"it COSTS REAL MONEY to manufacture and distribute a record, to have a staff and a publicist, to promote an artist and tour a band.
that will never truly change.
but now, because we can reach out fans directly without the machine, artists are empowered to call the shots and keep whatever’s leftover…not the labels."

"Who really produces, owns and airs the shows my kids are glued to every evening and which companies select the stories I read with such loyalty each morning? I’ve always advocated for critical consumption, and what could be more important than an awareness of the sources of our families’ daily info and entertainment diets? And today, most of our media is controlled by one of six companies. "

"I believe technology will help [with education], but we have to make sure that we solve the job problem with technology, rather than saying that technology itself is this answer. I think the iPad has potential because it enables the content to come through again. What you might learn by using it is focused on the content itself."

"Everyone wants content to be as cheap as possible for consumers, but we still need to provide artists with incentives to create." Stacey Mason surveys the field for viable elite publishing models.

"Hacking is disruptive, and whether you code software, write books, or film movies, I believe bringing anything new into the world is a disruptive act. By being novel and compelling, the new is likely to replace something else and that something else isn’t being replaced without a fight."

"It’s important to understand the jobs entertainment is hired to do. Not because the creative process can be synthesized. It’s important because those creators need to learn how to allocate their own resources. A framework is needed to help dis-intermediate the resources allocators–the central planners, if you will.

In other words, learning how to create commercially valuable appreciable products should be a skill all creative people possess."

"The only copy protection I need is the fact that tomorrow’s comic doesn’t exist yet and my brain’s the only place that bakes that cookie." (reblog of a tumbl of a comment Stevens made in his Kickstarter campaign).

"How much better would the iPad need to be selling to convince these pundits that Apple nailed it, that they struck gold with the iPad’s concept and execution? There may well be gold in other spots on the tablet frontier, but Apple is going to keep digging in the same spot."

"I learned that money can be a lot of things. It can be something that is hoarded, fought over, protected, stolen and withheld. Or it can be like an energy, fueled by the desire, will, creative interest, need to laugh, of large groups of people. And it can be shuffled and pushed around and pooled together to fuel a common interest, jokes about garbage, penises and parenthood."

"Just ten shots of Whatever I Can Find In the Liquor Cabinet gives me up to six hours of angry, fitful sleep. And unlike other beverages, I won't remember any of my horrifying sexual nightmares."

A glorious FSJ rant: "And now here we are. Right here in your own backyard, an American company creates a brilliant phone, and that company hands it to you, and gives you an exclusive deal to carry it — and all you guys can do is complain about how much people want to use it. You, Randall Stephenson, and your lazy stupid company — you are the problem. You are what’s wrong with this country." (via @gruber)

"The terrifying reality regarding your resume is that for all the many hours you put into fine-tuning, you’ve got 30 seconds to make an impression on me. Maybe less."

"As I said before, geeks are system thinkers. We see the world as a very complex but knowable flowchart where there are a finite number of inputs, which cause a similarly finite set of outputs. This impossible flowchart gives us a comfortable illusion of control and an understanding of a chaotic word, but its existence is a handy side effect of a life staring at, deducing, and building systems. It’s also why we love games — they’re just dolled up systems — and the more you understand this fascination with games, the better you’ll be at managing us."

"A new paper by Council for Research Excellence (CRE) with support from the Nielsen Company dispels many of the myths about how people today listen to music. From broadcast radio to MP3 players, some popular notions about listening in the digital age appear to be horribly off the mark." (via @jgrossnas)

This article crystalizes pretty much all of the complaints I've been harboring about academia and especially graduate education: "GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans)." (via @lescarr)

critiques the Mark Penn WSJ article on professional bloggers: "The methodology of Penn’s piece seems to be: gather as many numbers as you can and don’t worry about the fact that they are from many different sources at different times using different methodologies and even differing definitions of what it means to “be a blogger” — just toss them all together and start drawing conclusions. " (via @jilltxt)

"The best studies we can find say we are a nation of over 20 million bloggers, with 1.7 million profiting from the work, and 452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income." (via @jilltxt)

copyright attorney (and former Blake Babies guitarist) surveys Creative Commons and issues it poses for musicians (via @hansveld via @jgrossnas)

Jesse Thorn interviews indie musician/produccer Steve Albini (from live show at The Second City, Chicago, Oct. 31 2007)

group of companies promoting Mac in corporate environments

"the Entertainment Retailers Association ... which represents retailers who sell music and DVDs—blames draconian digital copy protection technologies for the slow growth of the digital music market." [originally posted Nov. 21, 2007]

The last of the Big 4 announces they will sell "at least part of" their catalog without copy protection. (via lsherman on Twitter) [originally posted Jan. 11]

M$ internal emails reveal company backpedalled on 'Vista Ready' labeling requirements DESPITE execs own problems with compatibility. Now facing class action lawsuit. (via TidBITS, via Twitter)

"The RIAA is like an angry drunk who just got let go from the factory, lashing out at anyone and everyone in arm's reach."

