This is MP3Monster's blog. The blog covers music, technology, photography and anything else Monster considers worthy of blogging about.Universal licensing catalogue to Free Download Site
Posted by monster in Music, Technology
Well, another hectic weekend, which means I’m a bit behind on the news. But an number of articles have been popping up about Universal licensing their music catalogue to a company (Spiralfrog) who will provide a legal download service. The download service then make money from advertising, sadly the service is only available to US and Canada.
It leaves me asking the question, can website advertising generate enough revenue to pay for a download - i.e. 99c?? Or, is this a implicit consession that 99c is a bit expensive?
Collective Blogging, Podcasts & Mix Tapes
Posted by monster in Music, Technology
Blogging a medium to keep people informed of events etc is now well established. But off the back of this there seems to be a trend of collective blogging on a common theme. This seems to be happening where multiple people can author on a blog for example Behind The Sofa site (and BlogCritics.com), or a site which aggregates multiple blogs on a common theme for example at Sun.
The interesting thing is that podcasting like blogging uses the same basic technologies (i.e. RSS/Atom) but doesn’t appear to have developed the trend of collectives providing podcasts. This is a little surprising in many respects as podcasting requires more commitment and effort to produce, so sharing the work to keep a steady series of podcasts going seems an obvious approach. If you’re interested in exploring this idea - then please let me know.
On the subject of podcasting; in terms of music podcasts outside of the corporate entities it strikes me that the podcasts are the 21st Century equivelent to the mix tape. Both podcasts and mix tapes are usually a collection of songs that the caster considers worthy of sharing put on to a medium by which the experience can be transfered easily. With your good old mix tape you’d write down on the cassette case the track information and maybe some words as to the significance of the song - this is now simply done by recording a bit of speech or adding an blog entry to go with the cast.
The only serious difference is mix tapes take time to make multiple copies for each of your friends the time a lot more time.
The politics of the podcast against the mix tape I believe simply boil down to the fact that the RIAA/ARIA and associated can more easily track the movement of the podcast over the net where as the mix tape passing from hand to hand or through the post can’t. The interesting thing is that the RIAA don’t appear to have really gone for podcasters in the same way as people sharing files despite the fact that both break the same laws. Perhaps they have quietly recognised the free artist promotional effects of podcasts? Time for some clarity of position here I think, as my speculation on the RIAA is true there is certainly a little incosistency; so what if I shared my podcast as share of mixed tracks?
Kharma 45
Posted by monster in Music Reviews
The support to Faithless last week was a group called Kharma 45. Prior to the gig several people where handing out EPs from Kharma 45. I’ve finally got around to listening to the CD and I have to say its actually rather good - both in terms of production values and music. Their live performance as support was pretty good, although the vocals weren’t high enough in the mix (certainly not in comparison to the mix of the EP).
Kharma 45 are a traditional four piece who make heavy use of sequenced synths when live. Their recorded sound like wise has plenty of synth sounds adding a richness to the hard edged rock underpinning. If you’d like to hear Placebo in a upbeat and slightly more melodic mode; or The Delays with an harder rock underpining then Kharma 45 is worth checking out.
Having just checked out their MySpace website they’ve got three tracks that you can listen to and download including Ectasy which I can highly recommend from the EP.
In addition to the Faithless support slot they’ve been appearing at a lot of the major UK summer festivals, and should manage to build a good grass roots support from it.
I’m guessing here, but to be able to afford to give CDs away, get slots on a number of major festivals they’ve must have some form of backing and some music that they’ll actually sell. But if you check out their own website or the MySpace entry they don’t have any reference to a recording contract or any material in the pipeline beyond what I’ve just downloaded or given, and a quick Amazon search doesn’t show up anything either! So what’s happening ?
Yet more good press for SeeWhy
Posted by monster in Technology
My employers - SeeWhy have been having a good year with lots of press recognition and awards (having already received awards from Red Herring and Guidewire Group) of our innovative product. The latest award is from ComputerWorld which can be found here.
John Otway with Mark Lemarr
Posted by monster in Music
Last saturday (12th August) Mark Lemarr sat in for Jonathon Ross on BBC Radio2. Now I’m not much a fan of Radio 2 with a couple exceptions. Both Mark, Jonathan (with Johnnie Walker & Bob Harris having followed them from Radio 1 being the others) are both are very entertaining, informative and come across as being very passionate about music.
Any way Mark had John Otway on the show. Not a name necessarily familiar with music fans these days; to me he is a very much a 70s artist. It turns out that John is still going strong, like a few other artists a fortunate enough to have very strong and loyal fan base (Gary Numan being another such example).
The show with Mark and John had a large section of the discussion devoted to talking about John’s upcoming world tour. Nothing special in that, except John has chartered an Airbus A340 to do the tour and selling seats on the aircraft as part of a package to tour with him - for the £4000 you get to go to all the gigs, fly with the John and the band, and stay in the hotels - not bad. The tour starts in Liverpool’s cavern (made famous by the Beatles) then heads onto New York, Las Vegas and then Tahiati for a break. From Tahiati the tour then heads onto take in Sydney. Being in Sydney, John tried to book the Sydney gig into one of the smaller theatres in the Opera House. The smaller threatres turn out to be all booked, but hey, the main theatre was available - so thats what he is going to do. Steve Harley is also joining the tour in Sydney onwards.
