Loca Records is an independent British record label based in Brighton that releases music under Copyleft licenses onto Vinyl, CD, and tape. Inspired by GNU/Linux, 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.

Loca releases electronica and post-rock music. Artists include ML, Snø, Dot, Meme, Maz Plant Out, Ward, and Xan.

Loca's first and second release in 1999, Kinematic and the Mandibles EP, were released under the GNU General Public License and subsequent releases have been on the EFF Open Audio License. Loca is now releasing all work under the Creative Commons license known as Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike.

One notable difference between the Creative Commons license and open-source licenses, such as the GPL, is that it does not require making the raw unmixed tracks available, whereas open source software has the underlying source code available. Loca is planning a true 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/Libre and Open Source GNU/Linux distributors, this money is reinvested in new talent and to encourage more experimentation.

See also

• Open source record label

External link

• LOCA RECORDS – Open Source Record Label
• Wired Interview with the Label
• Swedish Newspaper Interview