Open Studios - Global

Community-based recording studios provide free recording services for musicians and artists. They also provide free recording services for groups creating fund-raising campaigns, for small businesses creating marketing campaigns, and for schools creating educational programmes. The kinds of programmes developed are designed to serve the communities where the facilities are located, controlled by the local participants and volunteers.

Open Studios provides free-of-charge services, educational and empowerment training and assistance, networking opportunities, and legal resource management for those interested in setting up these studios. It offers assistance in learning and developing music skills, marketing skills, legal and ethical skills, and Internet skills. To begin the process, interested communities go out and get a donated computer and hardware as recommended by Open Studios. They then plug in the appropriate CD or download the applications, many of which are available on the Open Studios website. The PC recommendation includes setup for hooking into the Open Studios network for technical support.

As a requirement for participating, community-based recording studios are expected to bring most, if not all, works produced through the free services of the facility to the Public Domain. Resident users register their works with the Creative Commons Project, a web-based legal registration site for copyright holders. The Ibiblio.org Project will house a repository for all Public Domain works created in the community-based recording studios.

As of this writing, 2 studios have been established. In April 2003, First Sparks Community-Based Recording Studio, located in Nevada, USA created its first recording. The song was performed by a songwriter who collaborated with a fellow songwriter from Ghana; the work can be downloaded from Open Studios website. First Sparks hopes to expand into video recordings, as technology advances. In May 2003, the Beroya Community Recording Studio was set up in Jinja, Uganda. Pastor Mwandha Michael says he wants everyone in the community to be able to make recordings on CDs and to share them with others. The studio hopes to record local music, and, using the studio computer and printer, print out musical scores that can be decorated and sold to supporters and donors around the world to help fund their studio.

Open Studios also produces advocacy writing. In May 2003, it released Roadmap for Music in the Digital Age. This document makes the claim that legislative actions to prevent terrorism are impacting the music world: artists with "terrorist profile" names and ethnic origins are being refused travel visas for concerts in countries around the world. "Without the ability to travel and perform, the world will lose the major contributors of music, innovation, and creativity, and diversity so important in a civil society." The Roadmap "presents the components necessary to achieve a robust music industry in the Digital Age".

Community-based Media, Right to Information.

According to organisers, copyright laws in the United States keep original works out of the Public Domain for 150 years. In 1998, Disney lobbied and won the right to retroactively extend copyright on all works from 1922 on. Using these laws, organisers claim, the Recording Industry Association of America "intends to control all music available across every medium", forcing the general public to pay for the right to hear creative work.