John and his guitarist have also concocted a plan to break a world record for the longest guitar solo. They’re going to do this by starting to play guitar three minutes before they fly across the date line and continue for a three minutes afterwards - thus having peformed for one day and six minutes! Complete with three hundred fans on board to witness the record being set!
The tour stops off in China and performing a city with a population of seven million who have never had an artists from the west perform there before, let alone someone like John Otway. John was saying for that gig he has insisted that he go on stage and perform first (normally the support slot), just so that he can claim to be the first western musician to have performed in that part of China.
The tour is meant to last about two weeks and more information can bew obtained from John’s website here. The fasinating thing is that the tour has been largely paid for because fans had selected a song of John’s to be released as a single to celebrate his 50th birthday which they then all proceeded to purchase, giving him a top ten hit.
The conversaion went on and joked around how fans could phone into the show and the could arrange seating reservations etc. The show can be heard again for a little longer through the BBC website here.
Faithless Live - Shepherds Bush Empire 15th August 2006
Posted by monster in Music
We managed to catch up with Faithless again at a warm up gig prior to their appearance at the V Festival. As the tickets where released through their website to people registered for news which meant that they had a good audience.
Their performance did rip the roof off the house! This was the first time that I’ve experienced the balcony’s shake at the Shepherds Bush Empire because so many people are jumping up and down with the music.
A colleague of mine managed to take some pictures with his phone which can be seen here.
eMusic moving the right direction, but …
Posted by monster in Music
Having blogged yesterday about how eMusic appears to be moving in the right direction for music downloads, I took a closer look at the service last night.
Before I comment, let me say in my opinion for a service like eMusic to achieve a decent foothold in the market I think need enough material for people become hooked by seeing enough music to download to use up their trial amount and some music that would have to paid for by the following month’s subscription or as paid for additional downloads. For the average punter, you’ll probably manage to achieve this by having significant chunk of the currently charting major releases and major artists back catalog. Although as I understand it, the ‘Long Tail’ argument says that you can succeed by effectively filling a niche purely because of the potential market size you can reach through the web means even minor releases will generate you enough sales be viable, although this won’t make even a tiny scratch against iTunes. eMusic’s marketing seems to suggest that they want ‘to be a somebody, to be a contender’.
Having established that, I have to say in terms of music available through eMusic I was deeply disappointed. Admittedly I wasn’t in my buy even very obscure artists & randomly sample what it is out there frame of mind when I looked at eMusic’s offerings, but I couldn’t see enough music to entice me into using my 25 freedownloads and signing up to £9 per month - something I’m very dissapointed about, as I believe eMusic have got things right, I very much want to see them succeed in a big way.
The site itself actually rather nice, easy to navigate, and as far as information is concerned brilliantly detailed with biographies, reviews and cover art - but then I’d expect that as they license the information from AllMusic.
To illustrate the point, we went lookinf for Massive Attack - couldn’t find any entries (despite the Collected riding well in the charts). The Rolling Stones didn’t figure too well, neither did Radiohead. But its not all bad news if you’re a fan of artists on the XL record label then you’ll love it there is a deep vein of their stuff including all the singles. So artists such as the White Stripes and Basement Jaxx are well served.
I’ve not given up on eMusic - I’ll be checking back to see if their catalogue grows in the right direction - fingers crossed that it will. But for now - they need to get some more agreements in place.
MP3Monster turning into a supermodel?
Posted by monster in Photography
MP3Monster - have I had my big break? - Having been given a chance to do some modelling - check out the results here.
eMusic - the courage to move in the right direction
Posted by monster in Technology
An article I first saw today from The Register. It turns out that eMusic are launching a subscription service which allows you to download MP3s - so NO DRM - hurrah, so obviously the tracks can be kept and used even once the the subscription has ended.
On top of this, the track pricing is very competitive at 22p (~$0.42) each. So more expensive than the ever so slightly dubious AllOfMP3, but notably cheaper than iTunes. Most importantly at a price where downloading is cheaper than buying the physical media when it comes to an entire album - something that deeply irritates me with iTunes where the price of a downloaded album is no cheaper than purchasing the physical media.
More annoying DVDs
Posted by monster in Technology
Having blogged previously about how annoying The Producers DVD was for people who want to keep their media in a digital library I’ve just found another DVD; this time its Capote. Grrrrr - you have been warned.
AOL Get Careless with Information Privacy
Posted by monster in Technology
With all fuss a few months ago about releasing search results to the US Federal Government and privacy, AOL have managed to go one step further and release three months of search data onto the net. It turns out that the information being held contravenes both US legislation as well as the their own privacy policy.
The EFF have suggested that some organisations are treating such personal information with very casual regard. Although it may seem fairly minor, as the EFF have pointed out the impact could be personally very harmful - for example if you’ve been using your AOL account to research a serious illness that you’ve been diagnosed with and its information that you don’t want people to know about.
