John Buckman is founder of Magnatune, a Berkeley, California-based record label he founded in 2003 and which is known for its commercial application of Creative Commons licensing and overtly artist-friendly business practices. Buckman's methods include forming non-exclusive agreements with musicians, sharing profits equally with them, and allowing them to retain full rights to their own music. This approach is sometimes referred to as "fair trade music." Since founding Magnatune, Buckman has signed more than 250 recording artists across multiple genres.
In August 2006, he launched the for-profit corporation BookMooch, an online community for the exchange of used books, which—in combination with his work with Magnatune—has established Buckman as a prominent figure in the Free Culture movement. In February 2007, he was elected to the board of advisors of the Open Rights Group. In September 2007, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and in February 2010 he was appointed Chairman of the Board.
In 1994, Buckman and his ex-wife Jan Hanford founded Lyris Technologies. Buckman was CEO and primary programmer of Lyris' product line: Lyris ListServer, MailShield, and MailEngine. He sold the company in June 2005.
Buckman has been profiled by Forbes, Inc. Magazine, and The Economist. Buckman is the co-author of an article in SysAdmin Magazine entitled "Which OS is Fastest for High-Performance Network Applications?" and the author of an article in Linux Journal entitled "Magnatune, an Open Music Experiment."
Read more about John Buckman: Use of Creative Commons Licensing