Month: December 2005

One More Top 10 List

I thought I was done with top 10 lists for 2005, and I have resisted talking about a few of them I have found interesting, but I have to bend for one more.

J.D. Lasica posted his Top 10 Tech Transformations of 2005 and I find a few of them as well as the overall tenor of the list to be very telling about what’s in store for 2006 and beyond.

top10He titles his item number 1 “The Edges Gain Power,” which is his way of describing the power flow away from the traditional media outlets and towards ordinary users and citizen programmers and journalists. This is a first cousin of the decentralization I have been talking about with respect to the music industry- where technology and the internet have become the great equalizer that obviates the need for the traditional gatekeepers (i.e., the record label cartel). With some reasonably priced technology, a little technical skill and an internet connection, musicians can make, distribute and sell their product directly to the public. That is a big win for the musician and the consumer. The only ones who complain about it are the record labels who fear the pending demise of the golden goose.

The same thing is happening with other media. A year and a half ago, I didn’t really know what a blog was, yet today I get most of my news from blogs. The traditional media outlets (such as the daily newspapers and nightly newscasts) lost their purchase in a two-part battle. First people began getting news online as opposed to via the delivered newspaper (we haven’t subscribed to a newspaper in many years and I rarely watch the 10:00 newscast becase I already know from reading online sources what it’s going to be about). That was a heavy blow, but it was just the beginning of the exodus. Now people are moving away from the tradtional online sources in favor of citizen journalists and their blogs or blog-equivalents. There will always be a place for websites pushing content from the traditional outlets, but more and more those web sites are being thrown into the source bucket with a lot of other less traditional sources and read either via an RSS aggregator or an html aggregator (such as My Yahoo or a personalized Google page). Again, the days of the gatekeeper are over. The only thing holding the traditional media outlets together is the lack of computer savvy inherent in the older generations. Once that last fortification is overrun by the passage of time, the castles, now under siege, will fall completely.

As J.D. says, this is a thing of “pure beauty.”

This move to the “edge” permeates J.D.’s list, with at least 7 of his 10 items having something to do with this trend.

I am always happy to go to the source, whether that’s a musician or a blogger who interests, educates or motivates me. A level playing field is good for everyone who matters. The former gatekeepers will eventually have bury the goose and adapt to this new reality. Those who do it willingly will be ahead of those, like the record labels and some of the traditional media, who put their heads in the sand and hope the golden goose will rally.

Go tell Aunt Rhody, the golden goose is dead.

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This is So Wrong

And so hilarious. The only reason my friends didn’t do this to me back in the day is because there wasn’t a lottery.

Click on the photo to watch as some guys job their buddy into thinking that he won the lottery. They recorded the lottery numbers as they were announced for the previous drawing and then bought a current lottery ticket with those numbers. So this guy is unknowingly watching a recorded lottery number announcement while holding a ticket for the current lottery with the same numbers. Cruel…and brilliant.

WARNING: Lots of cursing, so don’t watch at work or around tender ears.

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Lining Up in Front of the RIAA

riaaThe mainstream media is finally being forced to cover the misdeeds of its cousins’ henchman, the priority-challenged RIAA thanks to some recent customer bashing by the RIAA and all the shotgun shells it’s using trying in vain to stuff the cat back into the bag.

P2PNet has two very interesting things today.

First, it has an interview with the lawyer for lead target and allegedly innocent mom, Patti Santangelo, who lays out the mostly ex-parte (read without the knowledge or involvement of the target) court filings made by the RIAA to uncover the identities of its latest batch of moms, grandmoms and dead people. After obtaining an order from the court, the RIAA sends notice to the internet service providers of said targets, asking for their names and addresses. Then the RIAA sues the targets by name in the jurisdiction where they live. And for a few thousand dollars and a promise to keep the bag firmly tied (even though the cat is long gone), the RIAA will settle the case and move on to another batch of targets.

Second, it has a transcript from an American Morning with Miles O’Brien show on CNN where Ms. Santangelo appeared. The conversation with her is interesting and all, but things get really interesting when Cary Sherman, the President of the RIAA joins.

Here’s a small portion of that transcript, with my thoughts included in bold font:

O’BRIEN: It might get that message out that it’s illegal, but there’s also another message which comes out, which is a question of fairness. Is it fair to go after a divorced mother of five who doesn’t have a lot of financial means, who really didn’t know anything about this and thought she was doing all she could to protect her kids online? [[[The RIAA doesn’t care a whit about fairness. In fact, they probably figure if they sue enough innocent people, they will create a nation of little RIAA narks that will squeal on anyone who even thinks about listening to a song they haven’t paid for at least once, and preferably twice.]]]

