About ...

The music-park.org website is not and does not seek to become a distribution platform as Jamendo or Bandcamp or Spotify, Dezzer, etc.... The music-park.org website is the project of the Music Park association which is to develop a virtual broadcast network (by internet) to develop a physical network (in public spaces on the French territory) whose particularity is on the one hand to be managed by and for the artists (authors, composers, performers), on the other hand, whose objectives are independence and autonomy in relation to the various intermediaries, as can be the case with distribution platforms, but also by freeing artists from the copyright and related rights management societies (SACEM, ADAMI, SPEDIDAM, etc, for France, or SABAM Belgium, GEMA Germany, SIAE Italy, etc. (1)), giving back control to artists over their works and offering the possibility of authorising the broadcasting of their works in public spaces (in a commercial or non-commercial environment) without broadcasters being subject to the copyright levy system.

Indeed, by freeing artists and broadcasters from the current dominant system, Music Park, in its own way, participates in the liberation of music for all those who, managers, managers, owners of public spaces (shops, restaurants, sports halls, cafés, associative places, etc...), have turned off their sound equipment under the weight of prohibitive royalties. This is one of the central aspects of the Music Park project, its philosophy, the emancipation from systems that have shown their limits and their unfairness. To do this the association strives to highlight, or even build more direct paths between artists and the public (2). This is why Music Park proposes to unite artists who are independent of the "system" in order to allow broadcasters to have access to a collective repertoire that is not subject to royalties on copyright and neighbouring rights.

The other central aspect in the new version of the Music Park project is to offer artists assistance in creating a website with an open source and free CMS (Content Management System) with probably the most relevant CMS, namely Drupal. Drupal in order to be able to envisage any desired evolution within the website and a website to allow any artist to have his "own house" and thus be able to independently manage the communication, diffusion, distribution of his works and many other necessities related to artistic and musical activities and to have a direct communication between the artist and his public.

However, the Music Park project is not an end in itself, it will of course evolve according to the artistic, human, technical, administrative, financial needs, and especially according to the context of the evolution of the practices and the wills of the different actors of the network while remaining within the framework of the prerogatives stated that are the independence, autonomy and emancipation of artists. But the dissemination and access to artistic works is not more important than the artistic practice, that is to say, (contrary to what some institutions try to make us believe by qualifying the artistic practice as the fact of accessing art works), the fact in particular in music of playing an instrument. We believe that every person should be able, if he or she so wishes, to have time for, among other things, an artistic activity, and that since the organisation of work in our society is not adapted to this possibility, it is therefore necessary to rethink the ways and models of life in our society.

Music Park therefore proposes to contribute its small stone in a project where the means are pooled accompanied by a spirit of solidarity (3). This is why the Music Park project is oriented towards the creation of a new development model while advocating more sharing. This is also why we call upon you, the users of so-called "free" music, to take into consideration that the sharing you enjoy is an economic and cultural wealth and that you must support the artists who have chosen to take this path because by supporting these artists you are defending another vision of the world.

A bit of history :

The inspiration for this project was born a long time ago, more than 15 years ago. The first name was to be "Under the Mantle", and the realization of a website was not the priority in the initial project, as it seemed too complex to implement at that time. On the other hand, the project leader had another priority (which was that of artistic creation). Since then, many trains have passed, and the choice to launch this project, while projects like Jamendo or others have largely progressed and offer the possibility to disseminate one's music "freely", was motivated because it appears that these projects are rather carried by the multitude of artists than the artists themselves. And let's make it clear for Jamendo that this project is a sort of "SACEM N°2", which represents an alternative to the SACEM but not an alternative to the "SACEM system". On the other hand, the use of Creative Common (CC) licenses, although they have their role to play in the digital mainstream, do not allow for reversibility, i.e. if you place a work under a CC license, it is supposed to be broadcast for life (up to 70 years after the author's death, before it enters the public domain, according to the law) under that license, with no possibility of change. Obviously this constraint facilitates the management of a work from the point of view of the public, copyright management societies and broadcasters, but from the point of view of the artist, it is a rigidity that does not take into account the evolution of an artist's choices (author, composer) which are often a function of his social evolution as an artist.

This is also why Music Park exists, and we know that the real issues of copyright have not really been brought to light yet, as the different actors of culture and music, whether on the side of free and especially platforms or on the side of copyright management societies, are far from truly representing all authors, composers and performers. Very often they have positions and practices that defend - their only interests to the detriment of those they claim to promote - or the interests of a few to the detriment of others.

(1) Copyright management societies in the European Union are mentioned because any author, composer residing in one of the countries of the European Union may join a copyright management society of a foreign country that is part of the EU. A French author can, for example, join SABAM (Belgium) instead of joining SACEM, however, it is SACEM that will collect the royalties produced on French territory and it will pay them to SABAM which will then pay them to the author. Despite the possibility for authors and composers to choose a different society of authors than the one in their own country, the copyright management societies retain the monopoly on the management of the collection of copyright royalties on their respective territories.

(2) Constitute more direct paths between artists and the public: one of the services offered by the Music Park association is the localisemusic.com directory, which is a directory of artists' websites (in music). Make a search with a style of music on a search engine and you will see that you will not have a list of all the websites of artists who make music with this style, so this service allows the public to find in a simple and fast way all the websites of artists (provided they are referenced) of this or that style. In addition it is also proposed a number of other search filters, and anyone can reference an artist. Thus Localise Music is like a crossroads with a multitude of panels from which all roads lead to this or that artist's site, and thus allows a direct relationship between the public and the artist. Let us specify that this service is free for the public as well as for the artists and that it is planned to be free as long as this service exists. However, it is not excluded that one day there may be a request for a donation to pay for accommodation costs if these become too expensive.

(3) The spirit of solidarity of the project consists in the idea that each artist who is a member of Music Park can benefit from the same aid from the association. This is one of the important points of the project. If one year an artist allows by his activities within the network to generate a flow and therefore possible income in the association, and another artist is in the opposite case, it is not sure that the following year the situation will not be reversed, that is why the support at the promotional level (recording, concert, etc.) of the association will have an equivalent treatment for each artist, because we believe that the stability and viability of an artistic project requires a certain solidarity, not big words but by processes that we wish to initiate here.