Prince is on the other team. The pro-control, pro-ownership-of-culture team. The team that likes to sue music fans.
Stolen from CNET
Stolen from Wikipedia.org
The other day I was trying to explain to a friend that I suspect that many people often say:
“…A whole nother…”
in place of:
“…A whole other…”
As in:
“That’s a whole nother ball game.”
Thinking about this had come to me in a daydream, by the end of which I was on trial for suspected Grammatical Treason. Do I say this sometimes? I’m waiting to catch myself or anyone else in the act, hopefully someone else. My friend who I was talking to pretended to have never heard such an expression. I just googled it. My friend was probably lying, as I suspected.
There’s a website dedicated to it called aWholeNother.com
If I find out that I say “Nother,” I will feel a bit disappointed in myself, then blame it on my heritage or something.
BTW
I totally embrace and love “Gonna,” and I want it to become part of formal English, along with all the normal, “legal” Contractions like “That’s”
1. Why does it seem preferable that artists maintain a mysteriousness about themselves?
2. Isn’t it true that an Artist’s personality, and personal experiences and interpretations are the main influences on their work? And if so, why does Autobiographical or Introspective Art seem like only a sliver of what is out there?
3. Am I imagining this? Or is there something strangely subtle and dishonest about our cultural relationship with Art and the people that make it?
4. Comments, please (all ten of you).
(photos stolen from Kevin Bewersdorf)
Brilliant blog post by Rob over at DemonBaby.com titled “When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, the Birth of Dissent, and a Brief History of Record Industry Suicide”
Quote:
“So the next question is, what now?
For the major labels, it’s over. It’s fucking over. You’re going to burn to the fucking ground, and we’re all going to dance around the fire. And it’s your own fault. Surely, somewhere deep inside, you had to know this day was coming, right? Your very industry is founded on an unfair business model of owning art you didn’t create in exchange for the services you provide. It’s rigged so that you win every time – even if the artist does well, you do ten times better. It was able to exist because you controlled the distribution, but now that’s back in the hands of the people, and you let the ball drop when you could have evolved.”
At the end of a long, delicious read, Rob writes:
“1. Stop buying music from major labels. Period. The only way to force change is to hit the labels where it hurts – their profits. The major labels are like Terry Schiavo right now – they’re on life support, drooling in a coma, while white-haired guys in suits try and change the laws to keep them alive. But any rational person can see that it’s too late, and it’s time to pull out the feeding tube. In this case, the feeding tube is your money. Find out which labels are members/supporters of the RIAA and similar copyright enforcement groups, and don’t support them in any way. The RIAA Radar is a great tool to help you with this. Don’t buy CDs, don’t buy iTunes downloads, don’t buy from Amazon, etc. Steal the music you want that’s on the major labels. It’s easy, and despite the RIAA’s scare tactics, it can be done safely – especially if more and more people are doing it. Send letters to those labels, and to the RIAA, explaining very calmly and professionally that you will no longer be supporting their business, because of their bullish scare tactics towards music fans, and their inability to present a forward-thinking digital distribution solution. Tell them you believe their business model is outdated and the days of companies owning artists’ music are over. Make it very clear that you will continue to support the artists directly in other ways, and make it VERY clear that your decision has come about as a direct result of the record company’s actions and inactions regarding digital music.
2. Support artists directly. If a band you like is stuck on a major label, there are tons of ways you can support them without actually buying their CD. Tell everyone you know about them – start a fansite if you’re really passionate. Go to their shows when they’re in town, and buy t-shirts and other merchandise. Here’s a little secret: Anything a band sells that does not have music on it is outside the reach of the record label, and monetarily supports the artist more than buying a CD ever would. T-shirts, posters, hats, keychains, stickers, etc. Send the band a letter telling them that you’re no longer going to be purchasing their music, but you will be listening to it, and you will be spreading the word and supporting them in other ways. Tell them you’ve made this decision because you’re trying to force change within the industry, and you no longer support record labels with RIAA affiliations who own the music of their artists.
