80 Proof Blog » Outside Opinion

You People Are Out Of Your Tiny Little Minds

Trevor — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:20:42 +0000

This is the most heinous and idiotic move they’ve made yet, and the bar was already pretty high!

Music Industry Wants Royalties From iTunes 30 Second Samples (Gizmodo)

Music royalty groups ASCAP and BMI are harassing online music stores such as iTunes to pay performance fees not only for the songs that they sell, but for the short clips that they use as previews. You know, the things that entice people to pay for music. They want to be paid for advertisements for their product.

Music publishers: iTunes not paying fair share (CNET)

“In the U.S. while we do get paid a mechanical (licensing fee) from ITunes, we are not getting any performance income from Apple yet,” David Renzer, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group, said in interview late last month with entertainment-industry publication, Encore. “(On iTunes) you can stream radio, and you can preview (tracks), things that we should be getting paid performance income for.

I’m honestly so flabbergasted that I don’t even know what more to say about it. Read the above articles for yourself and you’ll understand why.

Marco Tabini On Digital Formats

Trevor — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 02:49:39 +0000

Co-founder of several developer magazines (I subscribe to php|architect), Marco Tabini may not able to speak for the mainstream when it comes to consumer technology. Regardless, his evaluation of digital media and comparison of above- and below-board availability is an interesting read. And even though it deals with video, most of the same conclusions apply to audio formats as well.

Once you ditch cable and rely on DVDs and streaming, you realize two things: TV channels as we now know them are an incredibly obsolete idea, and that the differences between DVDs and digital (and the insistence of the entertainment industry on physical media and copy protection) is misguided when it comes to technology—really misguided.

Some Thoughts From Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails)

Trevor — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:52:46 +0000

I’d seen Trent’s comment on Twitter about the Beastie Boys and Topspin but didn’t give it much thought until Leanne of Dear Old Liar was kind enough to pass along a link to this post on the NIN forum.

There is some great advice in there for musicians struggling to gain an audience for their music. If you’re still confused about why we think full-length previews are a good idea, or why we think a niche music store is a good idea, check out his post.