Explicitly allowing people to share music is good because it guarantees them that they will not be prosecuted now, or in the future, for doing so. Some artists encourage the illegal sharing of music by telling their fans to obtain their music on file transfer systems, without legally granting them that right. We feel that this type of sharing is not productive, does not build community, and must be done secretly since it is illegal. For this reason, we recommend that if an artist wishes to distribute his or her music freely, then that artist should use a free license to express that.

There are many things that you can do to assist the project. Contributions of time are needed to help raise awareness and to further develop the software. We expect to have a development release in the coming weeks. Until then, one of the main factors crucial to the success of the project is to build an ample supply of free music. We encourage any artist to consider licensing some or all of their music under the Creative Commons licenses. In many ways, the increased exposure will be much more valuable than anything gained by limiting the availability of your music under exceedingly restrictive copyright terms. Obscurity is a larger problem for most musicians than too many people listening to their songs. The principal developers of the Gnomoradio project have licensed some of the music produced by their band, Tommy Magik and the Wonderfulls. In addition, we already have ska, techno, and hardcore music lined up to be put on the system. Many diverse styles of music will allow the system to gain greater momentum and exposure.

If you would like more information, please visit our web site at http://gnomoradio.org/. We have set up mailing lists to address concerns from artists and developers. Please feel free to subscribe to those lists or to contact us directly.

Jim Garrison
Matt Gerginski
Ian Thornton Good luck!!