If you like bands who are releasing music on open, non-RIAA indie labels, buy their albums! You’ll support the band you like, and you’ll support hard-working, passionate people at small, forward-thinking music labels. If you like bands who are completely independent and are releasing music on their own, support them as much as possible! Pay for their music, buy their merchandise, tell all your friends about them and help promote them online – prove that a network of passionate fans is the best promotion a band can ask for.
3. Get the message out. Get this message out to as many people as you can – spread the word on your blog or your MySpace, and more importantly, tell your friends at work, or your family members, people who might not be as tuned into the internet as you are. Teach them how to use torrents, show them where to go to get music for free. Show them how to support artists while starving the labels, and who they should and shouldn’t be supporting.
4. Get political. The fast-track to ending all this nonsense is changing intellectual property laws. The RIAA lobbies politicians to manipulate copyright laws for their own interests, so voters need to lobby politicians for the peoples’ interests. Contact your local representatives and senators. Tell them politely and articulately that you believe copyright laws no longer reflect the interests of the people, and you will not vote for them if they support the interests of the RIAA. Encourage them to draft legislation that helps change the outdated laws and disproportionate penalties the RIAA champions. Contact information for state representatives can be found here, and contact information for senators can be found here. You can email them, but calling on the phone or writing them actual letters is always more effective.
Tonight, with Oink gone, I find myself wondering where I’ll go now to discover new music. All the other options – particularly the legal ones – seem depressing by comparison. I wonder how long it will be before everyone can legally experience the type of music nirvana Oink users became accustomed to? I’m not too worried – something even better will rise out of Oink’s ashes, and the RIAA will respond with more lawsuits, and the cycle will repeat itself over and over until the industry has finally bled itself to death. And then everything will be able to change, and it will be in the hands of musicians and fans and a new generation of entrepreneurs to decide how the new record business is going to work. Whether you agree with it or not, it’s fact. It’s inevitable – because the determination of fans to share music is much, much stronger than the determination of corporations to stop it.
_____________________________________________________
If you enjoyed this article, please:
to help spread the word.
(The old non-direct Digg page is here. Digg appears to have finally lifted the block from this URL – thanks to everyone who emailed them!)
[end of quote]
Nice, and nicely done, Rob.
Buy It.
EDIT: Don’t buy it. Borrow it from one of your millions of close friends online. Rounder Records is a member of the RIAA. We need to boycott them!!
(EDITed) The end of Woman and Man goes in to what sounds a bit like what I remember hearing at the beginning of the song One by Metallica on And Justice For All… A woman screams along with the machine guns, not a man… Am i imagining this connection?
No matter what,
WEEN IS KICKING ASS WITH THIS RECORD! this one is up there with Chocolate and Cheese!!
THOMAS MALCOLM
(Attorney at Law)
8 Warner Yard, London EC1R 5EY, U.K
Direct Tel: +44 (702) 4086-932
Fax: +44 (700) 6035-582
E-mail: tmalcolm46@uymail.com
ATTN: PRESIDENT/OWNER
I am Thomas David Malcolm, a solicitor, and the personal attorney to Mr. Francois Hoel, who is the President/Chief Executive Officer of (HGMT) Hoel Incorporated London, Herein referred as my client.
On the 3rd of September 1998 at: 11:16 p.m. EDT (03:16 GMT, Swissair Jetliner, with 229 passengers on board bound from New York JFK to Geneva, Switzerland, crashed catastrophically off the coast of Nova Scotia vanishes from radar near Nova Scotia Halifax.
My client Mr. Francois Hoel, and his wife Mrs. Anne Sophie Hoel, with their three children Marie-Francoise Hoel, Olivia Hoel, Paul Edouard Hoel, were involved in a horrific flight crash, 215 passengers and 14 crewmembers unfortunately lost their lives in the disastrous crash of Swissair Flight 111.May their gentle souls rest in glorious peace Amen.
I have contacted you to assist me retrieving the funds in a certain investment account of his valued at about US$28,500,000.00 (Twenty-Eight Million Five Hundred Thousand United State Dollars only) left behind by my client before they got confiscated or declared unserviceable by the Finance House where these huge deposits were lodged, Since his wife and kids whom are supposed to inherit the fund are also involved in the air-crash and I have been unsuccessful in locating any of my client relatives. I now seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased so we can claim this fund together and use some to assist the Tsunami Disaster victims and Charity Organization because if by February 2008 (next year) nobody shows up as the next-of-kin; the account will be frozen by British Government.
