Mayhem & Chaos Blog

Music industry watch

Radio -- who needs it?

I've felt that radio had outgrown it's usefulness quite some time ago. I think radio went downhill and became useless in the early 90s -- today I would rather drive in silence than be subjected to public FM in the car.

Now the mainstream media is asking the same question:

Well, with the exception of being stuck in your car, without a CD or cassette player, there doesn’t seem to be much reason to tune in. There was a time when deejays could play whatever they wanted, and the radio was the place to go to hear a variety of music and discover new artists. But, as the play lists shrink and become more of the same, the Internet is quickly becoming the place to go for music lovers of all kinds.

With radio stations focusing more on making money (e.g. ClearChannel), rather than focusing on bringing quality entertainment, the utility of the radio has gone down significantly in the last few years. I think this $$$ centric vision will ulitmately lead to the demise of the recording industry (as we know it), which will thankfully take the greedy radio bastards with it.

My MP3 collection and I won't miss it one bit.

Random stuff

Cool quote

Wired has an article about a whirlpool in Maine. The article is interesting, but this quote tops it:

"A local fisherman summed it up pretty well when he said, 'I didn't mind so much getting caught in it. But I did resent having to row uphill to get out,'" said Robert Godfrey, the self-appointed president for life of the Old Sow Whirlpool Survivors' Association.

Rowing uphill -- that's funny.

Random stuff

Off kilter and funky weather

As usual, moving sucks. Even though I've moved all my stuff to the new house, there is a lot of cleanup left to do on the old apartment. The DSL won't be active until Thursday (if SBC doesn't screw it up) so, expect to hear less from me this week.

In other news, the weather is most bizzare at the moment. As you may have heard, California is burning due to a heatwave and strong Santa Ana winds. The Santa Ana winds are nothing new -- periodically they carry warm air from the Arizona deserts and sweep it into CA to oppose the ocean's cold air. Once the winds kick up you can feel the temperature rise several degress in the space of an hour. This is not really a big idea -- the winds can be fun in Janurary when it gets sorta chilly in CA.

But Santa Ana winds have died down now. But we're still facing daytime temps of 91F/33C in late October. Europe is already freezing and it feels like July here. I realize that a lot of times weather can vary quite a bit, but this is not right -- global warming is not a joke. This weather is alarming to me -- what do you think??

File sharing

.au ISP sued by .au media companies

An Australian ISP is being sued by a bunch of media companies:

"If things don't change we'll be going after more ISPs," said Speck.

The charge is the result of an 11-month investigation into the Web site http://www.mp3s4free.net, culminating in raids over Friday and Saturday last week. The registrant of the domain name, Australian Stephen Cooper, was also charged but failed to appear in court today, prompting an adjournment of proceedings until Tuesday 28 October.

Sueing the ISPs is dumb as a rock -- why would you hurt your national information infrastructure just because people are sharing MP3s?? At least the DMCA safe harbour clause saves the collective asses of the .us ISPs. I can't wait until the giant telecom industry stomps out the pesky little enterainment industry.

Music industry watch

Hollywood pushes more stupid bills

Declan McCullagh talks about how the entertainment industry is losing Senator Hollings and is picking up Representatives Lamar Smith, R-Texas; Howard Berman, D-Calif.; and John Conyers, D-Mich. as the official ass-clowns for asinine entertainment bills:

The fine print says huge categories of software--including Web browsers, instant messaging clients and e-mail utilities--that are offered for download must contain a warning that it "could create a security and privacy risk."

And the catch? If the companies or individuals who offer the software for download don't comply with the requirement, they will face criminal penalties such as fines or prison terms of up to six months. Even, that is, if the software is actually secure and poses no security risk.

What exactly is the goal of this law?? To put computer company executives in jail? While that might not be a bad thing, it is not clear what this new bill is supposed to solve. I don't see this bill as anything other than a FUD generator for the recording industry.

I doubt that this idiotic bill will become a law -- just like the previous plan hatched by Hollings. And even if it does become a law, people will sue to stop it before it can take effect -- much like the infamous Communications Decency Act.

Now Hollywood needs to wake up and realize that the crummy laws they are pushing don't work!

Conferences

Speaking at ETech 2004

O'Reilly just put up the schedule for the Emerging Technology Conference. And I'm pleased to tell you that I'm on it, giving a talk about "Next Generation File Sharing With Social Software."

