Waldo Jaquith of The Virginia Quarterly has discovered considerable evidence of plagiarism in Chris Anderson's new book, Free. [more inside]
posted by Diablevert on Jun 24, 2009 - 73 comments

On The Outside It Looked Like An Old- Fashioned Police Box - Mark Gatiss presents a Radio 4 documentary on the Target novelisations of Doctor Who stories. Free Doctor Who eBooks.
posted by Artw on Jun 23, 2009 - 14 comments

Do you have any idea what day tomorrow is? Oh sure you could celebrate by going to: Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Kreme. But why not try someplace a little less mainstream?
posted by Mastercheddaar on Jun 4, 2009 - 46 comments

Varg is free! But, will all the glitter girls go for black metal? [more inside]
posted by geos on May 25, 2009 - 30 comments

Del The Funky Homosapien has two song packs available for free download. His newest album, Funk Man (the stimulus package), is available for the price of your email. All available at Bandcamp.
posted by P.o.B. on May 22, 2009 - 22 comments

We Are Smug is the side project of former Savage Garden frontman turned electropop showman Darren Hayes and collaborator and fellow electronic musician Robert Conley. Hayes and Conley had been working on this project secretly for about two years before releasing it online for free on Hayes's birthday. There are no current plans to tour or sell this album, aside from the free download, but there are already official music videos. (Warning: last link potentially triggering.)
posted by divabat on May 17, 2009 - 14 comments

It's Free Comic Book Day, so don't forget to pop down to your local comicbooks store and score some swag. In the mean time Warren Ellis suggests you enjoy this free online copy of Fell issue #1, with art by Ben Templesmith.
posted by Artw on May 2, 2009 - 15 comments

Are times of recession good or bad for the contemporary art market and artists? "Affordable" is becoming a leitmotif: there are events, international fairs, as well as various galleries. Some collectors and artists are sharing survival tips and tricks; and there are plenty of special offers to be had: Josh Poehlein - screenshot collages, free ; Shepard Fairey - "Obey Eye" screen print, 18 x 24 inches, signed and numbered, at a random time on April 21st: $45.00 ; Michel Gondry - your portrait, signed: $19.95 (allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery); 'Damien Hirst' - "For the love of Paris" postcard, 10.5 x 14.8 cm, signed and sent: € 1,80 ; Banksy - original, freely usable, high-quality jpg files: free.
posted by progosk on Apr 16, 2009 - 31 comments

Four Hours of Free Funkiness Filter: Pretty Lights [more inside]
posted by jammy on Mar 31, 2009 - 20 comments

Weee! Book scramble! (Single link Daily Mail article.)
posted by serazin on Feb 27, 2009 - 14 comments

Prepare to feel old: Quake III Arena came out nearly ten years ago. Prepare to feel young again: Quake Live can be played in your browser for free. The long-anticipated beta opened to the public yesterday. John Carmack says that they hope to be improving and polishing the game for the next decade. [more inside]
posted by Plutor on Feb 25, 2009 - 50 comments

Not all of us need, or want, $10,000 worth of Adobe and Microsoft software to be creative. So, here's some alternatives, each available on every major platform:

GIMP, for all your drawing and photo-editing needs. (Windows and OSX.)
Inkscape, for vector graphics creation.
Scribus, for incredibly powerful document creation.
FontForge, if you want to make your own fonts.
OpenOffice, the old standby for word processing, spreadsheets, and all those other office needs. [more inside]
posted by cthuljew on Feb 20, 2009 - 189 comments

C-SPAN claims ownership of ALL domain names containing its service mark “C-SPAN” or any variation of it. What kind of pull does C-Span have that Walmart doesn't?
posted by augustweed on Feb 19, 2009 - 27 comments

Classic Poetry Aloud: free recordings of 427 public domain poems.
posted by Iridic on Feb 16, 2009 - 8 comments

Flash Friday RPG Fun: Hands of War. Set in a kingdom in the midst of a civil war, choose the factions you support while re-assembling the Heartstone.
posted by never used baby shoes on Feb 13, 2009 - 18 comments

Five Dials is a free, downloadable literary magazine published by Hamish Hamilton (UK publisher of McSweeney's) and featuring so far texts by writers and artists, old and new, including Noam Chomsky, Alain de Botton, Gustave Flaubert, Bob and Roberta Smith, Iain Sinclair, Jean Paul Sartre, Roger Deakin, Raymond Chandler and Jonathan Safran Foer.
posted by lucia__is__dada on Feb 6, 2009 - 7 comments