Upon my receipt of your positive response, we shall then discuss the necessary modalities. Subject to the confirmation of death of Mr. Francois Hoel and his family, feel free to visit this website:
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/americas/9809/07/swissair.victims.list/index.html
I have all necessary legal documents that can be used to back up your claim as the next-of-kin, all I require is your honest co-operation to enable us see this transaction through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. Please get in touch with me immediately you acknowledge the good receipt of this Fax via fax No: +44-700-6035-582 or call me on my Direct Phone NO: +44-702-4086-932 E-mail: tmalcolm46@uymail.com
Anticipating your prompt response.
Best Regards,
BAR. THOMAS D. MALCOLM (Esq)
MORE SCAM EMAIL MASHUPS
I remember when I first started learning a little bit about HTML. It was exciting to be able to make intense color-combinations, use strange and unique fonts, background images Etc. The first webpages I made, in retrospect, were absolutely horrific! Mostly, because my design outcomes were more about my excitement than they were about beauty or usefulness.
“Pimped” Myspace Profiles are great examples of how beginning designers have a tendency to be overzealous. They throw every tool at their disposal at the project. It’s a bit like over-seasoning when cooking. Just because you have rosemary, doesn’t mean you should use it.
And when a site is built primarily using Flash, the result is usually a scary meal. It’s like Nacho Cheese as a main course.
Brian Chirls recently put together a list of reasons not to use Flash as your main dish.
Probably the reason this still goes on so often, is that people feel like they’re getting bang for their buck if the site they’re paying to have built dances, sings and does tricks.
There’s a time and a place for nacho cheese (although I don’t know where or when that is).
(Thanks, Matt!)
From this demo vid, it appears that True Knowledge, a new search engine still in private “beta,” is programmed to understand components of natural language.
One of the video’s examples is:
“Is Jennifer Lopez single?”
I’d like to ask it:
“What is the best search engine of them all?”
and
“What is the meaning of Life?”
It looks like it might be partly powered by FreeBase or some other Semantic Data Store. FreeBase is in “Alpha” still, but apparently anyone can now sign up for it.
Oh!
“What color is Sorrow?”
According to the information I can find, the official breakdown of where the money goes, in a typical CD Retail scenario is as follows (I copied this from this page, although there are many more floating around with the same numbers). This breakdown of the cost of a typical major-label release by the independent market-research firm Almighty Institute of Music Retail shows where the money goes for a new album with a list price of $15.99.
These numbers don’t look that great to me, as an artist. And I believe the reality of the industry is even worse.
The problem is that this set of numbers comes from a selected scenario, not a typical scenario. I’m guessing this is an average or something. Keep in mind that most acts that get ‘signed’ aren’t mega-stars. Perhaps the average makes the typical look a lot better.
EDIT: I have no idea how or why this seems to be the prevailing breakdown of where consumers’ money goes when they buy records.
In addition, t The way I have come to understand it is that the Label keeps the band “in debt” to the label, by spending too much money on their behalf. Also, it is my understanding that one such expense, marketing, is often pooled amongst several bands. So the label often spends all/most of the marketing expenses for many acts on only the few that it believes in most.
It’s hard to find information on this stuff.
Steve Albini wrote an article about the unfair practices of the majors in which he does a case-study of a typical record deal. Be warned, Albini’s article actually takes a few minutes to read, and it actually needs to be read to be understood.
I’m gonna go ahead and paste in the numbers from his article here (It’s long, but that’s the way it is). From Albini:
“There’s no need to skew the figures to make the scenario look bad, since real-life examples more than abound. income is bold and underlined [underlines removed], expenses are not.
