Tag Archives: Music

Ryan’s Smashing Life

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After reading a post on Ars this morning, I got turned on to a new music blog called Ryan’s Smashing Life. I’m really liking it so far. In the past few years, I’ve become a bit disgusted with modern music, but I’ve perked up these past few months. Maybe I was just sick of the music that makes its way to mainstream radio. Or maybe the music industry is finally turning around and picking good artists. Or maybe the market is correcting itself in spite of the industry. Or maybe I’m just an idiot who didn’t know that there’s a lot of good music out there that doesn’t make it to the airwaves and the Interwebs is a good place to find it. Either way, RSL has got some decent stuff on it. He’s also got a really nice, unobtrusive streaming music player on there. I recommend listening to “Peace and Hate” by The Submarines.

The Day The Music Died

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This is so incredibly frustrating. On one hand, I want to rub people’s faces in it. But on the other, I see a ton of people every day buying songs from iTunes, and they’re in the same boat. They just don’t think it could happen to them, or they don’t care because the DRM isn’t getting in their way of listening to music they’ve “bought”. Or even worse, they don’t even know what DRM is or why they should avoid it like the plague. With DRM, the customer is always wrong:

Imagine if Tower Records sold you a CD, but then, a few months later, knocked on your door and replaced the CD with one that you can’t play in your car. Would you still feel like you “owned” the CD? Not so much, eh?

But Apple reserves the right to change at any time what you can do with the music you purchase at the iTunes Music Store. For instance, in April 2004, Apple decided to modify the DRM so people could burn the same playlist only 7 times, down from 10. How much further will the service restrict your ability to make legal personal copies of your own music? Only Apple knows.

Don’t let this become your fate. Own your music if you’re going to buy it online. Buy from Amazon MP3, which offers DRM-free music for cheaper than iTunes, and they even add it to your iTunes library automatically! Or if you feel you must buy from iTunes, never settle for anything less than DRM-free (iTunes “Plus”). Otherwise, it’s smarter to just buy the CD for a few bucks more.

Future of books

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I read an article about the future of book industry and authors [hat tip Sadie]. In it, they describe the ways that authors are suffering from the effects of piracy. Many authors are concerned about their lost profits at the hands of e-Book pirates and they are trying to come up with new business models to embrace this new media while still being able to keep the cash coming in. Fortunately, they seem to have a much better grasp on how to solve their problems than the music industry:

“We have to evolve and create a very different pay system, possibly by making the content available free to all and finding a way to get paid separately.” –Tracy Chevalier

If they can follow this concept through, their industry will survive. I have very little hope for the music industry at this point, so the best we can do is learn from their mistakes. Please read that last link. It’s a great article (actually it deserves a post of its own).