Ever Feel Guilty About Pirating Music? Here's the Solution. [pic]

nuttersmark.com

Today's link is a cartoon.

In essence:
1. Download Music
2. Send $ to Artist
3. Cut Out Middleman

Today's Link source: Digg

Tracking free iTunes downloads

itsfreedownloads - Free iTunes Downloads List

It's bonus music Wednesday.

Every week, the iTunes Store offers free weekly goodies. Normally in Canada and most other countries, it's a Song of the Week, but every country has something different. The
free iTunes downloads in the US are more plentiful, and often include music videos, TV pilots, audiobooks and more.

There are also sometimes bonus promotional deals, where companies offer a free song. At the moment, Subpop is offering a free sampler album to download through the Facebook.

Keep track of the free iTunes downloads with the itsfreedownloads site or their RSS feed.

Today's Link source: The Google


Download the Wu (215 free mp3s)

Wu-Tang Corp - media downloads

It's Music Tuesday, and we have a little hip hop for you. Actually, there's a lot of free mp3s to download.

Hip hop juggernauts, The Wu Tang Clan, have posted 215 classic tracks on their website. There's hits, album cuts, live performances, remixes, alternate versions, freestyles, demos, mixtape entries, and more from 2003 to 2005.

It gives the die hard Wu fans new material. It's also a great way for new fans to check out the Wu and all the members, like: Method Men, Raekwon, ODB, Ghostface, RZA, GZA, U-God, Inspecta Deck and the rest, without downloading random tracks from other places on the net.

I wish more artists and labels posted parts of their back catalogue and alternate tracks on the web for free. It's good for promoting goodwill, and gives new and old fans the best of the old material, that they probably wouldn't have purchased anyways. While the rest of the RIAA is a lost cause, but I hope musicians and those internet marketing bloggers gurus like Seth Godin, Jason Calcanis, Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel are listening. Preach the Way of the Wu, brothers!

Today's Link source: Wired : Listening Post

What's the deal with Yahoo! Pipes?

YouTunes: An Example Yahoo! Pipe

There are lots of nooks and crannies on the internet powerhouse, Yahoo. Their latest invention, Yahoo Pipes, is getting a lot of attention. Essentially, it lets you mash-up web-based RSS feeds (from Flickr, blogs, news sites, podcasts, Twitter, Linkjockey, YouTube, etc), and blend them, filter them, remix them, and have them cross-reference each other.

Today's link is the one that really showed me what Yahoo Pipes are all about. Nick Bradbury created a simple pipe (RSS feed) that took the Top 10 from the iTunes store, and got the music videos for them from YouTube.

There are some great write-ups about it that go into more detail, like the introduction from Tom Johnson, the one from Australia's Computerworld about how to build your own Pipe, and the Pipes Tutorial from zdnet.

I'm hoping to have a few to show off over the next week.

The Best 11 Places for Free Audio Books On The Internets

Load up your iPod with these great sites to download free audio books. Most of these are from older works, and are done under the Creative Commons license.

1. LibriVox
Open source comes to audio books, as public domain books are read by contributors from the public. There is a large selection of works here, but audio quality can vary. If you can't find what you're looking for, why don't you record your own version and upload it?
LibriVox also features a podcast.

2. ThoughtAudio.com
Has a smaller selection, but they feature classics from Kafka, Shakespeare, The Bible, Plato, Mark Twain, Ghandi and more.

3. Free Christian AudioBooks
A selection of classic books about Christianity from authors, such as: Brother Lawrence, G. K. Chesterton, and Charles Spurgeon.

4. Naropa Poetics Audio Archives
Features lectures and poetry readings by some of the greats, including William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, and is hosted by archive.org.

5. AudioBooksForFree.com
Has lots of books that are browseable by genre and read by voice actors. Genres include mystery, comedy, classics, science fiction and children's books.

6. Open Culture: Audio Book Podcast Collection
Links to lots of famous books that are available as podcasts through itunes.

7. Free Classic AudioBooks
The Classics as read by humans and computers, and available as mp3 or m4bs for ipod.

8. Podiobooks.com
Free serialized audio books available as podcasts. Lots of modern, but lesser-known books in a wide range of genres.

9. LoudLit.org
Collection of Classics, short stories, poetry and children's books. The cool thing is that some of the books have text that you can read on your ipod while you are listening.

10. Gutenberg: The Audio Books Project
Large collection of public domain literature, available in human- and computer-read formats. Good source of foreign language books.

11. Audio Poetry
This site has well known poems read by poetry fans, and is hosted by archive.org.

RIP Kurt Vonnegut.

Know any other good sites? Include them in the comments!