David Byrne & Gilberto Gil: Creative Commons Benefit Concert

David Byrne and Gilberto Gil will perform a benefit concert for Creative Commons which will be streamed live on the web (after clicking this link, click on the yellow graphic to activate QuickTime and the concert feed) on Tuesday, September 21st at 8 PM EST (5 PM PST–thanks for the correction, Dawn]. This promises to be a great concert featuring one of Brazil’s most important musical innovators and one of America’s great musical stylists and most ardent admirer of Latin music.

I’m tremendouslly impressed that musicians of the stature of Byrne and Gil understand the danger of an overly restrictive interpretation of music copyright that criminalizes grandmothers and 12 year olds for downloading a song. To read their more expansive statements on why they’ve chosen to participate in this concert check out this Creative Commons link.

Creative Commons was founded by Larry Lessig and is devoted to opening up the severely restrictive realm of traditional copyright in order to allow a freer circulation of digital property and media via the internet.

WARNING: This mp3 blog exists to spread the wonder and genius that is traditional music. It does NOT exist to enhance your private mp3 collection. So by all means come, listen, enjoy, then follow the links to buy the music. If you come, listen, download, then leave—you’re violating the spirit behind this blog and doing nothing to support the artists featured here. And if you link to my mp3 file at your own site, then you’re stealing my bandwidth and being pretty uncool. So please don’t do it.