOOK: More Seasonal Fun

As a follow-up to yesterday's Christmas songs, here is some holiday reading. Enjoy!

The Abbot's Ghost by Louisa May Alcott
The Children's Book of Christmas Stories by Anonymous
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain by Charles Dickens
A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clark Moore

Labels: ebook, Gutenberg, special

Saturday, December 23, 2006

MUSIC: 235 Commons Christmas Songs

Judaism aside, I had to post this :) Thanks to Uwe Hermann for putting it together.

Creative Commons Christmas Songs

Labels: music

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

MUSIC: Two from Magnatune

Here are two pop-ish finds from one of my favourite net labels, Magnatune. Thanks to Uwe Hermann for ferreting these ones out.

Beight, Ghostly Feeling
Tom Paul, It's an Easy Life

Labels: Magnatune, music, netlabel

Saturday, December 16, 2006

MUSIC: A Very Commons Hannukah

The winner of my little holiday contest sent me a little rap tune in honour of this holiday season. Happy holidays, everyone! Lex, contact me at your convenience to claim your prize.

Not Enough Rhymes with Hannukah, by DJ Shlomotion aka Lex Friedman

Labels: music, special

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

MISC: CC Non-Profit/Activism Guide

Boing Boing has posted a comprehensive round-up of non-profit and activist groups concerned with public doman, creative commons and fair use issues. The list includes the biggies like Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg, as well as groups specific to the US, Canada and UK. If you want to make some holiday charitable donations, or get involved as a volunteer or activist yourself, this is a handy cheat sheet as to who is out there. Click here.

Labels: blog

Monday, December 11, 2006

AUDIO: E-Books in Other Languages

Librivox has a growing collection of works in other languages. I tend to prefer the solo projects at Librivox, and unfortunately, none of the foreign-language ones in that category are in any of the languages I know. But I have been trying to brush up on my French lately, so I checked out their index and found a few interesting titles. Librivox is one of the most prolific free audio book producers on the net. The quality depends greatly on the skill of the narrator, which varies. But they do a good thing. Click here to read their foreign-language titles.

Labels: audio, audiobook, Librivox

Thursday, December 07, 2006

OTHER: Three Great Blogs

I thought it would be good to share some blogs that cover issues relevant to Creative Commons fans. If you want to start educating yourself on the politics surrounding copyright reform, these are good places to start.

Michael Geist is a Canadian journalist who writes about copyright law, and his blog is a wonderful education for those who are interested in copyright reform, Creative Commons and new models of doing business re. media in the internet age.

Boing Boing is an eclectic blog covering a wide variety of topics. Commons-related stuff comes up a lot because of Cory Doctorow, one of the writers, who has been involved with EFF and has released several of his novels and stories under a Commons license.

Finally, P2PNET is a news blog which covers DRM topics and issues surrounding the commercial music industry. They are a bit strident at times, but round up a lot of good stories and get people thinking about the role of big business in all of this.

Labels: blog

Monday, December 04, 2006

ROUND-UP: Posts from November

As usual, I'm kicking off the month with a round-up of previous posts. November was a bit slow because I was occupied with Nanowrimo, but I still managed to dig up some cool finds :) My goal for the month is to try and post at least four times a week. I want you guys to have lots of good free stuff to keep you busy during your holiday travels :)

Previous round-ups can be found here:

And now, November's stuff...

E-Books: