Releasing work into the public domain. Good idea or bad idea?

[MagnaOpera]

Alrighty, so I have a website. I'm working towards making into a legitimate netlabel, the only thing holding me back at this point is the completion of the website and building up a roster of artists (likely going to just begin with my friends) and a catalogue of material.

Basically, I was planning on releasing anything containing lyrics with this license, and I was planning on releasing some beat-cds (digital form only, not going to print anything to actual compact disc) into the public domain- the goal here being to foster the growth of my local hip hop community (which is blowing up slowly but surely). I've noticed that there are ALOT of good emcees here, and only a small group of producers (most artists seem to just be recycling instrumentals and adding their vocals, mixtape styles). So I figured I'd just release these things into the public domain. However I have no experience whatsoever in the music industry.

What are the pros and cons of releasing work into the Public Domain?

note: at this point in my life, i'm not even going to consider making money off my music- it's about the love of hip hop for me. If I find that I begin to develop/display an extreme amount of skills I MAY start selling beats/printing cds but for the time being I'm happy with just supporting the local scene.

thanks in advance!

 

[Kontents]

Pros would be no cost to get your music spread on a wide scale. Cons would be everybody would have access to it and could do anything they want with it.

 

[The Arkitekt]

I've noticed your website is seriously under developed and under construction. Are you hiring a professional to do the web design? if not, wait till you can hire one before you put all your shit out, don't want to get in with a bad reputation. Read DJ Nice's articles here on Illmuzik about image if you don't already know how important it is.

 

[MagnaOpera]

@kontents: Though that is the idea; I want everyone to have access to the music and be free to remix/sample it as they please. If people want to cut a 5 second chunk out of your song or steal the whole instrumental badly enough, they'll figure out some way to do it. That's my opinion anyhow.

@arkitekt: I've been working in web-development and web-design (semi-professionally) on and off for the last 4 or 5 years (I don't use any kind of dreamweaver-esque shit, I hand-code everything). The website is just a rough little thing that I threw up (took about an hour to do most of that time being spent coding the PHP-driven back-end to the site). I'm not going to promote the website in any kind of meaningful way (other than the link in my siggy, just incase anyone was in the mood for some punishment and wanted to hear what I'm working on), until I release at least one EP or beat "cd", though probably not until I build up said roster of artists and catalogue of material.

I will be sure to take a look at that article though!

 

[God]

LAW
I'm not a lawyer. Your question is legal advice. You probably need to check with a lawyer, especially since Canadian civil law is different than law here in the U.S.

WEBSITE
It looks amateur - learn how to package yourself properly. Look at professional sites and see how their design is congruent with messaging, image, music, etc.

Write a business plan. Know what your end point is - never leave anything "open" or "hope" that something will happen. It usually doesn't. Know your ultimate goal and then work back from there.

BUSINESS IS WAR
Understand that. You have heads working in companies whose sole purpose is to strategize. For example, do you know what this article is talking about?

http://www2.owen.vanderbilt.edu/Mike.Shor/courses/game-theory/docs/lecture01/Fortune.html

Probably not. Don't buy the bullshit that business is "moral" or Google's business mantra of "we're not evil." Pure bullshit. Business is ugly, it's dirty and real money is on the line.

 

[MagnaOpera]

^ Definetly info to keep in mind if I ever try and turn this into a viable business.


And yeah, upon looking deepr into the public-domain issue, it's seemingly not so cut-and-dry as I thought it was. Good lookin out god.

based upon the comments in this thread you'll probably be happy to know I'm going to overhaul the design of the site.. again lol.

luckily the entire design is contained in a single file (three cheers for the modular approach!)

 

[MagnaOpera]

anyone care to tell me how they think this looks? looking better, worse?

any feedback would be cool...

http://snowtownrecords.com/site/test.html

 

[God]

You have to be confident in your product, man. Seriously, ask yourself... would Diddy use this web site.

I didn't even look at the web site. Just ask yourself, "If I went to Puffy, and I showed him my website, would he approve?"

Instead of "What Would Jesus Do?"

ask:

"What Would Diddy Do?" WWDD?

Lmao, the joke is pretty lame, but the meaning's still the same.

 

[MagnaOpera]

know the ledge my friend, know the ledge.