Why I Built FreeMix

The initial concept for FreeMix is 20+ years old and came about when I was working on an early prototype of a music download site in 2005–2006. The project — then codenamed Guava — was envisioned to be somewhere between iTunes and SoundCloud. While working on Guava I had the core FreeMix idea: music creators could assign the rights to their music directly, telling others how it could be used, bypassing outdated and inadequate copyright laws. The hope was that this could remove the barriers to creativity by creating a platform where music could be shared, discovered, mixed, and remixed between artists directly — without going through labels or publishing companies.

Needless to say, Guava never came to fruition yet I had the FreeMix idea kicking around for all that time and the hope was still there. Fast forward to 2025 and I thought this was still a viable idea that needed to be explored. What has changed is that the technology has advanced to a point where the idea could actually be built — and, more importantly, built in a way that empowers music creators in new ways that weren’t possible before.

These foundational pillars are still at the core of FreeMix:

• Foster community among music creators and fans
• Place music front-and-center
• Encourage sharing and creativity
• Empower artists with control over their music

On a personal level, as a music creator I came up synchronous with the rise of sampling and hip-hop. Remix culture didn’t begin with sampling, however. The roots can be traced back to jazz soloists adding riffs from jazz standards or even other contemporary pieces in their solos. From there we got funk “vamps”, and then “breaks” which created multiple genres of music from old records. What’s more, the concept of the reggae riddim — a repeatable drum and bass pattern that serves as the backbone to multiple “versions” — has pervaded throughout modern music. Once 12″ singles came on the scene in the 1970s, longer remixes, tape edits, and dub versions became the norm and set the stage for the music explosion we see today.

Backing up a bit, my start in the music business predates my introduction to the internet although not by much. In these last 30+ years, I have been witness to massive changes in the music industry coupled with the global reach of the web. From the start of e-commerce, to the dot-com bust, to early social networks, and now with AI, each phase has impacted music in different ways.

As the main platform for music shifted from physical media to digital audio over a globally connected network, there was no doubt that the landscape for music and creators would be altered, yet how that would shake out was hard to predict while we were going through it. Now that these transformations have had some time to settle, I was able to reflect on where I started and where we are now. From my perspective, some of these changes have been good and some not-so-good.

Let’s start with the good: computer technology has democratized to the point where just about anyone can create music with just a laptop or even on their mobile device. We are now connected like never before where everyone has a voice and can be heard. The entire body of knowledge of human existence is a few taps away from insanely powerful always-connected devices we carry in our pockets.

Now the bad: computer technology has democratized to the point where just about anyone can create music with just a laptop or even on their mobile device. We are now connected like never before where everyone has a voice and can be heard. The entire body of knowledge of human existence is a few taps away from insanely powerful always-connected devices we carry in our pockets.

OK, I kid — but there is some truth to this. There have been some inherent trade-offs with this flattening of technology as it relates to music specifically:

• Music has become devalued to the point of ridiculousness. “Music sales” almost don’t exist anymore. We now effectively rent music instead of owning it. The situation for creators has deteriorated further, giving them less control.
• If everyone is a creator and has access to a megaphone, it is hard to be seen or heard.
• Social media creates “stars” out of people with the most followers, not necessarily how good their music is.
• The gamification of the music industry has only gotten worse: fake followers, fake likes, fake shares, and fake music.
• Often music is now specifically tuned to algorithms, not listeners or dancers.
• The major labels and streaming services still control the lion’s share of the industry.

I felt strongly that not only did we need to shake the current state of affairs up a bit, but that I personally needed to take action. I needed to build this thing.

Where to start?

For me it started with a question I’ve been asking myself for two decades: what if the creator was in the driver’s seat from the very beginning? Not as an afterthought. Not as a checkbox in a platform’s settings page. But as the fundamental architecture of the thing.

That’s what FreeMix is: a music platform built from the ground up around the idea that artists should be able to share their work on their own terms. We could eliminate the middlemen and reduce friction to a minimum to foster creativity and community. It’s so crazy — it just might work.

At the heart of FreeMix is our license framework: it is the engine that powers the platform. To come up with this framework, I did a deep dive into Creative Commons licenses and emerged with the firm belief that they simply wouldn’t be adequate for FreeMix. Creative Commons wasn’t designed for how music actually works — especially for remixes, mashups, edits, and DJ sets. We needed something purpose-built tailored specifically to how creators use and create music today.

Licenses are the foundation that creator control is built on. To ensure we had a rock-solid foundation, our licenses were crafted from the ground up with the help of an experienced music attorney and were specifically designed to keep artists in control of their work. They are legally binding, and the license lets artists know exactly how their music can be used. Can someone remix it? Sample it? Play it in a DJ set? Use the stems for a new production? The creator decides, and the license is clearly displayed wherever you see a track on FreeMix.

I also made an early decision that proved to be one of the most important: FreeMix is built on AT Protocol — the open, decentralized technology behind Bluesky. While there is a lot of buzz around ATProto right now, this was not a flavor-of-the-month choice, but a principled one. If the whole point of FreeMix is to give artists control, it would be hypocritical to build it on a platform that controls the data. On ATProto, your identity, music, and your music metadata belong to you. It’s yours and yours forever — even if FreeMix goes away.

Building on ATProto also means FreeMix exists in a broader ecosystem. Your FreeMix profile is your ATProto identity. Published tracks are live on the network expanding the reach of your music across the ATmosphere. Your social interactions — follows, likes, reposts — are portable. The remix tree, where every remix links back to its source material, is a public, verifiable chain of provenance that no single company can alter or erase.

FreeMix is live and we’ve just opened it up to everyone. Paid downloads and royalties are now active, for buyers worldwide.

“Music is the healing force of the world.”

I truly believe this but for this force to be effective we needed music creators to seize the means of (music) production. With any luck, FreeMix will allow artists (and labels) to do just that. I can’t wait to see what people create.

— Joshua Iz, September 2026