Useful Software: TagScanner

Do you have a large collection of music and need a way to organize it without having to spend hours upon hours manually changing file names and tag information? Look no further than TagScanner, an extremely useful tool from developer Sergey Serkov. TagScanner can rename files, edit tag information, generate tag information from an on-line database such as FreeDB or Discogs, generate tag information from the file name and generate HTML playlists.

Free Music For All

Looking for some good music to listen to? Don’t want to support RIAA-backed record labels? Try grabbing some tunes from a Netlabel (a.k.a. online label, web label, or MP3 label). The name pretty much explains what they are: record labels that use the Internet as their primary means of distribution. The big difference between a Netlabel and a traditional one is that they offer their music free of charge. Music on these labels is generally released under a Creative Commons License that will allow you to listen to, distribute, display and perform the music for free so long as you make others aware of the terms of the license and give the original author credit. You may not profit from any of the music under the license terms that labels list their releases under unless you get the original authors permission, and you usually aren’t allowed to make derivative works of the music without the original authors permission. Please respect the artists wishes and obtain permission before doing anything prohibited under the CCL terms the Netlabel has listed on their website.

The types of music available varies, but the dominant style is definitely electronic music and all of its sub-genres. So if that’s not your cup ‘o tea you may have to do a little digging before you find something you like, but I’d definitely recommend looking around. There’s a lot of good free music out there waiting to be found, either created by artists who do it for the love of it rather than for monetary gain or who just haven’t been signed by a traditional label yet (if you see a button for donations or if the label has a store, please feel free to support the labels and their artists).

There are two websites that I know of that contain a directory of labels. One of those websites is called Netlables.org, they offer categorized list of labels and will surely prove useful in helping you find something you’ll like. In addition to Netlabels.org, you can also find a directory on the Internet Archive.

To get you started, below are a couple of my favorite labels along with links to some of the best artists featured on each.