Virtual Thought

Posts have this nasty tendency of accumulating, un-written, in my Wordpress queue as drafts. I had these two links sitting around for a long time: One link saying that DRM is here to stay and won’t affect user-generated content and the burgeoning independent media industries and the other saying that DRM hasn’t protected a thing and should be removed entirely.

Somewhat explosively, Steve Jobs posted an essay last week saying that he would sell songs from the iTunes music store without DRM if only the big bad RIAA would let him.

So.

I posted those two links from long, long ago to make a point: I never thought those links would have a shelf life. Commercial DRM, as far as music is concerned (since video DRM doesn’t seem to be going anywhere except to be hacked most egregiously), seems to be counting down to some zero hour; here’s hoping that I live to see no DRM is used at all. I think this is much more constructive than asking that a DRM system somehow, non-sensically, be opened-up so that everyone can lock down their users in the same way! (Man, Norway, you should’ve asked for the whole enchilada and just outlawed it entirely since even a majority of music execs don’t like DRM)

Apple has claimed that they would sell music without DRM (which would be a change of policy for them) and that seems like the beginnings of a sea change. Coupled with EMI’s recent announcement to stop using DRM on its tracks I think this is a very exciting time.

There are a ton of good analyses of the tides in this debate, notably at DaringFireball… Gruber does a great job laying out the currents (to over-extend that analogy).

Here are more links on the subject from Electronista, the inestimable Mr. Doctorow, Cult of Mac, the Associated Press and some more Daring Fireball.

Recently read this ridiculous article asking if Garageband is harmful to creativity.

Musicians, those who are really passionate about what they are doing, need each other to feed off of. Jamming with friends who share your love of music is where the best ideas are inspired.

Bull. Speaking for myself, I don’t need other musicians to be inspired… and while jamming with friends is fun, and I’ve certainly been inspired by seeing other musical acts who rock, I don’t think that inspiration and creation are necessarily group activities. Just witness the variety of electronic acts out there who are bands in name only and are actually single individuals rockin’ out all on their own.

Engadget reports that the CEO of Warner Music is ‘fairly certain’ his children pirate music.

He assures us, though, that they’ve “faced the consequences.”

Would those consequences include paying his dad’s industry group hundreds of dollars like everyone else?

Ray Kurzweil has a nice tribute to Robert Moog over at Wired.

Very cool. Check it out.

Just got back from the Weezer / Foo Fighters concert, which was mighty excellent. It was a whim purchase, mostly for Terra’s sake… ended up she couldn’t go, no one I could get ahold of wanted the ticket… so my brother and I had some extra room near our seats, got to spread out.

The Foo Fighters reminded me of what I liked about arena rock while Weezer was poppy to the extreme and the whole thing was just great. Had a great time.

Not as great a time as Mike, though. Mike was the guy Weezer pulled up on stage to play the acoustic part of some song I don’t know but really like (I’m not a good Weezer fan… it was pretty famous, I think it was a single… could it have been “Undone”? My memory is hazy now). They’re all playing along, Mike included… the lead singer motions him over, says into the mic, “Now G… C… D… C… G… C – yeah, like that!... D…” Pretty awesome.

The Register has a neat article about how the music industry could live forever, get richer, and even, maybe, be loved. They also have this neat article further expounding the flat fee approach to content distribution (in this case, music).

It’s kind of a slow day today. The most interesting thing that’s been happening recently is the arrival of my Power Mac. Sweetness!

I’ve been investigating different music programs, as well: Logic, Live, Pro Tools... They all have their pluses and minuses that I might get into later…

I’ve been looking at samples too… Dear God, the samples. There are so many sample websites out there that it’s almost ridiculous… so ridiciulous that I can’t believe some of them put up the ever-square “boomshhboomshh” House drum loops… c’mon! Who needs to download that? I can make that… I’m looking for drum loops to beef up my tracks… Loops I can offset and rip and paste and remix… I’ll accent them later with a drum machine. “Boomshhboomshh” I can already make with a drum machine. Please!

Fellers is fantastic… basically seems to be a Craig’s list for music… lots of the pages I thought would be interesting are blank, but the ones that aren’t have neat neat stuff on them. Have you seen Acappellas4u? What about Pellamania? Can you guess what my next project is?

Yeah, and speaking of. Check out Julien’s originals sample page where he reveals where popular songs sampled their riffs from. Man! I was once told that our generation doesn’t care about music as much as previous generations and, y’know what, that person was right! I had absolutely no idea that some of those songs I loved were taken nearly whole cloth! Basement Jaxx! How could you!!

Except for Fatboy Slim. I knew that guy was a rampant thief. ( = But that’s cool.