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February 14, 2008 8:13 AM PST

R.E.M. open-sources its music videos: The future of content?

by Matt Asay
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R.E.M. might have goofy lyrics at times ("you're drifting off to sleep with your teeth in your mouth") but it has broken interesting new ground with its decision to open-source 11 videos for a new song from its new album. R.E.M. will be releasing the videos under the Artistic License, appropriately enough.

Viewers are encouraged to remix the videos and share them on the song's YouTube page. The band will not be doing a Radiohead and offering the album for free, but this is an interesting twist somewhere in between that approach and the standard industry practice.

Think about that. What possible purpose could there be in locking down a music video? Such things are meant to promote the underlying music. It makes soooo much economic sense for R.E.M. to open up the videos and let people remix them to help promote R.E.M.'s new album. But R.E.M. isn't alone in this general idea.

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About The Open Road

Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to the Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is general manager of the Americas division and vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

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