The ETech conference has become my metric for measuring other conferences -- most conferences don't have the same caliber of people walking around and giving presentations. ETech is the best place to learn about hot new technologies and it is critical for rounding out my meatspace network. I can't recommend it enough!

Music industry watch

RIAA repeats Edison's mistakes

We all have been saying that the RIAA is repeating mistakes from history: The betamax case, recordable audio cassettes and their fight against radio broadcasting to name a few. What I didn't realize was that Thomas Edison made all of these mistakes with the emerging movie industry. George Ziemann outlines Edison's mistakes:

Step 1 -- Acquire the rights. All of them.
Step 2 -- Define the standards
Step 3 -- Dominate the market
Step 4 -- Assume the creative community is expendable
Step 5 -- Eliminate independent competition
Step 6 -- Alienate the public
Step 7 -- Government intervention

. . .

Eric Haight of Record World in Petoskey, Michigan, notes that a new Sting album before the price drop cost the store $12.69, with a suggested retail price of $18.98. Now it costs them $10.79, with a retail price of $12.98 - the profit margin has been slashed by almost two-thirds, and Universal will no longer help them out with advertising costs.

Small record stores are getting squeezed by this -- not surprising, really. I knew the small record stores would be having a hard time, but I never figured that the record companies would hasten their demise.

In any case, Ziemann's piece is quite enlightening if you want to examine the RIAA's blindness to the past.

Music industry watch

Music downloading: $$$ or not??

Since the debut of Apple's iTunes Store for Windows there have been some interesting news reports covering the launch and reviewing the windows app. M$ says things that are completely counter to what Apple says, which is to be expected. But one one quip from Jobs is interesting:

But Jobs contends that in the long run the competition will boil down to Apple and Microsoft. “Between the license fees and the credit-card charges, there’s no money in online music,” he says. For Apple, the payoff comes in selling the iPod players that work hand in hand with the store: more than a million have been sold, and in the last quarter, Apple moved 336,000 units.

And then M$ gets into hot water with the DOJ over their stupid link in the MyMusic folder which points to a site where users can purchase music online from M$:

The company [M$] said Monday it is willing to work with the government but does not believe the design is illegal. Online music purchases are expected to be one of the most-lucrative areas for Internet commerce.

Jobs says it won't generate money and Bill is willing to get into more trouble with the DOJ over the exact opposite. Who is smoking rock here? I'm inclined to agree with Jobs here -- if the record companies are involved in this process as they are now, they are the only ones who are going to make money in this process. Not the tech companies or even the artists.

What is M$ up to? I'd guess:

1. M$ has found some sneaky way to squeeze the record companies
2. M$ has ulterior motives where more music traffic will drive sales of something else -- just as Apple is doing with the iPod.
3. M$ is losing its marbles and has no clue about the record companies

#3 is not a likely story and #1 seems unlikely as well. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Microsoft Bashing

iTunes reactions

Apple's release of iTunes for Windows has gotten mixed reviews. It apparently has some bugs that causes Windows 2000 machines to lock up. Not a big ideal -- those bugs can be fixed. Most users seemed to give it good reviews -- and I have to agree with them. iTunes is the most advanced player for Windows -- everything else sucks rocks. WinAmp, Windows Media Player, RealOne can't stand up to iTunes. I welcome this -- the windows player market has been stagnant for a while.

The funniest thing I've seen is commentary from the Windows Media manager:

"Additionally, users of ITunes are limited to music from Apple's Music Store ... this is a drawback for Windows users, who expect choice in music services, choice in devices, and choice in music from a wide variety of music services to burn to a CD or put on a portable device. Lastly, if you use Apple's music store along with ITunes, you don't have the ability of using the over 40 different Windows Media-compatible portable music devices. When I'm paying for music, I want to know that I have choices today and in the future."

Ha! A microsoftie is talking about choice and complains about lock-in. Quite frankly I don't see how the iTunes store locks their users in any more than any of the other online download services. M$ is feeling the heat and doesn't have a leg to stand on; thus, their FUD generators are working at top capacity.

I wonder when someone is going to tell them that the sound like dumbasses when they crank up the FUD. I'm just hoping that in a few years after M$ has been toppled I'll re-read their crap and laugh.

Music industry watch

First Canadian music download site, eh!

Puretracks.com is first music download site pandering to our neighbors up north. Not surprisingly their offering sounds very similar to all the other offerings: DRM, tracks for a buck, discounted albums, limited CD burning, windows only and doesn't work on an iPod.