SHERMAN: And we understand that point. [[[Absolutely they do; that’s why they’re doing it.]]] And the reality is that an overwhelming number of people who have been sued tell us the same story, that they didn’t know what was going on, they didn’t know it was illegal, and so on and so forth. [[[Is it me, or is he calling her a liar on national TV? At a minimum he’s saying he doesn’t care about her sob story. Just give the RIAA some money- so what if it’s your grocery money.]]]

O’BRIEN: And so what do you say? You just tell them — say, tell it to the judge? Is that it? [[[No, he’s saying pay us a few thousand dollars to settle and avoid the judge.]]]

SHERMAN: We basically try to settle at a reasonable number, taking into account all the circumstances of the particular case. In this case, if Ms. Santangelo did not do this, then she should tell us who did, and we would modify the complaint accordingly. [[[Great, now he’s saying bring me your kids and I’ll sue them too.]]]

O’BRIEN: Oh, well that puts a parent in a tough position. You know that. Yes.

SHERMAN: Well, but parents have to assume…

O’BRIEN: Would you do that as a parent? [[[I really wish they had forced him to answer this question hypothetically, assuming that he, like Ms. Santangelo, didn’t have extra money laying around to give to the RIAA. I’d love to hear him answer that hypothetical. Just because he works for a misguided, anti-consumer organization doesn’t make him a bad parent. At least he would have had to deal with the dilemma directly and not sidestep it like he did.]]]

SHERMAN: Parents have to assume some responsibility for their kids. I would probably do what you said you would do, which would be settle the case and let that be a lesson for the kid. We had one grandfather who had those kids work off the amount that he paid to settle as a way of teaching them a lesson and making this a family event. [[[So now the RIAA is providing family events- sort of like the Disney Channel.]]]

O’BRIEN: All right. Cary Sherman, thanks very much.

Look, I am not all that much of a defender of people who illegally download music (recall my take on the “I forgot to delete them” lady). And I know this Sherman cat has a really hard job.

But the indisputable fact is that the RIAA is trying to make the digital river flow back up the hill, and that’s simply not going to happen. Why not try to recreate the now broken business model, paint yourself as a facilitator of positive change and try to get on the high road, both morally and, more importantly, public relations wise? Isn’t that a better strategy than indiscriminantly suing a bunch of moms and grandmoms and dead people and whatnot?

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CDs for IPods?

Here’s an interesting proposal. An independent music store in Charleston, SC is offering to trade an iPod for your CDs. For 45 CDs you get a 512 MB iPod and for 175 CDs you get a 60 GB iPod. Granted, the CDs have to meet some pretty reasonable criteria, but this in a novel program that is sure to get some takers. In fact, if I were in Charleston, I’d grab some from my storage boxes and head on over to collect my iPod.

The math can get troublesome when you think about how much you paid for those CDs- 175 CDs at $13 a pop is $2,275. But that’s a sunk cost since you can’t sell them for what you paid. The real question is how much you could sell them for on eBay and whether it’s worth the time and effort of doing so. Sell 175 CDs on eBay for $3 a piece and that’s $525. You can get a 60 GB iPod for less than that, but to sell them you have to add them to eBay, administer the auction and ship them (that’s a hassle, but not a deduction, since the buyer pays the shipping on most eBay auctions).

So would I rather sell them or trade them? For an average price of $3, I’d trade them and avoid all the work of selling them. For say $6 (for a total of $1,050) I’d probably sell them (but honestly it’s a close call because it would be a royal pain to have to box and ship 175 CDs individually).

So my conclusion is that this is a pretty fair offer.

On a related note, I wonder how many people will delete the songs they have ripped from these CDs before trading them in?

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Possible Sony/BMG Settlement

BetaNews reports today that there is a possible settlement in the Sony/BMG spyware case.

According to the report, Sony will agree to:

(a) continue to replace the spyware-affected CDs with clean CDs

(b) allow the affected customer to choose to receive either (i) $7.50 and one free album from a list of 200, or (ii) no cash payment and three free albums from the list.

(c) stop manufacturing CDs with a specific type of DRM program until 2008.

To be eligible, customers must provide evidence that they bought a Sony/BMG CD containing the DRM spyware and that the hidden DRM program was uninstalled from the computer or updated with the software fix released after the initial outcry.

