Mindwebs Streaming

-- Note: all Mindwebs episodes (stories + music) are protected by copyright. The claim that the series is in the 'public domain' is ludicrous, at best, and dishonest, at worst. The copyright to the actual recordings is held by Michael Hanson, the series creator. But copyright law is not that simple. The author of each individual story retains the copyright to that story, and each musician retains the copyright to their own music. While the whole subject is tangled and confusing, one thing is certain: if someone is selling this series... or even generating advertising revenue by hosting the series on their domain... they are making money for themselves by stealing the work of others.

YouTube has copyright agreements that allow some episodes to be embedded and streamed from other sites (like the Plot Spot). However, some of their agreements allow streaming only while on the YouTube domain. If you click a video, below, that is not allowed to be streamed from this website, you will see a message and a link to that video on YouTube. On the other hand, if you prefer to listen to the audio, rather than watch a video, head over to Michael Hanson's Official Tape Archive (full, lossless audio) and download the series from there.

For many decades, low bit-rate tapes of Mindwebs (recorded over the airwaves) have circulated among collectors. Michael Hanson (the creator of Mindwebs) has long been disappointed with those poor-quality recordings and frustrated that fans could not hear the series as he intended it. A few years ago, a man known on the Internet as 'Darkman' approached Mr Hanson. After some deliberation, Mr Hanson agreed to temporarily part with his cherished tapes so Darkman could encode them in full, lossless stereo. (A magic potion may have been involved.) Darkman is working with radio station WMSE in Milwaukee to release the resulting encodes, one episode per week. One week after WMSE plays an episode over the air, Darkman posts it to the archive and I create a lower-bit-rate (384 kbps) video version which I then post to the OTR Plot Spot channel on YouTube.

If it were not for Darkman, the Mindwebs production tapes would continue to gather dust in Mr Hanson's basement and an important part of Radio history would be lost forever. But Darkman's contribution goes far beyond that: he is currently working with Mr Hanson to produce new Mindwebs episodes! The first episode is complete and the second episode is in the mixing stage. We hope for many, many more to come!

"It is my hope and intention that this project will bring free enjoyment of Mindwebs to listeners new and old as long as sound exists. My sincere thanks to Darkman for making this possible. And my thanks to the myriad fans who've helped make this entire enterprise viable." --- Yours truly, Michael Hanson