Coldcut are an English electronic music duo composed of Matt Black and Jonathan More. Credited as pioneers for pop sampling in the ‘80s, Coldcut are also considered the first stars of UK electronic dance music due to their innovative style, which featured cut-up samples of hip-hop, breaks, jazz, spoken word and various other types of music, as well as video and multimedia. According to Spin, "in ’87 Coldcut pioneered the British fad for ‘DJ records’".
Coldcut's records first introduced the public to pop artists Yazz and Lisa Stansfield, through which these artists achieved pop chart success. In addition, Coldcut has remixed and created productions on tracks by the likes of Eric B & Rakim, James Brown, Queen Latifah, Eurythmics, INXS, Steve Reich, Blondie, The Fall, Pierre Henri, Nina Simone, Fog, Red Snapper, and BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Beyond their work as a production duo, Coldcut are the founders of Ninja Tune, an independent record label in London, England (with a satellite office in Montreal) with an overall emphasis on encouraging interactive technology and finding innovative uses of software. The label’s first releases (the first four volumes of DJ Food - 'Jazz Brakes') were produced by Coldcut in the early 90s, and composed of instrumental hip-hop cuts that led the duo to help pioneer the trip hop genre, with artists such as Funky Porcini, The Herbaliser and DJ Vadim.
Free is The Party's second studio album. Teddy Riley wrote three songs for the album, including the new jack swing-tinged title song, "Free," which was also remixed by house-music legends Steve "Silk" Hurley and E-Smoove. Dr. Dre produced the song "Let's Get Right Down to It," and the group itself also got involved in the writing and producing of the album, which would once again land it another concert tour opening spot with Color Me Badd, its last special for the Disney Channel, "All About The Party," and an appearance on Blossom. However, the album was not as successful on the charts as previous ones, which prompted Damon Pampolina to leave the group.
Free: The Future of a Radical Price is the second book written by Chris Anderson, Editor in chief of Wired magazine. The book was published on July 7, 2009 by Hyperion. He is also the author of The Long Tail, published in 2006.
Free follows a thread from the previous work. It examines the rise of pricing models which give products and services to customers for free, often as a strategy for attracting users and up-selling some of them to a premium level. That class of model has become widely referred to as "freemium" and has become very popular for a variety of digital products and services.
Free was released in the United States on July 7, 2009, though the night before, on his blog, Chris Anderson posted a browser readable version of the book and the unabridged audiobook version. Anderson generated controversy for plagiarizing content from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia in Free. Anderson responded to the claim on his The Long Tail blog, stating that there were disagreements between him and the publisher over accurate citation of Wikipedia due to the changing nature of its content, leading him to integrate footnotes into the text. Also on his blog, he took full responsibility for the mistakes and noted that the digital editions of Free were corrected. The notes and sources were later provided as a download on his blog.
Gratis /ˈɡrɑːtᵻs/ or /ˈɡreɪtᵻs/ is the quality of an action where the action is willingly provided without any requirement by the provider for compensation or monetary remuneration. It is often referred to in English and Dutch as free of charge (FOC), complimentary, or on the house. Companies, producers, and service providers often provide certain things free of charge as part of a larger business model, pricing strategy, or as a donation.
The English term gratis has its origins in late Middle English; from Latin. A contraction of gratiis, meaning 'as a kindness' or 'a show of goodwill', which in turn stems from the root gratia meaning 'grace' or 'kindness'. It is widely used in the Afrikaans, Slovakia, Czech, Hungarian, Croatian, Serbian, Polish, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Indonesian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, German and some of the other Germanic languages, with the same meaning.
In a standard business model where goods and services are exchanged for a monetary compensation, pricing of the goods is a fundamental element of the marketing process. While it would defeat the business model if companies provide all of their goods and services free of charge, it is common for them to provide limited amount of free goods in their promotional mix. Many companies often provide free samples to the press in order to generate media coverage for their products. Depending on the product, companies may provide free samples to prospective buyers.