Seeing as WMC (Winter Music Conference in Miami, FL) is through I won’t add it to my list, therefore leaving space for other honorable mentions… (special thanks to Tanaz Irani, Tanz Agency for creating this list).

1. Movement, aka DEMF (Detroit, US) – Housed in Detroit’s dissonant downtown of decay and delight, one will encounter one of the largest congregations of techno lovers, old and new fashioning everything from proper three-piece suits appreciatively nodding alongside the dj booth, to candied-out fun fur legs and arms flailing in all colours of ringed bracelets. This festival is of many ages with a historic echo that reverberates through the derelict buildings and across the waters to the north. Not to mention the most interesting and ‘educational’ taxi rides you may ever experience.

2. Mutek (Montreal, Canada) – Eleven years running, Mutek is more a celebration of the art of electronic music than the typical dj-dancer feedback-loop one generally encounters at festivals. Patrons will surely find driving beats and relentless productions pulsating through the bodies of dancers at the club-held events, however they will also find a world of techno ‘heads’ attending day lectures and unique performances of visual and sonic sensory astonishment, all in a beautiful 117-year-old theatre (Monument National). Also, if the weather holds up, patrons can dance outdoors under a giant statuesque piece of contemporary art to the compelling beats of Picnik Electronik’s artists, overlooking the cityscape as night falls from the island.

3. Sonar (Barcelona, Spain) – Definitely one of the most highly attended festivals of the year for techno enthusiasts. Unlike other festivals that have a more organic, outdoor feel to them, Sonar is very much a ‘city’ event. Crowds of party people navigate the tiny, captivating streets of Barcelona for the week surrounding the event – making if feel like the whole city is there to unite in their affiliation to this electronic subculture. Residents routinely keep away from the main strip (Las Ramblas) even more so than during the regularly busy tourist season. This is Sonar Week and it’s all about networking, partying and after partying, and when there’s no more to be had… Chiringuito parties on the beach lure you in for days into nights into days.

4. I Love Techno (Ghent, Belgium) – One of the longer-running and more popular festivals in the world of techno tourism, I Love Techno, held at the Flanders Exposition grounds in Ghent, Belgium is on its 15th round this year. The festival maintains its grass-roots beginnings by bringing in hundreds of volunteers to do everything from promotion, organization and design to the creation of the ‘official track’ of this year’s event which will be featured on the ILT promo cd.

5. ADE – Amsterdam Dance Event (Amsterdam, Netherlands) – Also in its 15th year, ADE, with its corporate kick of serious sponsorship and support is expected to draw even more than the 90,000 party people it pulled in last year, with over 700 artists in 41+ venues this festival takes its small but decadent home town to a whole new level of dissipation and dance.

“Culture is impossible without a rich public domain – culture grows by accretion, with new forms building off the old,” is the compelling mantra of Nate Harrison in his modest-but-powerful video posted on  You Tube about the ownership of sound samples.

Harrison casts light on the issues and implications of copyright in music (specifically, musical samples) through the history of the “Amen Break,” a six-second drum sample from the B-side of a chart-topping single from 1969. This sample was used extensively in early hip hop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum n bass and jungle music… a six-second clip that “spawned several entire subcultures.”

The original creators of the Amen Break have never sought legal action to claim ownership of this notable six-seconds of sound. It seems that by the overall amount of its appropriation by producers and Dj’s after the advent of sampling technology in the early 1980s the break had entered into the public domain. Harrison notes, “to trace the history of the Amen Break is to trace the history of a brief period of time when it seemed digital tools offered a potentially unlimited amount of new forms of expression; where cultural production at least musically was full of possibility by virtue of being able to freely appropriate from the musical past, to make new combinations and thus new meanings.”

There are two copyrights involved in the Amen Break. The first is the copyright in the sound recording: if the owners of the masters could prove copying of their recording, then this could be the basis for an infringement claim. However, it appears most uses have been re-recorded (e.g. the drum tab on Wikipedia is readily available, and certainly electronic kits would involve a re-recording – not only to ‘clean up’ the sound quality, but also to chop it up, space out the individual beats and create a new sound conducive to drum n bass).

