Brad Sucks

Brad Sucks is the stage name of the artist Brad Turcotte, whose “one man band with no fans” was among the first to take full advantage of the free culture movement for advertising and distribution. (He is not to be confused with Brad Turcotte, the manager of Compadre Records.)

Turcotte opened his website in 2002 with the intention of producing “open source music”. His self-produced single, Brad Sucks One, included the audio source files used to create the finished files, and later he posted these source files to his website along with the MP3s.

Turcotte waives all rights to his songs, essentially making them public domain. This total freedom allows him to promote his music through sites such as Magnatune and ccMixter, as well as Myspace and Podsafe. Since he was one of the first to make this decision, he also received free publicity through blogs and interviews in free culture magazines. His first full CD, I Don’t Know What I’m Doing, was released both through Magnatune and a limited “professional” printing from his own website.

Turcotte also runs the website stripcreator.com , which allows participants to create their own talking-head webcomics. He is also the creator of in4mador. He is also listed on Sellaband, a website where artists co-ordinate raising money to record an album.