Since last summer, Synflict has been a solo effort by me with Marco remaining silent for various reasons I do not want to disclose in public. After weeks of silence, Marco Cervellin officially announced to withdraw from the project due to disagreements with its artistic direction it has taken. He wants to focus on his own music again and has finished an album that he wants to release soon, depending on how fast he will find a suitable netlabel. I wish him well and like to thank him for his past contributions. This is by no means the end of Synflict. It just means that the project will continue the way it has been running since July, as an solo effort, and that will include the music, too. Some descriptions may have to be rewritten, but that is not really an issue.

Is there such thing as a netaudio community, in the sense of a both progressively and altruistically orientated scene that solely exists for the benefits of future generations to come? Or a dialogue between musicians and their audience, tearing down the barriers and finally make listeners and musicians interchangable? The answer is: clearly not. The only binding elements are people who

• got tired of the offers of an old fashioned music industry and its restrictions put on them
• use Creative Commons licences to allow or be allowed to share music with others

Some may wonder about my omitting another commonly mentioned point:

• people who want to create or listen to music that exists for itself, without any market potential in mind

Because there are only some netlabels that work this way (Petcord being one of them). In fact, for the majority, neither freedom of expression nor altruism is particularly desired and thus, there are labels and artists that serve a commercial market with both mediocrity and triviality. They coloured themselves as representatives of something new, however use the same thought and behaviour patterns as their proprietary counterparts. So it’s not like there would have been some kind of revolution. The audience is still being treated like idiots by providing insignificant artists with the aura of geniuses or attributes of cultural importance. There is a Berlin based netlabel, which shall remain unnamed and habitually claims that netlabel artist x would be widely known or famous for release y and how they have been mentioned on site z. Or a Hungarian vapour-ware netradio, which claims to be thee Creative Commons netlabel station, but somehow fails to gather any listeners for its programmes despite having spent months of spamming MySpace profiles and announcement sites. It seems in most cases, netlabels and related projects are driven by attention seeking, dishonest persons looking for an easy way to compensate for their inadequacies. They spread lies about fame, uniqueness and genius, artificially inflate their importance and maintain barriers between artists and their audience.

So if you want to spread your music just because you like to create and share it and get in touch with like-minded people, some netlabels may show up a way. Talk to these people and see for yourself how they treat you. Whether they show genuine interest and actually understand your intentions. Do they treat you as a normal person? Do they grant you a right to have your say in the way your music is going to be presented to an audience? Look up their website, do you stumble across the dishonest claims you already know from commercially orientated traditional labels? But also look at yourself: Is music for you like some kind of science, where you present the results of your research from time to time? Do you choose freedom over fame? Are you open-minded to criticism? Is admiration and keeping up an image important to you? Do you feel your music would pass a blind test, without the help of flattering words and manipulative advertising campaigns? If your answer is yes, then you may find your freedom with the few like-minded netlabels.