And tomorrow iTunes for Windows comes out, but I just can't get excited about these services anymore...

File sharing

File sharing and social software

Clay Shirky's latest essay, "File-sharing Goes Social" took me by surprise when it showed up in my mail on sunday. Clay's essay resonates with me -- I had been thinking about the same situation for weeks. I even submitted a talk proposal to the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference about this topic (I'll include it at the bottom of this post).

Coincidence aside, Clay is right on the money. He analyzes the RIAA attack model and outlines how file sharing systems are likely going to use social software models to evade the RIAA:

The disadvantage of social sharing is simple -- limited membership means fewer files. The advantage is equally simple -- a socially bounded system is more effective than nothing, and safer than Kazaa.

Limited search horizons are not necessarily all bad -- they do undercut the current model of searching for anything in this vast virtual library. But as it was pointed out in the Napster case, you have to know what you're looking for, otherwise Napster (and Kazaa to a degree) are useless. In light of Clay's previous essay "The Music Business and the Big Flip" the Internet community needs to take on the A&R functions and help one another with new music discovery. Having a limited search horizon bounded by the tastes of your friends will allow you to peruse the music in the social networks. This gives users the opportunity to discover new music on their own, rather than having it shoved down their throats by the music industry. Simply put, it is a different approach to finding music -- one that might be even more dangerous to the RIAA.

Furthermore, given the vast number of people in my Friendster network that I enjoy through a couple dozen friends, I would be inclined to think that the search horizon of a traditional P2P network isn't all that different from a search horizon offered by a social software P2P network. What difference are we talking about? A factor of 2? An order of magnitude??

Even if it is an order of magnitude, social software systems can be changed to expand the search horizon. What if the social software P2P systems used an approach closer to tribe.net where you can trade files with anyone in your tribe and with tribes that are closely allied with your tribe? My group of friends has several other sister social groups with whom I would feel comfortable trading music. The same rules that apply to forming relationships between two people can also be applied to forming a relationship between two groups. And this can drastically expand the search horizon.

In any case, I hope that O'Reilly accepts my proposal so I will have a chance to brainstorm about this cool topic a the next ETech conference.

Here is the abstract of my talk proposal:

Abstract:

Social software applications like Friendster, Tribe.net and LinkedIn have proven that it is easy to build an online network of friends. P2P applications like Gnutella, Kazaa and eDonkey have shown how effective file trading applications can be.

However, in the times when the RIAA is suing the world for downloading music off the net, it's time to combine a social software applications like Tribe.net with a file sharing application like Kazaa. The Tribe.net aspects of this application allow users to create networks of their friends and then allow file sharing between members of their network.

The primary goal of the social software aspects is to keep the RIAA and MPAA out of your social network in order to avoid detection. Fringe benefits from this approach include music discovery features -- basic search facilities in file sharing applications assume that you know what you are looking for, but social networks can allow users to highlight their favorite music and build communities based on musical tastes.

To avoid detection, the file sharing application should use common off the shelf technology to avoid detection by the bad guys. All connections should be tunneled over SSH and port numbers should change frequently. Using these thechniques, the bad guys won't be able to tell the difference between a legit VPN session and a Britney Spears track being swapped.

This talk will introduce the concepts above and present social network models, detection avoidance strategies, attack strategies and a real world safety evaluation of such systems.

Mac OS X

For the love of Mac

My friend Liz send me a link to and SF Gate article that talks about the writer buying his first PowerBook and her experience of unpacking it:

And you open the gorgeous black box and lift the white cardboard inside flap, itself adorned with clean offset typeface declaring "Designed by Apple in California," and you are confronted with what is quite possible the most thoughtfully designed and pleasing packaging you've ever seen, not like you care about this stuff and hey it's all just Styrofoam and garbage anyway, but still.

And that sums up my PowerBook buying experience perfectly. I still have the packaging for the PowerBook -- its too cool to throw away. And, I also had the same experience with Jean's iPod.

Apple is doing something right and M$ should be really scared.

Legal/Government

say NO to the broadcast flag

The good folks at the EFF have got another online petition against the motion picture companies trying to shove the next piece of biased legislation down our throats:

Hollywood is at it again, trying to control the design of new digital technologies. If the motion picture studios have their way, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will force all future televisions to include Hollywood-approved "content protection" technologies. Fair use, innovation and competition will suffer. What’s more, the "broadcast flag" technology that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has proposed is so weak that it will do nothing to stem Internet redistribution of television programs. In fact, the only people hurt by this are legitimate consumers, innovators and researchers.

