Last weekend I picked up a CD at Tower by sometime Allman Brothers’ bassist and all-the-time brother of Kofi, Oteil Burbridge, and his band the Peacemakers. The CD is pretty good — a little rock, a little jazz. Don’t much care for the violin, but that’s just a personal preference. However, what’s most amazing about this CD is the record company that produced it: Artists House, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that actually gets it. Instead of suing 14-year-olds on Kazaa, Artists House encourages you to email the MP3s of the music to your friends. They even give them to you, encoded at 160kbps, on a data track of the CD. And that’s not all. Along with the CD comes a DVD containing a 24 bit/96 kHz mix, a 5.1 mix, artist commentary, a video of the recording session, sheet music (pdf), and a bass lesson by Oteil. The tray insert declares their motto: “Information wants to be free.” Well done, guys.
Update: I cross-posted this to boingboing.