While this seems like a pretty fair compromise, there are a couple of troubling parts.

First of all, the settlement does not prevent Sony from using DRM on its CDs. It only prohibits the use of hidden DRM. Sony is allowed to use DRM prior to 2008 as long as no programs are installed on the customer’s computer without the customer’s consent and only certain data is collected by the DRM program.

Additionally, we need to see the list of 200 albums. If it’s a decent list, then this sounds like a fair solution. If it’s not, it doesn’t.

While this is certainly a win in the war against DRM, this is really about Sony’s bad decision, initally bad management of the reaction and ultimate admission of fault and agreement to fix it. The greater war against DRM will continue to be waged.

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My Favorite Records:The Del Fuegos – Boston, Mass.

This is the another installment in my series of favorite records.

I remember the first time I heard a Del Fuegos song. It was Backseat Nothing off of their first record. I went out that same day and bought the cassette tape. That record, called The Longest Day, could easily be on this list. But since the first one is virtually impossible to find, I’m going to pick their equally excellent second record.

df-728536Boston, Mass., their second record, is unfortunately also out of print, but you can find a CD for sale now and then on eBay.

From the first verse of Don’t Run Wild, you can tell this is a more produced record than their first, with a little sharper edge to it. My favorite songs on the record are the very wistful I Still Want You and the rootsy Coupe DeVille, but every song on this record is excellent and still sounds fresh after 20 years.

The primary songwriter and singer, Dan Zanes, still makes music. He has released some of the best family records I’ve ever heard. I highly recommend them for both kids and adults.

The Del Fuegos didn’t become the major rock stars I thought they would after their first two records, but they made some fine music. If you can find either of their first two records in a format you can play, buy it. You won’t be sorry.

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Top Underrated Apps of 2005

Gina Trapani over at Lifehacker has posted her list of the top underrated applications of 2005. I love lists like this because it helps me find out about good stuff I don’t know about.

Of the eight things on the list, I have only heard of half of them. Of the others, I am going to check out Instiki and GTDTiddlyWiki first. I need a good list management tool and these seem promising.

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Are Podcasts Really Just a Guy Thing?

Jonathan Skillings posts over on C|Net today that a survey has indicated that 78% of those who have ever listened to a podcast are male? Could that be right? Is podcasting really just a guy thing?

First of all, I wonder what the numbers are for music buying in general. I have no empirical data to cite, but over my 45 years it has been my experience that guys are generally, for whatever reason, more into music than women. My wife listens to the radio all the time in the car and she’s been married to a musician/songwriter/music nut for 12 years, but she doesn’t care enough about music to go out and buy a CD. In fact, I don’t believe she has bought a CD for herself since I’ve known her. Her friends are mostly the same way as far as I can tell. Most of my non-musician male friends buy at least a couple of CDs a year. Some many more.

So my question is: are the numbers for podcasting different from the numbers for music as a whole or merely representative of the numbers for music as a whole?

I can add two podcast-specific points. First, the only people I know who actually own an iPod are both women. While I have no idea if they listen to podcasts, they have the gear to do so, which puts them at the musical frontier of my little world. Second, 3 of the 4 people who have ever commented to me in the real world about my podcast have been women. And all of them wanted to know how to listen over the internet- without having to download something into a computer program and then move it to a music player. Again, I think most people want easy and clicking the play button is easier than downloading and moving. Especially when you listen at a computer. And I bet more podcasts are listened to at a computer than in the car (again, I have no empirical data; this is just my hunch).

So I don’t think podcasting is only a guy thing. I hope not. Either way, the generation of very tech savvy girls that are growing up here in my house, in my neighborhood and the world will have something to say about that one day. If podcasting becomes a permanent part of our culture, I believe that “girl power” will have a lot to do with it.

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Interesting Post on TV Shows and DVDs

TV Squad had a post yesterday on how music licensing problems have killed or delayed plans to release some classic TV shows on DVD.

The studios have to negotiate with both the record label cartel for the right to use the recording (to play the recording of the song on the DVD) and the music publishers who control the copyright to the song (to use song itself, as opposed to the recording of the song, on the DVD).

These costs are why advertisers are getting play for sponsoring the music on some current TV shows. This happens every week on Nip/Tuck and may happen on other shows (I don’t watch many current TV dramas, so I can’t tell if this is a trend or not).

Anyway, the point is that the record label cartel continues its war against the consumer. The goal, of course, is not to keep the songs off of the DVDs. The goal is to make them more expensive, with the additional money to find its way into the cartel’s pockets.

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