Awesomest Music Video

Q-Unit

They've violated my favorite song! So, why can't I stop listening to it?

Q-Unit. A bastard pop 50 Cent + Queen album by The Silence Xperiment. What an age we live in.

Broheim

Of all the millions of songs in the world, somehow my brother and I separately each sought and downloaded Final Countdown as our ring tone.

We don't want to sue our fans

It's basically a week off for basement development, so I'll get a chance to peek out and see what's happening in the real world.

Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Sloan, and other prominent Canadian artists have formed the Canadian Music Creators Coalition to make their voices heard on copyright laws and politics.

Record companies and music publishers are not our enemies, but let's be clear: lobbyists for major labels are looking out for their shareholders, and seldom speak for Canadian artists. Legislative proposals that would facilitate lawsuits against our fans or increase the labels'’ control over the enjoyment of music are made not in our names, but on behalf of the labels' foreign parent companies.

And, of course, Dr. Geist has some commentary.

CRIA study shows P2P not as bad as they've said

CRIA's Own Study Counters P2P Claims

In summary, CRIA's own research now concludes that P2P downloading constitutes less than one-third of the music on downloaders' computers, that P2P users frequently try music on P2P services before they buy, that the largest P2P downloader demographic is also the largest music buying demographic, and that reduced purchasing has little to do with the availability of music on P2P services. I've argued many of these same things, but now you don't have to take my word for it; you can take it from the record labels themselves.

Radio Paradise

I listen to Internet radio while I'm at work, and for the last several months there's been only one station for me:

Why does our Heritage Minister hate us?

Satellite Radio Crashes

File sharing is good for the music industry

But they're to stubborn and short-sighted to accept it. Michael Geist's latest post has some details: More Music Industry Myths Exposed

The UK study finds that music file sharers buy nearly five times more music from services such as iTunes than do non-file sharers.

Canada's new copyright bill

Yesterday as expected Canada got some new copyright legislation. The bill has some good and some bad, but overall is more on the side of record labels and less on the side of individuals. Law professor Michael Geist provides a nice summary of the reactions and his more detailed first reaction. My biggest complaint is we still have that tax on blank media. Even if I buy a blank CD to store some photos, a chunk of what I paid goes to some musician. Are you unhappy about that too? The Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access has info on the ministers to contact

Did you know that the music industry already charges you a levy on most recordable media that you buy, like blank CDs, minidisks, and audio-cassettes? Plus GST and PST!

Satellite radio

The CRTC authorizes Canada 's first three subscription radio services Finally. The application was only made when, 2003? Oh well, better late than never. Of course there are Canadian content rules, but if they have to be there then they seem reasonable to me. The best part, though, was that the CRTC smartly rejected the Canadian recording industry request for copy protection. The CRIA is as scared and confused as their American counterparts.

Sweet relief

Finally. I am at peace. I've had a tune stuck in my head for months, possibly years. Well not a complete tune, just a hint, enough to drive me crazy but not enough to describe to anyone so I could find it. No artist, no title, not even a meaningful lyric. Over time it would start to fade away, maybe leave me alone, but then a passing car with the window down would fan the flames. Then I'm sitting listening to an Internet radio station and suddenly there it was. The artist & title scrolling along the little display, my mind at rest. Modest Mouse, Float On

What's wrong with selling (out)?

Muchmusic just had this episode of "The New Music" where some artists were complaining about other artists who sell their music for use in commercials. Like doing that somehow makes them less worthy as a musician or something. Whatever. I've found a lot of great music because of commercials, stuff I probably wouldn't have heard of (or been reminded of) otherwise. And there's nothing wrong making money doing what you love.

Orange Sky

Seen that new Nissan Honda commerical where those guys drive around and add stickers to their truck? Well the music is some kind of nice. It's "Orange Sky" by Alexi Murdoch. Here's the iTunes link.

iTrip Mini vs. iCarPlay

Quick answer: The Griffin iTrip Mini is better than the Monster iCarPlay, and not just because of the snappier name. Less quick answer:

I wanted an FM transmitter so I could listen to music from my iPod Mini in my car. Just tune your radio to a preset station and the play the iPod as normal... ahhh... relief from the radio.

