The victimization of last.fm
Click below:
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Stop download flood, says clueless music chief
In case you were in any doubt whether EMI will survive, today’s Times article pretty much confirms how disasterous EMI’s future is likely to be.
Check it out here.
Mr Hands – you need to find a CEO who understands what is going on in the real world.
Elio Leoni-Sceti has missed the point by a country mile – don’t be fooled by a slight upturn in sales – waving blame and committing to try to stop what is inevitable, is commercial suicide.
Mark my words.
Pirate Bay hit with legal action
Totally and utterly pointless legal action which will do absolutely fucking nothing to stop what is inevitable.
Click below for the Beeb article:
Music = Respect?
Worth reading the below rant by Hans Ebert. Thanks to Peggy from MSG for forwarding. Forgive the repetitive incorrect use of ‘for free’. Of course, things cannot be ‘for free’ they can only be ‘free’ or ‘without charge’.
Great rant though 
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Blaine was mentioning to me how there are so many people “out there” who believe they are “owed” music – and for free – and how all music is free- AND all the software to help them smash and grab this music. Go to www.limewire.com and with the file sharing going on, all the music exchanged becomes free and which begs the question, where’s it all gone so horribly wrong that from rocking in the free world, musicians are now “fair game” for what I call the Vulture Culture and where they and their product are “owned” by consumers?
I hear sanctimonous bullshit from people about “caring for the music, man” but listen to them an hour later and they’re telling you to “just go to limewire and download, dude. Why pay?” Er, ‘cos it’s just not right? ‘cos it’s highway robbery.It’s Download Piracy? It’s Digital Hell? It devalues art?
Let’s not look at the States and talk about giving away music to “help gigs and tours.” In many countries, there are no VENUES to “gig,” let alone, “tour.” Again, this is talk from the geographically-challenged and the music industry equivalent of Fox News’ “true American” Sean “Huff Daddy” Hannity.
Even if you are to get a “gig” today, you’re told it’s “for free” and how you can “use it” for “promotion” and build up your “fan base” and soon you’re over thirty, you’re still gigging, you’re still updating your MySpace page, you’re still trying to “do an Arctic Monkeys” or “do a Lily Allen” when they have disappeared into the giant abyss and you’ve finally decided to audition for “American Idol” ‘cos nothing else has worked and you are ready to be a karaoke singer, be called “dawg” and sell yourself to four “judges” who know you’re too old to be “idol material.”
You were irrelevant before and you’re irrelevant now, you have no “fan base” other than your dog and Mum. Even the girlfriend moved out and is living with either Tommy Lee, or Gene Simmons, or David Navarro, or David Lee Roth, or Kid Rock or Sammy Hagar. [Are they one and the same?]
Let’s just look at the pure economics of spending one’s time- and time is money- creating music, buying instruments, equipment, renting rehearsal rooms, perhaps paying for studio time, getting a finished product “out there”- and only to then have it downloaded for free and without anyone even leaving you a ten cent tip? There’s also the chance that you’ll get your songs ripped off in the process and with many claiming the same “bragging rights” and worse – copyrights – and you have nada bananas for legal warfare.
How have we become so darn callous to it all? How has the art of creating music become “content?” And how and why has this “content” become so discardable and dispensable?
I might not download music for free, but I AM caught up in the feeding frenzy of going online and, like a kid at a buffet table, subscribing to anything and everything that is free- free newsletters about music, free psycho-babble from wealth mentors, free blogs…and which I then spend hours Unsubscribing the next week as my Inbox is on Overload with useless “information” and not unlike all the “jokes” and other spam that finds its way past the firewalls of protection. I feel like a scavenger – a Hurdy Gurdy Man – and part of the Vulture Culture that exists today and where we think and act in “bit torrents.”
But “purchasing music for free,” something I hear all the time from “oxy morons” is, to me, like Quasimodo sounding the death knell to a dilapidated music industry “model” that’s barely able to stand these days as it’s been knocked Over, Under, Sideways, Down. Yes, it’s like that old Yardbirds song.
Having said this, I care for the ARTISTS. I have absolutely no sympathy for music companies as they have always had do to do with a privileged few being the arrogant twats they still are today and never seeing nor caring to see the fast train of technology approaching and which has run over them. The railway tracks are written all over their faces, but they think it’s a tan.
Their “solution” to it all: Legislation and ‘let’s sue the bastards.” As Tim so succinctly puts it, now is the time for Innovation not Legislation.
Leave these hapless twats to their own means and, for reasons that baffle me, many are still running music companies – often, into the ground- but, I guess, it comes down to them having their power bases and being surrounded by toadies to keep their egos on a “higher plain” and who remain “blinded by the light” and dazzled by their own bullshit.
My fear is that unless this weird imbalance of “power,” this dysfunctional “tribe” of artists – and many are also arrogant, ignorant, swaggering twats – fans who support music, management and “new model music companies” come together like a Youngbloods song, this really might be “the day the music died” and we’ll be seeing “Music: R.I.P.” headstones all around.