Go sign the petition!

Music industry watch

Napster is back. Yawn.

It's back as a castrated music download service. Unlimited streaming music for $10/month and $.99 track downloads. DRM. Yawn.

Original Napster founder Shawn Fanning said:

"I've used Napster 2.0, and it's really great," Fanning said. "It has community features and tools for discovering new music that were important parts of the original Napster experience."

Yeah, whatever. Doesn't sound like something Shawn, the orignal rebel, would say.

PressPlay, Rhapsody, iTunes, BuyMusic, MusicMatch, EMusic, Napster: all crap, all non compatible, all worthless. Some suck more than others, but all in all they are just a disservice to the public.

Music industry watch

EMusic now joins the rank of suck

After mp3.com got shutdown I was wondering what EMusic.com's fate was going to be. Rumors had it that it was going to be sold to someone who cared about the service and was going to continue it.

I had high hopes, but it turns that EMusic is turning into a steaming pile of crap. They will discontinue their popular all you can download model and turn it into an ill fated high priced limited downloads for too much money model. 40 downloads for $10 or the premium package of 60 downloads a month for $15.

Under the old and cool model you could download 40 tracks in no time flat and then dig through them at your own leisure -- I still have tons of tracks that I haven't inspected yet -- I just downloaded all I could before my subscription ran out. I really miss that model -- I got a lot of good music that way.

This new model smells and looks waay too much like PressPlay. Press what? Yes, the janky download service that is quickly being eclipsed by iTunes, BuyMusic and MusicMatch. I give Emusic.com less than a year before it folds -- this new model is the worst possible way to offer the service. EMusic worked because it struck a careful balance between the less-than-major-label music it offered and a reasonable download model. Now with a crappy, restricted-major-label model and indie artists music, there is no way for them to suvive the onslaught of other online download services.

When I first started working at GoodNoise (then EMuisc) we set out to change the music industry. Alas, in the EMusic rolled over and succumed to the recording industry crap. Should we have a pool for when the service shuts down???

Cool ideas

Grocery discount card mayhem

These silly grocery discount cards have bugged me for a long time. Its not about the customer getting a deal with these cards, its about customers not getting fair prices without them. At least that's how I view them.

Then people get all up in arms about the privacy issues of these cards. While I think there are lots of privacy issues, most consumers don't realize the even dirtier tricks that are being played on them.

Supermarkets obsessively mine all the data they can get their hands on to strategically manipulate the prices in order to maximize their profit. They can see that on a football weekend people wil go out and buy lots of beer. And if they go buy beer they are likely to go get chips too. So, what do they do?? They have a sale on beer and the jack up the prices on chips. Consumers don't see the connection -- all they can think about is cheap beer. Who cares if the chips are expensive??

It's rotten shenanigans like this that bug me, and that is why I really like Rob's Giant BonusCard Swap Meet where people can exchange bar codes for discount cards for Giant supermarkets. Exchanging these cards essentially mucks up the databases that are mined for data that screws you. But, I suspect that lots of people need to participate in this before it starts having any negative effect on the supermarkets.

I guess we'll have to take this one step at a time, right?

DRM

CD Copyprotection is doomed!

John A. Halderman from Princeton has written a research paper detailed how to circumvent the MediaMax CD3 copyprotection:

SunnComm claims its product facilitates "a verifiable and commendable level of security," but in tests on a newly-released album, I find that the protections may have no effect on a large fraction of deployed PCs, and that most users who would be affected can bypass the system entirely by holding the shift key every time they insert the CD.

How many defeats will they have to take before they wisen up? How many millions of dollars are they wasting on this crap? Wouldn't it be better to spend this money developing some Internet friendly licensing schemes?

Cool ideas

Please call: 317-816-9336

A few weeks ago Dave Barry posted the number of the American Teleservices Association and asked his readers to call them and tell them what they think of the their services and the do not call list.

It turns out the ATA had to get a new phone number because they could no longer conduct business on the old one because of too many unwanted phone calls:

''The ATA received no warning about the article from Barry or anyone connected with him,'' Searcy said. ``. . . the Barry column has had harmful consequences for the ATA. An ATA staffer has spent about five hours a day for the past six days monitoring the voice mail and clearing out messages.''

Hahahaha! Take your own medicie you dolt!

Dave Barry found the new number for these goons and is asking people to call them again. In case you didn't catch it, the number is: 317-816-9336. I haven't been able to get through, but I'll keep trying.

