About River Rat Records

It would seem that expertise in copyright law has become a prerequisite for listening to music. Digital rights and wrongs dressed up in technical mumbo jumbo are forming an electric fence around music in an attempt to personalise the experience of listening, for the maximum enjoyment of shareholders. Music has never been a purely personal experience (more often it's a shared one), but the nightmare of having to digitally and uniquely identify ourselves for permission to hear something is fast becoming reality.

Whatever happened to sharing what we enjoy? How confused children must be these days - encouraged to share sweets but incarcerated for sharing music.

Historically, rats have always been good at sharing things. Let's face it, more people have heard of the plague than the Pogues. The casual sharing of music is a brilliantly infectious method of free marketing, and we think it's important to spread that message, for the benefit of artists and music lovers alike.

Be it considered futile and contradictory, or brave and revolutionary, River Rat releases all recordings using a special licence - an appendage to international copyright laws, which explicitly grants you the legal right to burn, copy, and share as much as you like. "Some Rights Reserved" means that we still endeavour to protect the rights of our artists commercially, but as long as you're not making money from copying our records, you're safely on the right (or left) side of the law.

From product manufacturing to product packaging, almost everything we produce has enjoyed a former life. Our commitment is to use 100% recycled materials where physically possible.

Having the combined height of approximately 3 feet, here at River Rat we empathise with the runts of the litter. The growth of larger siblings results in their increasing need to consume, and although there's always enough to go around, often only the fittest survive. Though nature may be cruel, it is never calculating, whereas capitalism justifies the success of one, at the expense of many, as the very nature of business.

In order to remain focussed, most small organisations rely on resources from other traders and professionals, and River Rat is no exception. This presents us with choices. By choosing to support independent trade we are able to positively influence local communities, taxation, and employment. What's more, the assumption that large corporations are able to under cut smaller businesses is often found to be untrue.

By purchasing our products directly from this website or indirectly from your local independent record shop you are not only supporting River Rat and its ideology, but also the independent traders (or runts) we have chosen to work with.

Do the River Rat Ripple, and help the little get some nipple!

All of River Rat's financial resources (gold teeth excluded) have been entrusted to The Co-operative Bank. The impact our money can have on local and global investment is enormous and commonly considered beyond our control. However, bushy tailed financial organisations such as The Co-operative Bank and Triodos make it easy for us to choose to bank responsibly.

Recently the British government left the majority of its public more than bewildered when up to £25 billion of its golden nuggets were pledged to Trident, a sum that could provide better education, health and transport for a generation - a generation now intent on swapping its piggy banks for ballot boxes as resistance to high street banks, who continue to casually invest popular money in the extremely unpopular arms trade. Public pressure really does pay.