35 years is still a long time to not own your music. To not be able to dictate what happens to it etc. Artists who enter contracts where they loose the ownership of their music are insane. Exclusive releasing etc. yeah fine, but ownership? A lot of change is still needed.
Napster v. Next Gen
The following article (from inside.com) sent in by a reader describes a situation where Napster was used at a party. At first music was played from a computer from a collection of MP3s. Then people began yelling out names of songs, from the latest hits to obscure songs of yesteryear. They were running Napster, every song they yelled out was played withing a few minutes of the yell.
It goes on to discuss the musical/copyright ethics of our future generations. Current generationss till feel a little hung up over copyright. I feel and know that it's illegal (even though I don't agree with it) to download a copyrighted song on Napster. It is suggested that current/future generations of kids will expect to be able to get all the music they want for free.. because that's what they can get now.
Libraries
If the RIAA or MPAA owned copyrights on books, would we have libraries? Dave suggests we only have libraries because of the original US government's policies on sharing, and current government defending those policies.
SF
Today is my last day of work. Tomorrow I rest, play guitar, spend some time with my girlfriend, destress. Saturday morning I get on a plane to Sydney.. then onto a plane for the long flight to San Francisco. I will have fun, drink Mexican beer, walk, point, avoid eye contact (as so many Americans have told me to do, I just don't understand why), and generally be happy.
Meanwhile the money I spend is next to useless. Aussie dollar dropped below 54 US cents yesterday. According to the Universal Currency Converter, it's back over 54 cents today. In 1997, it was nearly 80 cents.
But at least I don't have to drive there. Although, I notice that in England (at least a few weeks ago) that a litre of petrol was 86p. That's about $2.30 in Australia. Ouch.
Ghostwriters
I noticed today through the random spotlighter that Ghostwriters are on "MP3.com.au". Ghostwriters include Rob Hirst (Midnight Oil) and Rick Grossman (ex Hoodoo Gurus). Personally I'm not that fond of their music (although I love Midnight Oil and Hoodoo Gurus) but it's great to see bigger and bigger bands ending up on sites such as mp3.com and mp3.com.au.
Other bands worth mentioning in the commercial world (at least in Australia) on mp3.com.au include...
The Whitlams, Pre_Shrunk,
Max Sharam,
James Morrison,
Mach Pelican,
Nitocris...
But commerical music is rarely what people go to free music sites for (if they're not intending to pirate). People tend to browse, play random tracks to find what they want... the best thing I've found is noticing that in my MP3 collection I'm playing commercial tracks next to 'free' tracks and they fit. You don't go "ergh, that's a free track, it's dodgy'...
Blah