The second copyright is in the musical composition. This is the interesting part. When the original recording was first released, the break was not what would at the time have been classified as a hook. It was a break, which by the standards of the day, I would argue, was not unique enough to attract copyright protection. Since then the break has been sampled and used to the point where it has attracted an independent identity (with the help of advancements in sampling, recording, and production technology). The interesting part is, who owns the new identity? Does a new identity accrue back to the original copyright holder? Is it something that one of the early appropriators could claim copyright in? Is it a public domain identity? Seems it’s the latter, in that its use is ubiquitous and no one person can step forward as being the original user of the same four bar beat used in a manner that now by more contemporary standards is unique.

Exposing your music to the masses is getting easier.  With free or inexpensive digital distribution sites you can raise your musical integrity from basement band or bedroom dj to a position of indie rocker or electronic prodigy in a matter of clicks n’ scrolls.  Sites like MySpace are putting control back into the hands of musicians and in doing so are effectively disarming the corporate money making machine we have all grown to accept as the music industry.

1. MySpace.com.  An international social networking website that provides its users with personal mail, a forum for posting public messages, digital community or group affiliations, video streaming, and weblog space.  One of its primary uses is found in the self promoting potential of its platform; musicians can easily get the attention of their peers and people in the music industry.  This is a fully interactive realm, designed and proliferated via user content.

2. TuneCore.com came to be in 2005 when the makers of YourTunes (a Brooklyn based company), realized the demand for this digital distribution outlet.  As a refreshing alternative to traditional music distribution sites, TuneCore refrains from taking percentages from their users’ sales, or asking for the rights to their music.  It allows for musicians and other rights holders to put their music up for sale with multiple, digital, music stores including iTunes, Rhapsody, AmazonMP3, eMusic, and so on.

3. Last.fm. Said to be the world’s largest social music platform.  Last.fm is an online radio station that allows for both music streaming, and music sharing.  Users are able to create a digital profile in which they may express their musical preferences and share their own music.  Based out of the UK, beginning in 2002, this internet-radio and music community has more than 21 million active users around the globe.

4. Facebook.com. Like MySpace, Facebook is an international social networking website that provides its users with personal mail, a forum for posting public messages, digital community or group affiliations, video posting potential and facilitates highly interactive user discourse.  According to ComScore, in June 2008 Facebook has more than 132.1 million visitors!

5. Bebo.com is an entertainment oriented social networking site which allows users to post and share photos, music, personal blogs, and interact with one another via individual profiles.  It is a popular spot to promote and sell one’s music and has in the past, linked up with corporate music leaders including Apple.

6. CdBaby.net is an online music store specializing in the sale of physical compact discs and digital music downloads from independent musicians directly to consumers.  Additionally, the company has become a digital aggregator of independent music recordings, distributing content to several online digital music retailers (www.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_Baby).

7. IndabaMusic.com is a social networking site that specializes in connecting musicians who may be interested in collaborating in online music projects.  It is free to sign up, and as a user you can personalize your profile, post and receive feedback on your own music and that of your peers.  Similar to other music collaboration sites such as Jamglue, Splice, WeMix, eJamming, Mix2r, NinJam, and YourSpins, Indaba Music profiles provide users with the ability to represent themselves within the music community.

8. YouTube.com.  Perhaps music exposure isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of YouTube, yet once one disregards the video emphasis which has made this site a tremendous success, it becomes apparent that it contains all the key ingredients for getting one’s music successfully heard by masses upon masses of people.

9. MusicFreedom.com is a social networking site that maintains a focus on the distribution, promotion, and sale of digital music.  This site lets its users listen to Podcasts, purchase MP3s from up and coming artists, as well as providing an opportunity for users to network, and share their personal profile with others.

10. TaxiMusic.com is an online music hosting site.  It provides a space in which unsigned bands, artists and songwriters with major record labels, publishers, film & television industry folk can network.  This in an online A&R company, helping to get artists heard, and albums sold.

For more ideas, familiarize yourself with these other popular music-oriented sites: BlogSpot, CloudTrade, HypeMachine, iVideoSongs, MOG, MuxTape, Omnifone, Pandora, Qtrax, RCRDLBL, SeeqPod, Slacker, Jamglue, Splice, WeMix, eJamming, Mix2r, NinJam, YourSpins.