I have doubts about how hard AOL will be treated by federal organisations on this breach, so it may fall to a well presented class action from AOL users (or former users) to make it clear that personal data should be treated with the utmost respect and security.
Having looked at the AOL site to see what they say about the situation - AOL UK at least make no reference to what has happened in their news pages - but still carry news about Id theft in the UK.
Music on the Net - Legislation Moves On
Posted by monster in Music, Technology
Last Friday () saw French legislation requiring music download stores to provide interoperability unless the artists affected approve the absence of interoperability. French legislature has fudged the law giving Apple (and others) this opt out. If it wasn’t for the fact that the Danish and Scandinavian countries are also addressing the same issue I’d say that Apple will have it easy. As by far the largest download service Apple wouldn’t be difficult to pressure artists into the sign off so meaning that Apple have a small administrative overhead. But maybe the risk of losing several more countries in the EU might force Apple to being do more than just a paper exercise.
At the other end of the spectrum, a coalition of the major record companies have started proceedings against another P2P network - this time Limewire. Given that Kazaa has finally completed its roll over with $100M payout, I can not see Limewire holding out very long.
Interestingly, I wonder how much of the $100M that Kazaa have coughed up will find its way into the pockets of artists - given that the money is payment for lost revenue, which means artists royalties? Not to mention how the money will be divided amongst the artists, if that actually happens.
REM ROIOs
Posted by monster in Music
I came across two sites that together probably make the ultimate in REM RoIOs (aka Bootlegs). REM like Radiohead and a few other artists seem happy to have their live performances bootlegged - and you can see and hear that by the quality of some of the bootlegs. Anway I came across … We Talk - Torrents … as a great source of audio and video combined with … REM Cover Studios … for great artwork for your bootleg cds.
Link: http://www.murmurs.com/talk/forumdisplay.php?f=162%20
http://www.remcoverstudio.com/
Beatles Book - Free To The Net
Posted by monster in Music
A Book about The Beatles’ Revolver album has been published freely to the net under the Creative Commons license. I’ve only scanned through the book so far - but looks well researched. The idea of writing a book about an individual album is far from new, Continuum Publishing have been publishing books under the 33 1/3 series for some time and have been commented by quality music blogs like LargeHeartedBoy.
But to release this one to the net freely is a brave move; if only because if the author Ray Newman has got anything wrong then he may face the wraith of Apple Inc, who doesn’t seem to be too gentle with those who raise its ire.
But given the importance of the The Beatles’ Revolver album I’d recommend checking it out.
The book site http://www.revolverbook.co.uk/
John Peel - Margrave of the Marshes
Posted by monster in Music
I’ve been trying to catch up with some of my non techie reading of late. which means I’ve finally got around to read Margrave of the Marshes. This started out as John Peel’s autobiography but sadly died before he got anyway near completing it, so John’s second wife of 30+ years famously known as Pig and their four children took on the challenge of completing it.
The result is a fabulous read full fascinating and entertaining anecdotes. Although there is a definite cut between where John got to and where Sheila and the children picked up the book manages to convey a lot about John as a person rather than necessarily every little detail. Fortunately it appears that John long kept a personal diary in which he wrote some of his very personal feelings which appears to have helped provide balance in describing things from John’s perspective.
The book is only very roughly chronological. John’s writing would pick up on themes and jump around in time describing related things before eventually returning to chronological events. One of my favourite anecdotes, which maybe influenced by the fact that my wife is currently pregnant with our first child was when Sheila wrote about when the children went off to University. Many parents I’m sure send their children at university ‘care packages’ that probably contained things they feel their children need or should have. John naturally did the same thing, except the care packages contained CDs which would be labelled as what he thought the child would like, should like and should play just to annoy everyone else.
If you want a book that more describes John’s background and how he came to become the national (possibly even international institution), then you’re better off reading Mick Wall’s John Peel. But if you want to get some insight into the man’s life and passions - then this is the book for you.
Net and the Law
Posted by monster in General, Technology
As the internet is in the eyes of the legal world is a new thing (relatively speaking, although even for the non-techie people it is rapidly becoming part of normal life and taken for granted), the legal position of actions; particularly those that cross traditional frontiers are having legal presidents established and laws past. It can make things a little bit of a minefield for people; even for people who just browse - by visiting certain sites (even accidentally) could end up having you labelled as a potential terroist; what if I have a blog and express my opinions about a company which they don’t like? Is downloading from AllOfMP3.com legal or not (AllOfMP3 claim to be paying royalties in the US)? Why is that cd-wow has had to setup UK operations to sell into the UK, but BangCD does not?
To understand the legal implications of these things several organisations and associated websites have come about. Perhaps the most famous of these is the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation). Although the EFF provides some guidelines and battle to protect electronic rights, it is at the end of the day an american organisation and therefore looking at American law. for those of us in the UK, we’re probably best looking to Internet Rights organisation http://www.internetrights.org.uk/.
These organisations certainly make it easier to understand how the law effects us web users than trying to follow the establishement of legal presidents, not to mention trying to read papers as they’re read and pass into law.
