Of course, I might be a little bit jaded. Thanks to all who came to the Huge! Insane! Memorial Day Weekend Music Yardsale, it was much appreciated. I sold 3 turntables and might have sold many more had I had more available. Stories like this help, of course, but calling things cool seems to imply that they were once uncool. The Secrets of a High-Quality Vinyl Record – NYTimes.com. (possibly paywalled)
David Lowery (Camper Van, Beethoven, Cracker) has a very interesting, and only somewhat self-aggrandizing post where he explains that there are plenty of ways that musicians are *still* getting ripped off, even if they believe in the new paradigm. Meet The New Boss, Worse Than The Old Boss? -Full Post | The Trichordist.
From the YouTube page: Three weeks before his “Blunderbuss” album hits the streets, Third Man Records decided to make the Jack White album track “Freedom at 21” premier exclusively via flexi-disc records attached to helium balloons launched from the label headquarters in Nashville on April 1st, 2012. Envisioned as an experiment exploring non-traditional forms of record distribution and a way to get records in the hands of people who don’t visit record shops, the label was sure to use biodegradable latex balloons and all-natural twine in the process. Accompanying the balloons were custom post cards with instructions for the finders…
Excellent screed/rant by Dave Mandl over on Rumpus.net. Neatly explains the sore point of incorrect dating on music streaming and download sites. Who Cares When Your Record Was Digitally Remastered? – The Rumpus.net. Interestingly, one of the commenters says that the reason why the labels feed this incorrect information to the streaming databases is so that they get the (tiny) payment registered to the more recent release. Presumably this make accounting easier for the labels. From a cursory look around a few other services, it appears that those using the All Music API do get the dates correct.
It seems that today is “Dynamic Range Day”. I think that perhaps the effort needs a better publicist or marketer, I went to Hallmark to look for a “Happy Dynamic Range Day” card and the lady gave me very odd look. No matter, it’s an interesting and necessary effort. The Dynamic Range Day site has a number of useful and informative resources. And if you’re that way inclined, you can win a whole bunch of cool gear. Dynamic Range Day: Inside the Loudness War – CE Pro Article from CE Pro.
Major music labels tell us that it is bad that people “steal content”, so they’ve come up with another revenue stream, accepting royalty payments which thay are not due, from people who are not authorised to collect them and then not giving it to the people for whom it was collected…. The Global Songwriter Shell Game: Why The Major Music Companies Are Getting Your Royalties | TuneCorner Music Blog.
IANAL, but I was fascinated by this in-depth history of the Doctrine of First Sale (which allows me to sell used records to anyone willing to pay) and analysis of the most recent attempt to blow it up. It’s slightly heavy going, with quite a bit of law jargon, but the thrust of the piece leads to the remarkable conclusion that the TPP proposal, in an attempt to protect US industries which rely largely on copyrighted works, will actually drive then to make all copies abroad. At the same time it will finally kill the market for used books, records,…
The music Lomax collected has been available in 45-second snippets on the Cultural Equity web site for several years but is now being digitized in its entirety for streaming… Folklorist’s Global Jukebox Goes Digital- NYTimes.com.
The Pirate Bay has many many many people looking at it every day. And now they are suggesting that perhaps it might be good for your band to be seen by those eyeballs. As Masnick asks “Would You Rather Fight Piracy… Or Have A Billion People Know You Exist?” – – See the easy-to-fill-in form here: The Promo Bay.
Internet strike day is Wednesday January 18th. In a protest against the SOPA and PIPA legislation moving through the US Congress, many major sites (Wikipedia, Reddit, Internet Archive) will go dark for 12 hours. Of course, PoOPlist does not have the reach of these sites, but we want to do our small part to help. Both of these pieces of legislation are harmful to the internet itself, to innovative business and will not achieve what their sponsors say they will. There are precise ways to prevent foreign websites from pirating US content and they are already written into law. There…
“It is a supreme patriotic duty,” Mr N’Dour said of his candidacy. “It’s true, I haven’t pursued higher education, but the presidency is a function and not a job. BBC News – Youssou N'Dour announces Senegal presidential bid.
The first is that Jon Caramanica has written a very interesting and well-considered piece about the mainstream US* rock scene in 2011. I’ve had quibbles with some of his pet projects over the years, but here he hits a home run. It really is difficult to overstate the malaise in US mainstream rock this year. A worthwhile read. The second interesting thing about this article on the web is the SEO and page title tuning which the NYT has used for this piece. The article is called “The Year When Rock Just Spun Its Wheels” and it lists a bunch…
Techdirt and the NY Times both report: Louis CK: Over $1 Million In Sales In Just 12 Days For DRM-Free Download. This should be reported as yet another in the long list of projects which work because artists have used the CwF + RtB (“Connect with Fans and Reason to Buy”) model. Yup, Connect with your Fans and give them a Reason to Buy seems so obvious to us, but we still have to endure the content industry telling us that we should pass SOPA/PIPA because it protects artists. Connect with Fans + Reason to Buy.
Now that the NY Times is telling your parents about “Skrillex and dubstep taking over America”, it’s time for a little corrective action. (Dubba Jonny – “Not Another UKF Dubstep Tutorial” from the Various Artists compilation UKF Dubstep 2011)
Go to this site: You Have Downloaded, and see if they’ve seen you. Enter a title into the search box, see which IP address it’s gone to. See what else that IP sucked down. There’s a useful explanation of the system at the ZDNet blog
OR On his official site, Elvis Costello (or his minions) have posted a funny screed about the ravishing cost of his new recorded music fetish object (formerly known as “a record”). His point is that the Super Deluxe Edition is overpriced at $202.66, even if does include a whole bunch of extras in addition to the CD/DVD/10″. He goes on to endorse the 10 CD Louis Armstrong “Ambassador of Jazz” box, says that the component parts of his own set will be available cheaper in the new year and winds up acknowledging, in not very…
It appears that at least one of the major labels has found an innovative new business model. You just cannot overestimate the venality of these guys. From the article: … In other words, UMG put out albums without artist permission, held back royalties from these artists, and then finally paid out when faced with a much bigger legal threat. Now, even though the settlement money seems to cover what was claimed and acknowledged to be owed to artists, UMG is using the guise of a copyright claim to recover the money from its insurer… Why Universal Music Sued Its Insurer Over a…
Fascinating interview with the ubiquitous Steven Goulding (drummer for Rumour, Mekons, Gang of 4, etc etc) in which he mentions that GP + The Rumour are rehearsing for a film, record and possible tour. Graham Parker and the Rumour are back, Judd Apatow’s got ’em (MusicFilmWeb.com)
Why does folk music collector Alan Lomax have a copyright interest in “Takeover” by Jay-Z? A fascinating step by step breakdown of just that question of on Ethan Heins Blog › Jay-Z and Alan Lomax. And a pretty persuasive argument for how screwed up the US copyright system is.
ISPs to Disrupt Internet Access of Copyright Scofflaws (Threat Level Blog, wired.com) And all on the say so of the content industry. ISPs have said that they will not cut people off, and we are talking about a “six-strikes and you’re throttled-or-something” regime… but even the French 3 strikes law eventually involved the judiciary. More coverage on ArsTechnica: Major ISPs agree to “six strikes” copyright enforcement plan. Ars also has a breakdown of The six ways you can appeal new copyright “mitigation measures”