Your alarm goes off, you get up to attend to your morning ritual, have a coffee, take a shower, head off to work, get on to Metafilter, and there you discover the wonders of the Free Sound Project! (previously)
posted by leotrotsky on Feb 2, 2009 - 17 comments

A really useful legal help resource at e-Justice blog: 100 Free DIY Legal Resources on the Web includes The Attorneys Forum, free legal advice and support from professional attorneys, lawyers, and law firms nationwide. The archives include: How to Prepare for a Financial Apocalypse: 100 Tips and Tools to Secure What’s Yours l Top 50 Internet & Digital Law Blogs l World Watchdogs: Top 50 Human Rights Blogs l The Ultimate Guide to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu- 101 Resources to Help Anyone Learn the Gentle Art. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Jan 13, 2009 - 19 comments

Need a little Tolstoy while you're waiting in line? How about some Mark Twain on the subway? Booksinmyphone puts - surprise! - books in your phone, for free.
posted by desjardins on Dec 31, 2008 - 21 comments

Hippie Masala [masala is the Hindi word for spice mix] is a documentary which poignantly depicts the lives of a handful of old hippies from different countries, who not only remained in India but also remained in the caricature roles of a small few in those days. These are, in some ways, lost souls stuck in the amber of the 1960's and 70's and this movie offers glimpses into their lives now. SnagFilms also has 510 other excellent documentaries to watch for free online. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Dec 27, 2008 - 24 comments

95 Old School Games You Can Play Online: Every game is reviewed and rated. Includes a link to every game on the list, a visual and mini description and how each one is played. [Bonus, some links at the bottom of the page to more games].
posted by nickyskye on Dec 24, 2008 - 46 comments

Alien Breed + arena shooter + online highscores = Alien Deathmatch 2. Windows only.
posted by pancreas on Dec 18, 2008 - 7 comments

Prospect 1. From the New Orleans Museum of Art in the City Park, to the Lower Ninth Ward's multiple installation locations, Prospect 1's curation is tasteful and moving, sometimes heart breaking but mostly promising. An unbelievable concentration of impressive artist's commentary on New Orleans. And it's free to get around (shuttle service available also) if you simply register. [more inside]
posted by priested on Dec 16, 2008 - 7 comments

FreshBrain: Online tech training (animation, video editing, graphic editing, application creation, etc) for youth - nonprofit and totally free. Featuring activities and contests
posted by serazin on Dec 11, 2008 - 1 comment

Nano War: Infectious Flash Fun. Colonize blobs, send swarms, and win superior numbers. Free multi-player and level editor. Dangerously addictive. [more inside]
posted by The Whelk on Dec 5, 2008 - 24 comments

CLLCT - The Collective Family An online community of indipendent musicians who have made their music free to download. No, it's not myspace. [more inside]
posted by robotot on Dec 1, 2008 - 21 comments

A 4-star rated book on CSS: The Art & Science of CSS is a FREE DOWNLOAD for 14 days from the folks at Sitepoint. Reader reviews give it 4 stars at Amazon. 208 pages. [more inside]
posted by spock on Nov 19, 2008 - 32 comments

20 Useful Visualization Libraries from the excellent A Beautiful WWW. Well, not entirely limited to libraries. Useful stuff for visualization practitioners sounded a little non-specific, though. These are all freely available. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Nov 6, 2008 - 11 comments

EduChoices offers some good free stuff online: 25 Places to Read Free Books Online l 50 Online Writing Websites for New Writers l Ranking of 20 Universities that Offer Free Courses Online (with links to the free courses), as well as information about university courses etc. l Great Reference Sites Other Than Wikipedia l Free Linux Tutorials for Beginners l Useful Online Calculators For Almost Every Educational and Life Need. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Nov 3, 2008 - 7 comments

Codeweavers is offering their product line for free until midnight Central time tonight. They implement versions of WINE, which allows one to run Windows programs under Mac OSX and Linux, including implementations focused on running games. [more inside]
posted by Kwine on Oct 28, 2008 - 40 comments

African Swim is the newest free album being offered by Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. This time the album features South African hip hop groups.
posted by drezdn on Oct 21, 2008 - 12 comments

200+ Tools for Surviving the Economic Crisis l Free printable Basic Budgeting Worksheet l Building Your First Budget l How To Create a Budget l How to Make a Budget and Stick to It l Frugal Family Recipes. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Oct 20, 2008 - 37 comments

Celebrating 120 years, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is offering 10 symphonies as free downloads, available until November 24! [more inside]
posted by LooseFilter on Oct 20, 2008 - 17 comments

