Uwe Hermann | A slightly paranoid Debian developer

Looking at my webserver logs, there seems to be a highly increased demand for my 10 + 100 Creative Commons Christmas Songs blog post from last Christmas... I wonder why... ;-)

So I decided to update the list this year, adding a bunch of additional songs; in total there are now more than 230 songs listed.

Of course the list is incomplete, so any further links to Creative Commons licensed Christmas music are very welcome. Just leave a comment here or directly on the old blog post and I'll update the list.

I'll probably also put up some more Christmas-related songs on my Creative Commons music podcast over the next few days...

Image credit: Photo taken from Wikipedia. Author: Kelvin Kay. License: GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), version 1.2.

So, it's Christmas today (or it will be tomorrow, depending on where you live). Wouldn't it be nice if you had a bunch of freely and legally available Christmas songs you could listen to all day? Burn on CDs and hand over to your relatives? Share with your friends without the fear of being sued to death by big record labels?

Well, here's a list of 110 256 songs which are all explicitly released under a Creative Commons license (no, I did not consider songs which are merely "podsafe"!) and thus can be shared, listened to, and sometimes even modified freely. There's a great variety in style, mood, and genre of the songs: some traditional, some contemporary, some happy, some sad, and some just plain funny. So here's the list:

Single MP3s:

• Natalie Brown - Jingle Bells
• Danny Morris - Santa's Gone Surfing! — no longer available
• Bullette - Christmas Blank
• Bullette - The Finest Gifts
• Jonathan Coulton - Podsafe Christmas Song
• Jonathan Coulton - Christmas Is Interesting — no longer available
• Pete Green - Everything's Dead Pretty When it Snows
• Robert Gayler - Christmas Bells
• Sonny Jim - Christmas
• Shira Kammen - Christmas Day in the Morning
• Derek K. Miller - We Three Kings
• High-C & DJ Manticore - How George Stole Christmas
• Sarah Whiteley - Still, Still, Still
• Sean McGaughey - Homeless Babe
• Skoria - Christmas Impro — updated link

Compilations:

• Kemper Crabb - A Medieval Christmas (11 songs) — no longer available
• Diorisiy - Christmas Carols (19 songs)
• The 8bitpeoples - The 8bits of Christmas (8 songs)
• Austin Rudy Christmas - Carolina Christmas (5 songs)
• Goyette Christmas Carolers - Various Christmas Songs (10 songs)
• Kevin MacLeod - Holiday / Christmas Collection (13 songs)
• Oilville Christmas Dynasty - Christmas Compilations (39 songs) — updated link
• Ottmar Liebert - Winter Rose (13 songs) — no longer free, it seems

Additional songs 2006:

• Jonathan Coulton - Chiron Beta Prime (1 song)
• Naomi & Shamine King - Christmas with the Swirrels (11 songs)
• Naomi & Shamine King - Duets 2004 "Star Zero" (18 Christmas-related songs)
• Happy Puppy Records - A Happy Puppy Christmas (4 songs)
• Hairy Larry - The Gift (9 songs)
• Anup - Jingle Bells (1 song)
• The Kyiv Theological Academy And Seminary Choir - Hymns of the All-Night Vigil (20 songs)
• Drevo - Christian Themes in Ukrainian Folk Songs (22 songs)
• Uncle Seth - To Be An Angel (1 song) — updated link
• Die Weihnachtshasser - Gemeines zur Weihnachtszeit (14 songs)
• Die drei Lenöre - Der Weihnachtsmann / Rasierschaum (5 songs)
• Jeff Taylor keeps another list of free Christmas-related music at freechristmasmusic.googlepages.com (but not all of it is Creative Commons licensed!).
• Some more Christmas music will probably appear in my podcast over the next few days, too...

Additional songs 2008:

• Allison Crowe - Tidings (traditional songs) (6 songs)
• Skoria - Quimsa XMAS (1 song)
• the glimmer room - Christmas In Jonestown (1 song)
• Derek K. Miller - What Child Is This / Greensleeves (1 song)
• John Stebbe - Silent Night (Jazz Trio Version) (1 song)
• Ralph Rousseau Meulenbroeks - Christmas Carols (16 songs)
• Mystified - While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night (1 song)
• Seaview Full Gospel Church - Living Christmas Tree 2004 (16 songs)

This list is by no means complete, I'm sure. So if you happen to know some more Creative Commons licensed Christmas music, please leave a comment! I'd love to hear about it.

(Btw., the nice image on the right is taken from the Wikipedia. The author is Malene Thyssen, and the image is dual-licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 and the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Update 2008-12-21: Added more songs for 2008. Updated/marked broken links.
Update 2006-12-22: Added more songs for 2006 :)
Update 2005-12-26: Added "Homeless Babe". Added "Christmas Impro".
Update 2005-12-25: In the press: Boing Boing, Creative Commons Blog, netzpolitik.org, Technorati, digg.com, del.icio.us and lots more. Added "How George Stole Christmas". Added "Winter Rose". Added "Still, Still, Still".
Update 2005-12-24: Added "We Three Kings".

Yes, that's right. I have ordered one of those shiny new video iPods today.

I was never impressed too much by all this Apple hype going on all around me. In fact, I have never owned any Apple product (no iPod {photo|nano|shuffle|*}, no powerBook, no iBook, no iMac, no Mac mini). Until now. I simply couldn't resist to replace my 256 MB noname MP3 player with the full-blown 30 GB of the iPod (the 60 GB version costs way too much for my taste). See the specs for more technical details on the new iPod.

Apart from the usual iPod features you all know, this one's supposed to be thinner, can display photos and (the major improvement) videos. Yes, it's only 320x240, but it's videos. This thing will initiate a huge video blogging / videocasting wave, and those vlogs will soon become as popular as podcasts are today, I'm sure.

I hope to get my hands on that thingy in a bit more than a week (shipping takes a few days, it seems). I already have a lot of things on my mind, which I'm gonna do with it:

• listen to a huge bunch of podcasts
• watch various vlogs (btw, older models can play videos, too, if you ask nicely)
• store some photos on it to show off to relatives and friends
• record various stuff using the built in 44.1 kHz stereo recorder (think podcasting, for example)
• try out some of those 50 fun things to do with your iPod
• install iPodLinux / podzilla on it (you've been waiting for this, haven't you?). The new video iPod is not (yet) supported, so I might contribute a few patches, but don't take my word for it.
• oh, and I might use it to listen to music from time to time, too ;-)

If you have any suggestions for more geeky things I could be (ab)using it for (think john the ripper on iPod and similar things), don't hesitate to write a comment! Hm, I might port bb to the iPod if nobody beats me to it...

Wow. The German news program Tagesschau now has a podcast. I'm pretty impressed that more and more "conservative" media try out fancy stuff like Open Source, RSS, blogs, podcasts etc. I wouldn't have expected that (not yet, at least)...

(via moongate.org)