Advance: $ 250,000
Manager’s cut: $ 37,500
Legal fees: $ 10,000
Recording Budget: $ 150,000
Producer’s advance: $ 50,000
Studio fee: $ 52,500
Drum Amp, Mic and Phase “Doctors”: $ 3,000
Recording tape: $ 8,000
Equipment rental: $ 5,000
Cartage and Transportation: $ 5,000
Lodgings while in studio: $ 10,000
Catering: $ 3,000
Mastering: $ 10,000
Tape copies, reference CDs, shipping tapes, misc. expenses: $ 2,000
Video budget: $ 30,000
Cameras: $ 8,000
Crew: $ 5,000
Processing and transfers: $ 3,000
Off-line: $ 2,000
On-line editing: $ 3,000
Catering: $ 1,000
Stage and construction: $ 3,000
Copies, couriers, transportation: $ 2,000
Director’s fee: $ 3,000
Album Artwork: $ 5,000
Promotional photo shoot and duplication: $ 2,000
Band fund: $ 15,000
New fancy professional drum kit: $ 5,000
New fancy professional guitars [2]: $ 3,000
New fancy professional guitar amp rigs [2]: $ 4,000
New fancy potato-shaped bass guitar: $ 1,000
New fancy rack of lights bass amp: $ 1,000
Rehearsal space rental: $ 500
Big blowout party for their friends: $ 500
Tour expense [5 weeks]: $ 50,875
Bus: $ 25,000
Crew [3]: $ 7,500
Food and per diems: $ 7,875
Fuel: $ 3,000
Consumable supplies: $ 3,500
Wardrobe: $ 1,000
Promotion: $ 3,000
Tour gross income: $ 50,000
Agent’s cut: $ 7,500
Manager’s cut: $ 7,500
Merchandising advance: $ 20,000
Manager’s cut: $ 3,000
Lawyer’s fee: $ 1,000
Publishing advance: $ 20,000
Manager’s cut: $ 3,000
Lawyer’s fee: $ 1,000
Record sales: 250,000 @ $12 =
$3,000,000
Gross retail revenue Royalty: [13% of 90% of retail]:
$ 351,000
Less advance: $ 250,000
Producer’s points: [3% less $50,000 advance]:
$ 40,000
Promotional budget: $ 25,000
Recoupable buyout from previous label: $ 50,000
Net royalty: $ -14,000Record company income:
Record wholesale price: $6.50 x 250,000 =
$1,625,000 gross income
Artist Royalties: $ 351,000
Deficit from royalties: $ 14,000
Manufacturing, packaging and distribution: @ $2.20 per record: $ 550,000
Gross profit: $ 7l0,000The Balance Sheet: This is how much each player got paid at the end of the game.
Record company: $ 710,000
Producer: $ 90,000
Manager: $ 51,000
Studio: $ 52,500
Previous label: $ 50,000
Agent: $ 7,500
Lawyer: $ 12,000
Band member net income each: $ 4,031.25
The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month. The next album will be about the same, except that the record company will insist they spend more time and money on it. Since the previous one never “recouped,” the band will have no leverage, and will oblige. The next tour will be about the same, except the merchandising advance will have already been paid, and the band, strangely enough, won’t have earned any royalties from their T-shirts yet. Maybe the T-shirt guys have figured out how to count money like record company guys. Some of your friends are probably already this fucked. “
I mean, there’s not really a way to notify MySpace of the death of a user, is there? So that means my MySpace account would just sort of…
Stop Moving?
I guess People could still add comments. I guess that would be kind of like leaving flowers on my grave…
Although, there’s not really any way people would know they had switched over from leaving normal comments to leaving the flowers-on-the-grave form of self-promoting you do once the person has passed on.
Too bad you can’t bulletin your own death.
After I’m dead, my MySpace profile could live on forever!
Maybe this should be yet one more tedious responsibility of my whomever-has-to-clean-up-after-me-after-I-die-person?
My Last Will and Testament should contain: The text of my Final Bulletin, what to change my ‘Status’ to (including what emoticon to use), a few quick important comments I should make on other people’s profiles (like “Thanks for the add. Also, I’m dead”), a quick picture update, a resetting of my profile song to something appropriate and timeless like Grand Master Flash or something… Etc, Etc, Etc…
That’s a lot of work, and that’s just MySpace… I got profiles all over! Facebook, Friendster, Flickr, YouTube, not to mention WordPress and about a hundred more.
Dam.
Loading...
2012 andrewapeterson.com. Proudly Powered by WordPress. Design Based on the "Twelve" Theme.