Thinking vs. reacting, and how to nurture and harness thinking in a business environment

FSJ nails it: "It's the beginning of the death throes of the network system. At some subconscious level you clueless fuckwits have begun to realize that the future has nothing to do with the system to which you're attached."

Glenn Fleishman, who scooped the iPhone SDK announcement, gives a good overview of the 3rd-party-apps-on-iPhone saga to date.

First two titles of the Take Control of the Missing Manual for Dummies series: _Being a Whiny-Assed Apple Customer_ & _Suing Apple_. Clearly essential reading. (via Daring Fireball)

"When you bought and activated your iPhone, you entered into an agreement. When you hacked it, you ended [it]. Don't try to crawl back into bed and attempt to spoon n Steve Jobs just because you want the iTunes WiFi Store to work on your unlocked iPhone."

"At breakneck speed and with much wry humor, Bonforte presents his belief that anger is the most untapped emotion when it comes to start-ups and innovation. " (via deusx)

Harvard Coop ejects a student for taking down ISBNs of textbooks, makes bogus claims that these are the bookstore's intellectual property. (via Thingology)

Thoughts on the power of naming in response to Harvard Coop's ejection of ISBN copiers. "Secret and proprietary numbering systems pose a serious challenge to the benign potential of the internet."

Company that acts as go-between for copyright holders and digital music stores provides detailed info on pay rates of various stores. ITMS seems to be ~5% more generous than other major stores. (via Daring Fireball)

"This is the beginning of the end for the TV networks, the last big lurch of the dinosaur as it gets dragged down into the tarpit. This is the last great spastic battle of the old pre-digital media giants. It's going to be both ugly and hilarious."

Fake Steve FTW: "Bring on the big media cluster fuck. Roll out all the different systems that don't work together.... Right. When you're good and tired of that, we'll be here waiting for you."

More evidence NBC are greeduy idiots: 'But, Mr. Gaspin said, “piracy was and is our No. 1 priority.” He said that the music industry had been devastated by the free exchange of music, much of it facilitated by iTunes' (via Daring Fireball)

" Three and a half years after the [EC] first found Microsoft to be abusing its dominant market position in Europe, the EU's Court of First Instance has smacked down Microsoft's appeal and upheld the original €497 million... fine against the company."

Report by Computer & Communications Industry Association finds: "In 2006, fair use-related industry value added was $2.2 trillion, 16.6 percent of total US current dollar GDP." 'Fair use-related industry' is defined rather broadly.

"Anyway, it's been a pretty good week. We're screwing everyone in sight. We screwed you. We screwed AT&T. We screwed NBC. Man oh man. I feel like Ron Jeremy. Or is it Bill Gates?" And the picture of a young Real Steve makes it even better.

"Well done, TV networks. When you finally die, the world will celebrate. Because you'll deserve it. Totally." (via Daring Fireball)

"This is the latest in a series of attacks on iTunes by rivals, which seems remarkable in its pointlessness."

"I’d hate to give [your shows] up. But if you leave iTunes, I won’t have to. I’ll just stop paying for them. And I’ll enjoy watching how your concerns over pricing and piracy work themselves out without Apple, and customers like me, on your side."

The free, online versions of 37signals's highly recommended book on designing web apps.

T-Rex invents corporate sponsored erotica: "As Antonio Tony II undressed Amelia IV, she shuddered with pleasure. It reminded her of McDonalds...."

"This site is an interactive archive of Apple's homepage since 1997. It also rounds up the rumors of what's coming next." (via The Macalope)

"I suppose "bending to Apple's will enough to keep the iPhone from sucking" is some sort of achievement, but truth be told, the telcos would have been better off had they conspired to ignore Apple entirely."