I first bought the iCarPlay. The combination charger and transmitter appealed to me (one less thing to plug in) and for some reason I thought the sound out of the dock connector should sound better than the sound out of the headphone connector. Of the many things I've learned from video games, one is all monsters have a fatal weakness. This one's is bad sound quality. Every preset station had some static and the worse part was this little whine it would make perfectly sync'd with the RPMs of the car engine. Yah. Step on the gas and over my speakers I'd hear "wwwwhhhhhheeeeeeeeee". That alone was reason to return it, but I should also add the thing looks bad with it's tacky red lights and mess of wires.

Now the iTrip sounds good. At first I was worried because I saw you need to install some sort of playlist of stations into iTunes then sync that up and I was just about to do that when I actually read the manual. You only need to do the install if the default station doesn't work in your area (i.e. there's an existing radio station at that frequency). All I did was plug the iTunes in and it worked and lucky me, the default station works fine here (Calgary, Canada). No installs, no muss, no fuss (so to say). I also found I don't need the integrated charger, the vast majority of my trips fit well within the iPod's battery life. For the odd very long trip I can take a separate car charger. One small issue, I need a different EQ setting to sound good in the car than when I use headphones. Oh, and the iTrip Mini looks very slick attached to the iPod Mini, almost like the designed it just for it...

I'm happy with my iTrip.

May the schwartz be with you

A Spaceballs sequel... C'mon Mel, don't tease me - I'm fragile when it comes to sci-fi movie rumors that are too good to be true. (i.e. James Cameron directing Alien 5).

Green Day: Burn our CDs

So Green Day is selling CD-Rs (blank CDs) with the artwork printed on it so you can download and burn their music onto them. Very cool.

That song from the Cold Shots ad and my search for audio software

You may have seen a television ad for Molson Cold Shots (beer) where two guys are talking by a fridge at a house part. You know, the "she's got hungry eyes" one. Well in the longer version of the ad the background music is great. Currently the Molson Cold Shots website plays it. My Internet searches revealed it's an unreleased mix by Montreal rapper "B-U The Knowledgist". Some people said it could be downloaded in MP3 format from the site. Well I couldn't find it and attempts to register failed. So finally I decided to just record it off the site and encode it to an MP3. Well the audio recorder with Windows can't do more than 1 minute at once. I tried various shareware programs. One was limited to 3 minutes for the free version, another to a low quality, frustration mounting... Then I find the open source (really free) application Audacity and it's awesome. Well it did make me download a separate MP3 encoder, but once I did and pointed the software to it, I was riding the gravy train to an audio feast. Delicious. So blah blah blah give me the MP3 already you say? Here it is. I'll leave it up here until someone asks me to remove it or the downloads use up too much bandwidth. I think it should be cool to post it here since it's available for free off of the Molson site. Enjoy :)

Fair use & free speech

Earlier I posted a link to this hilarious cartoon. It's a witty political commentary where actors impersonating US presidential Bush & Kerry sing "This Land is Your Land" with different lyrics.

The parody was written by Evan and Gregg Spiridellis, brothers and business partners who run a small animation studio out of a warehouse in Santa Monica, Calif. "We do these things as a labor of love," Evan Spiridellis, 30, said in a phone interview this week. He thinks the appeal stems from the even-handed approach of the film -- Bush and Kerry get equal time and are equally ridiculed.

Well Ludlow Music, owners of the rights to the original song, are threatening to sue the brothers.

According to CNN, the publisher thinks the animation "threatens to corrupt Guthrie's classic—an icon of Americana—by tying it to a political joke; upon hearing the music people would think about the yucks, not Guthrie's unifying message.

*GAG* Thankfully the defenders of freedom, the EFF (who I support) are going to court to defend the brothers. Here's hoping humor and common sense wins!

No ISP royalties

Thank you supreme court!

In a unanimous 9-0 decision, the court ruled that although ISPs provide the hardware and technology, they aren't responsible for what people download.

Top court rules ISPs not liable for royalties The music companies wanted the big providers like Telus, Bell, Sprint, and AOL to pay because some people download music from the Internet. I hate this sort of "punish everyone, guilty or not" mentality like we currently have on blank media. Buy a 30 cent blank CD in Canada and 21 cents goes to some musician no matter what that CD is for. *sigh*