My Goodniss Press Kit

Press Release
10 March 2006

MUSIC WANTS TO BE FREE: OPEN MUSIC ARCHIVE REMIX PUBLIC DOMAIN MUSIC AND FILMS

On Saturday 18 March 2006 6-8pm at My Goodniss Vintage Clothes Shop, Northern Quarter  Open Music Archive presents 

. . . an evening of free music and films

Open Music Archive is an exciting development of the collaborative work of artists Eileen Simpson and Ben White. The central idea of the project is to enrich the public domain by freeing records from the archives, dusting them off, and playing them out in the public where they belong. All the music that they collect has fallen out of copyright and outside the legal system that usually operates to lock down music.

Open Music Archive don’t just play beautiful, long-forgotten blues, folk and jazz tracks transferred from scratchy, original 78 shellac records - but they also strip samples, beats, words and melodies from these tracks to produce brand new music that they license with Creative Commons ShareAlike licences.

"Copyright law is used by big business to restrict our freedom - it prevents us from sampling and means we are stuck listening to music with no power to respond. All the music available through www.openmusicarchive.org is shared in common – either because it is out of copyright or because we choose to license our new music with creative commons licenses. We wave our individual rights for the collective benefit of everyone. Our music can be re-used, re-sampled and re-mixed as people choose" says Eileen Simpson from OMA.

Most recently, Eileen and Ben were invited to collaborate with artists Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska to produce the work Screen Tests for British Art Show 6, currently showing at Urbis. For this work, the artists worked with both out-of-copyright music and vintage film of 1920s Manchester to create a quirky 10 minute video projection.

Drop by our favourite clothes shop My Goodniss on Saturday 18 March and after another day of frantic shopping turn your attention to consuming in a different mode. Listen to some truly free music and watch some truly free films – as Open Music Archive perform a live DJ & laptop set and digitally project re-mixed 16mm film footage. Bring a memory stick or other device to take away the music or download after the event from http://www.openmusicarchive.org/mygoodniss.

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Notes to Editors:

1. Saturday 18 March Open Music Archive presents an Evening of Free Music and Films at My Goodniss Vintage Clothes Shop, 40 Thomas Street Northern Quarter (opposite The Bay Horse) 6-8pm. Call 07970 611233 or email info@openmusicarchive for free tickets and further details.

2. Open Music Archive is project initiated by artists Eileen Simpson and Ben White http://www.openmusicarchive.org/projects Contact: eileen@openmusicarchive.org/ ben@openmusicarchive.org or call 07970 611233 or 07816 836890 to speak to Eileen or Ben. 3. My Goodniss Vintage Clothes Shop sell second hand lovelies, hand-made jewellery and artwork. Tel: 0161 833 438

4. British Art Show 6 occurs every five years and is billed as the most ambitious survey of new and recent developments in the UK. Organised by Hayward Gallery Touring British Art Show 6 it occupies seven art galleries across the city of Manchester from 28 January to 2 April 2006

5. Creative Commons has created a suite of licenses for people to extend copyright and make their creative work available to open use, re-use and modification. For more information visit http://www.creativecommons.org

6. Open Music Archive presents an Evening of Free Music and Films is funded by Arts Council England.