more on the bush administration designated free-speech zones. busses were a big deal in the reverend doctor martin luther king’s life, and on the 75th anniversary of his birth, protesters and dissent is hidden from president bush by the buses.
Mr. Bush was met by hundreds of demonstrators when he arrived at The King Center to mark the 75th anniversary of Dr. King’s birth. He was shielded from their view by a row of transit-authority buses with police officers in riot gear atop them, according to the pool reporter who accompanied the president into the center.
let’s not upset our fragile president.
i’m sure king appreciates the wreath, but it would be more meaningful if an administration policy or two supported king’s work.
He also made an appearance at a predominantly black church in New Orleans and held two fund-raisers, one in New Orleans and one in Atlanta, which brought in $2.3 million for his re-election campaign.
but it was worth the trip, eh?
posted by roj at 3:18 am
this is a call to arms. i didn’t want to jump on this while it was still “likely” – now it appears to be “confirmed.”
adage has the story – apparently cbs “standards and practices” has rejected the moveon.org “bush in 30 seconds” winner.
this is a valid, important message. the first thing you need to do is go see it yourself, here [low bandwidth version] or here [high bandwdith version].
discussion of possible responses is available at k5. i’ll give you the short version now:
call, write, fax or email cbs and tell them you disagree with the decision.
call, write, fax or email cbs superbowl advertisers and tell them you disagree with the decision.
be polite, be positive, don’t threaten or get personal.
remember, you (the public) own the airwaves. cbs is just borrowing them.
posted by roj at 1:14 am
demonstrating traction in the drm-free universe, download business bleep is carrying the entire back catalog of warp records (electronica, including aphex twin).
breaking with the establishment (and even the downward spiral), bleep is offering drm-free high-quality (typically 205kbps vbr) mp3’s at $1.35/track (a 36% premium) or up to about $10 per album.
Bleep music has no DRM or copy protection built in. We believe that most people like to be treated as customers and not potential criminals – DRM is easily circumvented and just puts obstacles in the way of enjoying music. Apple has even privately stated that they decided to use a weak form of DRM solely to get major labels onboard.
kevin would be proud.
update: discussion at slashdot and metafilter.
posted by roj at 4:46 am
stumbling through boing boing, we find an alternative to the 97 radio music promotion model.
maybe you don’t need airplay, just leave your stuff behind….
The release of Drukqs two years ago was prompted by a mistake. James left an MP3 player on a plane that held a mind-boggling 282 new tracks. It was labelled “Aphex Twin Unreleased Tracks” to make any would-be bootleggers quite sure that what they might post on to the internet was the real deal. This never happened, but James hurriedly put together a double CD just in case.
ok, this isn’t quite how it was intended, but… i thought it was an interesting, if accidental, approach to promotion. it does meet the requirement that you make your music available for free somewhere…
posted by roj at 4:34 am
it turns out that the vast mp3.com catalog wasn’t destroyed, it was co-opted (as in opt-out) by trusonic for background music.
of course, this doesn’t do a lot for the musicians that put their music into this catalog, but it gives vivendi and trusonic some revenue. whoups. left those artists behind? that’s going to come back and hurt you in the long run, guys, because you’ve broken the trust of the people you need to stay in business. you’ve traded something that was short-term and legal (i’m sure it’s all covered in the agreements) for the bigger picture.
this gets a nomination from me for the tim oren dubious distinction awards.
trusonic may be able to stay under the radar and out of the light, but every artists that gets screwed by this maneuver will remember, and will share. and vivendi, or c-net or whatever ends up running mp3.com – and anyone willing to dig enough to uncover trusonic will never work with those people again. in the bigger picture, the artists that get the short end of this stick may not come back easily to any online music distribution arrangement, and that hurts everyone.
slashdot has discussion.
posted by roj at 4:27 am
sony announces a new 1-gb minidisc format and some new players. it’s a cd-killer, of course, and it’s all the right things that should do it – smaller, faster, larger-capacity. it’s also from sony. does this change your bets?
posted by roj at 4:03 am
apple licenses itms/ipod to hp. this is a big deal, both for apple (licensing its stuff) and for hp (committing hard to consumer electronics and their vision of the future). rumors ran wild on the details, including one about supporting microsoft’s drm with the hp widget. microsoft knows that threat. the factions are set (pick your drm alliance), and the long-term picture is that as long as everyone’s busy putting locks on the content and developing new locks for the content, the less frustrating alternatives can maintain traction.
will apple embrace a new more-open approach? given the economics, and the coming squeeze, will they “wake up” to their old ways and realize that they don’t really want competition for money-making ipods and pull the plug on competition? it’s happened before.
posted by roj at 4:03 am