Music industry watch

Legal wrangling

Looks like there is lots of DMCA related legal wrangling going on right now. Charter Cable is trying to stop the flood of subpoenas from the RIAA, and the EFF has a new paper on the DMCA: Unintended Consequences: Five Years under the DMCA:

In practice, the anti-circumvention provisions have been used to stifle a wide array of legitimate activities, rather than to stop copyright piracy. As a result, the DMCA has developed into a serious threat to several important public policy priorities:

• Section 1201 Chills Free Expression and Scientific Research.
• Section 1201 Jeopardizes Fair Use.
• Section 1201 Impedes Competition and Innovation.
• Section 1201 Becomes All-Purpose Ban on Access To Computer Networks

So, are you an EFF member yet?? These guys work hard at keeping the bad guys at bay!

And finally, Sen. Norm Coleman is pushing to reduce penalties for downloading copyrighted materials:

"I can tell you that $150,000 per song is not reasonable, and that's technically what you can put in front of somebody," Coleman said in a conference call with reporters. "That forces people to settle when they may want to fight, but they're thinking, 'goodness, gracious, what am I going to face?' "

The bottom line is this: The DMCA and RIAA are starting to get some serious opposition. The DMCA is starting to turn on the RIAA -- this is a perfect example of how these bought legislations aren't going to fly.

Dumbshit Dept.

Proof positive that artists are underpaid

<sarcasm>
Here is proof positive that artists are not getting paid enough. My favorite warrior against the record companies is so poor that she becoming a junky, getting arrested for breaking windows and then getting picked up for OD'ing:

Less than an hour later, police and paramedics in Beverly Hills responded to a 911 call at another home involving a woman under the influence of a narcotic. Law enforcement officials told the Los Angeles Times the woman was Love and said that she had overdosed.

</sarcasm>

Music industry watch

A new download service, with a twist

I've been quite gung-ho about Clay Shirky's Big Flip essay where he talks about how the recording industry can mostly be replaced by existing Internet components and cheap commodity hardware.

Now the former CEO of McAfee, Srivats Sampath is starting a new music download service that promises a new twist:

The self-funded company even plans a smidgen of peer-to-peer distribution, according to Sampath. Songs bought through the service will all be wrapped tightly in Microsoft copy-protection technology, but people may be able to download them from each other's computers in order to save on bandwidth costs and download times, he said.

...

Mercora is adding a community element to simple downloading that it hopes will help it stand out from the pack. It's drawing on the "social networking" idea that has Silicon Valley aflutter: Mercora users can group themselves together based on what kinds of music they like and then use these rough groups as sources of content and recommendations.

The social software aspects of this new venture are totally in line with what Shirky talks about. Groups of people organizing and talking about music can hopefully soon replace the A&R functions that the labels currently still carry out. And masses of humans with their own human voice will do it far better than the labels can.

Too bad that these people with their own human voices are going to rip this DRM laden service to shreds. And using P2P to buck the bandwidth costs also bugs me a bit -- if I pay for something shouldn't the seller cough up for the bandwidth it takes to deliver the product??

And while we're on the topic of replacing the recording industry, Slashdot reports that increased use of laptops is shrinking the studio. I've always said that any garage band with a stinking PC can put out their own demo CD or demo mp3 tracks. Its nice to see that the record company business base is eroding and control over music production is shifting move towards everyday users.

Mayhem & Chaos

Look ma, I'm in the paper!

Our local paper, the Telegram Tribune just ran an article that featured me flapping my gums again:

"The file-sharing community is a lot more swift than the RIAA," said Kaye, 33, an unemployed software developer. "And no matter what the RIAA will do, people will design different software tools or different legal strategies or different geographical strategies to always evade what the RIAA is doing."

I'm referring to the The Great Cat & Mouse Game here. And I'm not unemployed - I'm underpaid. :-)

Cool Tech

IETF sets up public namespace URIs

The IETF has just announced a draft URI namespace scheme. It's like a domain registry, but for URIs.

URI's are at the heart of the semantic web where everything has to have a URI. Every piece of data in the universe could have a URI, each person, each car, each whatever. If you want to refer to an object in the semantic web you need a URI, and having a clear method for dividing the namespace is crucial for allowing lots of people to play together.

I realize that the semantic web is probabbly not on many people's minds just yet, but give it a few more years. The semantic web will have a significant impact on how humans and computers communicate.