By TJ Dawe Musicians aren’t making money from album sales anymore, people say. They make their money on tour. They’ve been giving their music away themselves since Myspace. CDs are as dead as cassettes. Listen to anything you want on Spotify, Grooveshark, Pandora, YouTube. Bit Torrent it and rip it as you please. It’s damn […]
Supreme Court copyright ruling is (amazingly) sensible
By John Klein (aka Saskboy) Today’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling on copyright and fair dealing contains some not-so-small victories. In fact, there is so much common sense in it that I can’t help but feel the justices have taken leave of their old-people senses! Copyright expert Michael Geist has this summary: “[…] The clear […]
Sweet weed of music, play on
In this part of the world, the Pacific North West of North America, there is a non-indigenous plant which many would like to get rid of, the Himalayan Blackberry. It has a delicious fruit, and is extremely difficult to exterminate, since it has an extensive root system and seems to pop up everywhere. allofmp3.com appears […]
Let the Music Play!
This week we’ll examine impediments to accessing music in three realms: the digital, the fiscal, and the lithic. On the digital front, Steve Jobs seems about to walk the talk with regard to getting rid of digital restriction management (DRM). Last week Apple sent word to iTunes content providers that soon they will be able […]
Of lights and lasers
Now that I’ve just about completely replaced all incandescent lights in my apartment with compact fluorescents (CFL), GE has announced a new, improved, more energy efficient incandescent. Eventually, they say, it’ll be better than CFL. What’s up with that, and why didn’t they do it sooner? The press release doesn’t say, and I won’t speculate […]
Mooch Books with Bookmooch
I’ll take off from last week’s post, where I wrote about online music retailers allofmp3.com and magnatune.com. The former continues to operate as though blithely unaware of U.S. claims that the Russian government is about to shut it down. In fact, fund your account before January 14th and they’ll give you a 20% bonus. I […]
Online music: Don’t be a sucker
A lot of people will be getting iPods again this Christmas, which means a lot of people are going to get played for suckers again this year. At least they will if they end up using Apple’s iTunes store to buy their music (which is pretty inevitable, as the iPod leaves them little choice). Paying […]
