Loca Records is an independent electronica and post rock record label based in Brighton, UK. All the music, artwork and videos are released under copyleft licenses and distributed physically on vinyl, CD, and cassette. Inspired by the free software movement, Loca Records allows similar freedoms as the GNU General Public License on their releases, including copying, re-release, modification, and sampling, with the requirement that the new work uses the same license.[1]
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There is a growing roster of artists releasing work on LOCA Records[2] including the following;
Loca's first and second release in 1999, Kinematic and the Mandibles EP, were released under the GNU General Public License[3] and subsequent releases have been on the EFF Open Audio License. Loca is now releasing all work under the Creative Commons license known as the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.[4]
One notable difference between the Creative Commons license and free/open source licenses, such as the GPL, is that it does not require making the raw unmixed tracks available, whereas free/open source software has the underlying source code available. Loca is planning a true free content/open source release with the new ML album which will contain a selection of samples used to make the track along with the music on a computer-readable data section of the CD.
Loca receives money from selling CDs and Records. Following the example of free and open source software distributors, this money is reinvested in new talent and to encourage more experimentation.