Leading Open Music Site Promised to Remain Ad-Free with No Cost to Users

October 28, 2009 (San Francisco/Diego, CA) – We announce that Creative Commons is transferring operations of top remix site ccMixter.org to next-gen-music-label ArtisTech Media (ATM). Today marks the five-year anniversary of ccMixter.org, a site that has internationally demonstrated the power of its 20,000-strong music community and Creative Commons’ licenses through the motto “Download, Sample, Cut-up, Share.” Pledging to uphold The Lessig Principles as specified in the ccMixter.org RFP, start-up ATM is taking stewardship of the Top-5 Free Music Site.

ccMixter, the most prominent experiment in free music culture, began in 2004 with a series of remix contests hosted by Creative Commons, based in San Francisco, in conjunction with Wired Magazine featuring The Beastie Boys, David Byrne and other innovative musicians. Lawrence Lessig, founding board member of Creative Commons, says of ccMixter: “The first important thing about Creative Commons is that it’s artist based. It’s artists who choose what freedoms they’re going to give people when it comes to access to their work.”

“Creative Commons is dedicated to making it easier for people anywhere in the world to legally share and build upon creativity, ” said Mike Linksvayer, Vice President of Creative Commons. “ccMixter puts CC’s principles into action – it’s built around a vibrant and prolific community of musicians who choose how to make their work available for others to download, use, and remix. We’re very excited to see all of the great things the ArtisTech crew and ccMixter community do to take the site to the next level.”

“We are humbled and excited about this huge opportunity for ArtisTech and ccMixter. Over the past several years, ccMixter’s sharing community and collaborative tools have expanded my own musical creations and views of open licensing,” stated Emily Richards, CEO and co-founder of ATM. “Creative Commons and all that have worked to build ccMixter have collectively created an entirely new way of producing and sharing music. We at ArtisTech believe ccMixter and its artists are pioneering a digital media revolution.”

Creative Commons has transferred control and daily operations of ccMixter.org to ATM, however, Creative Commons retains ownership of the name ccMixter.org along with its marks. ccMixter runs on ccHost and while Creative Commons will retain ownership of ccHost, and ATM will maintain the code, licensed under GPL.

ArtisTech Media is based in San Diego, CA and was co-founded by Emily Richards, Alex Goodwin, Jason Brock, Kirsten Swartz-Morton, Derek Ford and Dale Richards. ArtisTech is a next generation label that facilitates quality music production, distribution and technology tools for independent and professional musicians. ArtisTech operates the sites TuneTrack.net and now ccMixter.org, each promoting music community, collaboration, digital music releases, Creative Commons licensing and Open Source technology.

To learn more, visit ccmixter.org, creativecommons.org, www.tunetrack.net and www.artistechmedia.com

We’ve posted a FAQ about the transfer.

Victor has posted his thoughts on the matter.

Official Announcement from ArtisTech Media



Last edit: 10/28/09