Silence is not golden and nor is it a pretty sound.
Like a child, like the people who matter in your life, music, like any other art form, needs to heard, nurtured and respected for it to live, breathe, be happy and multiply.
by Hans Ebert,
Chairman & CEO, We-Enhance Inc
Youtube removes copyrighted audio from videos – killing music promotion
Not only is the Music Industry intent on destroying itself, but it seems intent on taking Youtube with it.
In an utterly bizarre fashion, Youtube appears to be using it’s audio fingerprinting software to remove any audio which infringes copyright, but is leaving the original videos online.
Previously, copyright-infringers were either notified, or had their videos removed entirely. There’s no word on whether this new approach was instituted by Google/Youtube, or whether, as most people presume, it was forced by increased pressure from the music industry.
But as the huge amount of online coverage has pointed out, it’s going to hurt everyone involved:
The music industry was unlikely to be losing sales from the majority of fan videos and could have instituted a decent licencing solution.
Youtube won’t be the place for some of the fantasically popular fan videos built around any copyrighted content – for instance the second most viewed Youtube video of all time.
And users will lose out as millions of videos, and all the work that went into them, suddenly become destroyed.
Just some of the negative coverage:
So it’s already on most of the biggest and most-read blogs, and is spreading like wildfire.
And as always, Gerd Leonhard sums it up perfectly.
Update: Cnet has just revealed that apparently the silent videos are down to users choosing this option when informed of copyright infringement. It’s apparently been in place for a while, but is noticeable now because Youtube’s negotiations with Warners have broken down – and most of the music now muted belongs to the idiots Warners.
We’d still argue that it the users aren’t choosing to have their videos muted – they’re forced to choose between being muted or removed, because the music industry can’t work out that lots of people showing their appreciation of a piece of music might actually be an incredibly good promotional tool for that artist.
There are very few people who can save the record industry from their own idiocy, but unless they start following this chap, this chap, or these chaps, it seems like they’re locked into a race with newspapers for who can destroy their industry first.
Entertainment Tax
Outrageous.
Sign the petition by clicking the below RIGHT NOW!
Nine Inch Nails and Vinyl – It’s about passion
Excerpt from TheWayoftheWeb
I’d say buying an album already available for free, or investing in vinyl, shows something more than the benefits of better legitimate music stores or physical souvenirs.
I’d say it’s a direct result of passion.
The people most likely to download and spread NiN’s Ghosts I-IV are the passionate fans of the band. The people downloading from Amazon were aware of the album but either didn’t want to make do with the nine free tracks, didn’t want to download directly, or, possibly wanted to spread the word by purchasing via Amazon and propelling NiN up the charts.
Meanwhile to be a vinyl consumer you have to find a record player (hard to do offline outside of specialist hifi shops), invest in needles and fluff removers, and actively seek out releases.
But what paying for NiN or vinyl does, is it elevates you from those people enjoying music as a diversion or convenient entertainment – it makes you someone who displays there passion for the band or format.
You don’t just like NiN enough to listen or download for free – You love them enough to pay $300 for the limited edition ultra-deluxe box set, and then buy the songs again via Amazon to promote them.
You don’t just have a convenient CD of new dance music or classic soul – you have the original vinyl with the ritual of selecting it from your shelf, sliding out the album carefully, putting it onto your record deck, and gently lowering the needle with the precision of a surgeon.
And anyone who witnesses either act is left within no doubt of your passion – and those who share it instantly mark you as one of their own. You’re not just a fan, you’re an Otaku.
It’s what sells a lot of products. For instance, the Halo Xbox game spawned two sequels, limited editions box sets, and a forthcoming strategy game.
- Plus a table-top miniatures game.
- The soundtrack CD for each game, plus a collection of the trilogy
- 5 printed books
- A graphic novel
- A four-part comic book series
- Calendars
- Canvas Art
- Posters
- Vinyl Figures
- T-Shirts
- Controllers and headsets
- Graphics to customise your console
- Plus downloadable content to add to the original physical version, and customise your console dashboard
Then add in the derivatives:
- Tournaments
- Machima, such as Red vs Blue, which has it’s own DVDs, clothing and collectibles.
- Halo costumes for Halloween or conventions.
- And all sorts of other stickers and clothing from other retailers.
Now, how could you be a ‘real’ Halo fan if you just had a standard copy of the game? That won’t help you connect with other real fans, given 20 million copies of the series have been sold.
To show to other people you’re a ‘real’ Halo fan, you’ve got to have queued for the midnight release of the game, and have a sealed Limited Edition version. You’ve got to have the sountracks. At least one figurine of the Master Chief. A few of the books. Maybe a T-shirt.
After all, none of this is new!
The best selling MP3 album of the year was free
Whoudathunkit?