T-Rex: "Nintendo, I just... I JUST WISH I HAD A SISTER YOU COULD MARRY"

'According to NPD, "The 'social' ripping and burning of CDs among friends—which takes place offline and almost entirely out of reach of industry policing effort—accounted for 37 percent of all music consumption, more than file-sharing."'

"All of CBS' recent acquisitions and licensing deals have been aimed at broadening the broadcaster's audience—a crucial task in an age of declining TV viewership."

Jesse James Garrett defines the IA profession (via wordwrap)

"The sum of the average paid vacation and paid holidays provided to U.S. workers in the private sector -- 15 in total -- would not meet even the minimum required by law in 19 other rich countries"

Why bad patents happen to good people. "No one had done this exact thing, in this exact way, for this exact purpose, before we did. The patent was original, it was innovative, and it was still shameful." (via Daring Fireball)

The problem is that once a

"iTunes has so much content these days that I’d probably be willing to ditch cable and go entirely to an AppleTV lifestyle with an all-you-can-eat video subscription." Interesting.

"The Corporate Ipsum Dashboard widget is a Lorem Ipsum generator Peter Gibbons might use in a TPS Report…if he were a graphic designer and had a need for a Lorem Ipsum generator." (via 43 Folders)

Home of De-motivational posters, calendars, mugs, and more. (via deusx)

"I'm glad Microsoft is dead. They were like Nero or Commodus—evil in the way only inherited power can make you." (via Daring Fireball)

On the death of musical consensus

Why are online music sales failing? Or are they?

EMI Group PLC's announcement today that it intends to drop digital rights management (DRM) restrictions on the tracks it offers through Apple Inc.'s iTunes makes the recording giant the first of the four big music labels to ditch DRM.

Answer: Apple designed their retail stores like they designed the iPod: friendly, uncluttered and with incredible attention to detail. (via remy)

via demiller

Overview of the last 12 months of browser market share data from several sources.

LibraryThing founder Tim Spalding examines book tagging on LT and on Amazon, analyzes the differerence between commercial tagging and social tagging.

Runs down responses to Jobs's 'Thoughts on Music' and surveys the messy field of Digital Rights Management schemes. (via Daring Fireball)

"Moral of the story: If you're big, or aspire to be big, cover all the bets you can, and never assume your lack of support will hurt your competitor. Get in bed with the guy whose lunch you want to eat." (via Daring Fireball)

John Gruber critiques the critics of Jobs's "Thoughts on Music" and digs into the differences between Apple and Microsoft when entering new markets.

"Windows Vista includes an array of "features" that you don't want....And these features won't do anything useful. In fact, they're working against you. They're digital rights management (DRM) features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment i

Steve Jobs comes down in favor of abolishing DRM: "Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats.... This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat." (via re

"The Morgan County Regional Technology Center is a new state of the art high technology building located in West Liberty, KY. "

Digital distribution is starting to call into question what the 'offiicial' version of a TV shiow is. References recent episodes of The office and BSG.

Microsoft is diving into micropayments (no firm details). Finally, somethign I'd like to see them succeed at.

Indie labels form a new licensing authority—Merlin—to bargain for them. Have already signed a deal with SNOCAP to sell unprotected MP3s on MySpace.

Asserts that "Apple refuses to remove DRM from iTunes, despite the fact that record companies do not demand it. In fact, now it seems that the only people who want DRM is Apple," but lacks evidence other than business gossip.

Big Media further cripples Microsoft's iPod-killer. "Welcome to the social," indeed! (via 43folders)

"This marks the eighth of the last nine quarters where Apple's growth has outpaced that of the overall market. In the US, the difference is huge: Apple computer shipments grew 30.6%, compared with the -3.2% growth seen by the overall US market."

Fictitious-but-insightful explanation of Apple pricing: "...we could do in computers what BMW did with cars. Cool rich asshole-type people would buy our stuff, and then poor lametards would want to have the same thing that the rich assholes had. "

Current score: IE 79.6%, Firefox 14%, Safari 4.2%, Opera & Netscape 0.9%

On the warped economics of publishing today: "The distributors are much bigger businesses than the publishers and the big box club stores are in turn much bigger businesses than the distributors." (via Mark Bernstein)

Account of the travails of cancelling online services. Ranking of 32 services on ease of cancellation. MSN, Napster, Rhapsody were bad, NYT and Consumer Reports, good. (via 43folders)