AssaultCube is a free first-person-shooter. Set in a realistic looking environment, it's fast and arcade-like. Available for Windows, OS X, and Linux (via)
posted by blue_beetle on Oct 12, 2008 - 27 comments

Neil Gaiman's latest work, The Graveyard Book, is a kind of undead Jungle Book, with a man-child being raised by various ghosts and ghouls rather than animals. He's been the whole thing a chapter at a time on each stop of his American promotional tour, and posting the videos online (and blogging about it of course), which means that with tonights reading the entire thing will be available online.
posted by Artw on Oct 8, 2008 - 38 comments

Aether: lonely boy befriends a mysterious monster, leaves Earth to explore the galaxy. A quick, relaxing, hypnotic, motion-aftereffect-inducing flash game. Programming/music/design by Tyler Glaiel with further art/design by Edmund McMillen. [more inside]
posted by Korou on Oct 7, 2008 - 14 comments

CNet's Music site is one of my favorite sources of often surprisingly good independent music. As I write this, I'm listening to Zo Wanti Music's Lost Ship, a mellow New Age environmental piece that is very nice and relaxing. They have an enormous selection of music here, but one of the oddest and sometimes most rewarding to pick through is the game soundtracks/musical scores section. The artists listed here all compose music for video games (or have in the past). It's strangely fun to listen to some of their pieces and wonder what game that could belong to.
posted by Reverend Robbie on Oct 7, 2008 - 0 comments

FairyTaleFilter: SurLaLune Fairy Tales features 49 annotated fairy tales, including their histories, similar tales across cultures, modern interpretations and over 1,500 illustrations, 1,600 folktales & fairy tales from around the world in more than 40 full-text eBooks. Fairy Tale timeline. l Women Children's Book Illustrators l The Evolution of the Illustrated Children's Book l Some really beautiful free graphics and clipart from Grandma's Graphics. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Oct 1, 2008 - 11 comments

CBS has made full episodes of Twin Peaks available online. [more inside]
posted by PM on Sep 10, 2008 - 68 comments

Muslim Massacre. Satire or just for shock value? You decide. Windows only.
posted by pancreas on Sep 9, 2008 - 57 comments

Who needs Photoshop when you can have Pixlr ? [more inside]
posted by sgt.serenity on Aug 23, 2008 - 64 comments

Superstruct: An alternate reality game of future survival from the woman who brought you I Love Bees. Starting soon.
posted by klangklangston on Aug 14, 2008 - 10 comments

myopenbar.com (Chicago link) is a dandy little site that lets you know where to score free and/or cheap eats and/or drinks on any given night in your area (assuming 'your area' = NYC, SF, LA, Honolulu, Miami, or the aforementioned Chi-town). The places are rated, and visited personally by the website's bloggers, but who cares? It's free booze. [more inside]
posted by shakespeherian on Jul 15, 2008 - 6 comments

WFMU's Free Music Archive, "an online digital library of music that will allow music fans, webcasters and podcasters to listen, download, and stream for free, with no restrictions, registration or fees. And it will all be legal." Still pre-launch, but there's already quite a bit of music available on the site, including a sampler CD.
posted by cog_nate on Jul 15, 2008 - 18 comments

Today is July 11th. In the Gregorian Calendar, that is the eleventh day of the Seventh month. The free world celebrates it as Free Slurpee Day. [more inside]
posted by indiebass on Jul 11, 2008 - 28 comments

Free Government is a directly-controlled, open-source, entirely transparent political "meta-party" in the United States that intends to field candidates guided exclusively by online polling and user-drafted bills. Recruiting of candidates has already begun.
posted by setanor on Jul 7, 2008 - 23 comments

Poolga: iPhone and iPod Touch wallpapers from a selection of designers and illustrators from around the world.
posted by defenestration on Jul 6, 2008 - 26 comments

toneshared is a library of free mobile phone ringtones made by electronica/alternative musicians. From the subtle to the mashed to the downright annoying.
posted by nthdegx on Jun 26, 2008 - 18 comments

you've got new postcrossed mail You have heard of geocaching. You have heard of Bookcrossing. Here comes Postcrossing. The main idea is that: if you send a postcard, you'll receive at least one back, from a random Postcrosser from somewhere in the world. [more inside]
posted by Baud on Jun 8, 2008 - 19 comments

Self Made Scholar hosts a comprehensive collection of links to online classes in over 80 subjects. They also link to collections of free books and audiobooks.
posted by Upton O'Good on Jun 1, 2008 - 7 comments