I don’t have to pay for this, right?

Free media content has been a major driving force in the expansion of the internet (along with porn and semi-legal pharmaceuticals, obviously). Illegal downloads form a large part of this, and have attracted vast controversy.

Far less controversial, and thus far less well publicised, is the massive amount of entirely legal, professional-quality media that is being distributed over the web for free. Critics of the Open Source movement often argue that giving something away for nothing either results in a poor product or a massive loss of time, money and resources. I’ve seen enough successful and profitable Open Source projects to be convinced otherwise.

The artistic equivalent of Open Source software licensing is the Creative Commons license. By publishing their work under Creative Commons, an artist grants their audience specific rights to, for example, freely redistribute their work, but retains others, like their credit as the work's creator. Other variations encourage collaborative art by allowing others to make changes to a work and pass it along.

One of the best applications of Creative Commons I’ve seen is in the world of free audio podcast fiction. An excellent example is Escape Pod, a weekly science fiction podcast that features work by many of today’s top authors. I’m also rather keen on its sister podcasts, PodCastle for fantasy and Pseudopod for horror, where host Alasdair Stuart makes a refreshing change from the American accents that dominate podcasting. If you’re of a more theatrical nature, check out the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company’s podcast.

For fans of longer fiction, there’s some great stuff on sites like Podiobooks, which is free to join and use. One of my favourite books of 2008, ‘Playing for Keeps’ by Mur Lafferty, an award-winning superhero novel that subverts many of the usual cliches, is available as a free podcast as well as to buy in printed form.

To get the most of out the podcasts I’ve mentioned, you’ll need a podcast receiver. iTunes seems to do the trick for many people. Other options include Juice for Windows and Mac OS (although Vista users will have to do some tweaking to make it work), IcePodder for Linux and the PodNova client for all major platforms.

It’s not just books and plays that are shared for free. If you wander over to the audio section at archive.org, you’ll find thousands of recordings available to stream or download for free, from rock concerts to comedy and documentaries.

My current archive.org favourites include live material from US instrumental post-rock outfit Red Sparowes and The Conet Project’s collection of eerie and eminently sample-worthy recordings of short-wave numbers stations, used by intelligence agencies to transmit coded messages during the cold war.

Many of the projects I've linked to are funded primarily by donations, so if you like what you hear, consider contributing funds and remember to tell your friends.