Shuroki Online

The official post is simple:

create, share, download, and listen to thousands of NIN remixes in this new community of user-generated creativity. http://remix.nin.com

But the site is very rich, and well done. The concept is that Trent Reznor is making the original multi-track files available for anybody to change, add to, remix, destroy, and then upload it to the site for everybody to hear. There is a social network aspect (voting for uploaded tracks, commenting, etc) and every thing can be downloaded as free mp3 files.

The entire site is also RSS enabled- so you can subscribe to news feeds, or track listing feeds as well as subscribe to category feeds (or individual artists) for remixes which will download as podcasts of the actual mp3s.

When I heard that NIN was doing this, I was very excited at the thought, but the execution is just amazing!

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There are a lot of things I dislike about Vista. Some are philosophical, some are even theoretical, but this one is very real, and (imho) very wrong!

From APC Magazine:

After weeks of gruelling troubleshooting, I’ve finally had it confirmed by Microsoft Australia and USA — something as small as swapping the video card or updating a device driver can trigger a total Vista deactivation.

Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into “reduced functionality” mode, where you can’t do anything but use the web browser for half an hour.

You’ll then need to reapply to Microsoft to get a new activation code.

How can this crazy situation occur? Read on for the sorry tale

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Its not clear if this is a reaction to the Amazon MP3 store, but Apple is now dropping the price of its “iTunes Plus” tracks to $.99 and keeping the higher quality. Good news for customers!

Background: A couple of months ago Apple started selling tracks from record label EMI without Digital Restrictions Management. This was great news and kicked off all sorts of moves from labels, artists, and stores. Along with no DRM, the tracks included better sound quality, which justified charging a premium for them ($1.29 instead of $.99 for all other tracks).

Since then Amazon launched its MP3 store selling ALL tracks without DRM, high quality, and at only $.89 each. I think this Amazon store is the first truly viable competitor to the iTunes store. Sure, other stores offer no DRM (eMusic), all-you-can-download flat rate plans, or cheaper tracks. But none of them had the magic combination that Amazon has hit on:

1. Main-stream/big label artists
2. No DRM
3. Format compatible with the iPod
4. Equal price or cheaper than iTunes
5. Automatic synchronization with your iTunes library

Points 3 and 5 are bigger than a lot of people think. Since something like 80% of all “portable media players” are iPods, the stores that used Microsofts DRM were always doomed since the tracks weren’t compatible. eMusic is great, but its mostly indie artists and has a weird, confusing pricing model.

I think we are finally getting to some realism with regards to digital music. Video still has a long way to go, but “baby steps Bob”..

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Its good to see that the U.S. isn’t the only place going insane with copyright shenanigans. Oh, wait- I suppose it’s actually BAD too see we’re not the only place. Come to think of it the list of places not effected is actually getting shorter. _sigh_

What the case basically says is that since this car repair shop is a business; and the mechanics listen to the radio while they work; and the customers might be able to hear the radio: then the shop needs to pay “performance royalties” for entertaining the customers with copyrighted works.  What a crock!

From BoingBoing:

Car repair chain sued for playing radio

Posted by Mark Frauenfelder, October 9, 2007 3:45 PM | permalink

James Glover says:

Kwik-Fit, a British chain of car-repair garages, has been taken to court by the Performing Rights Society for “public performances” of music played on staff radios.

The PRS claimed that Kwik-Fit mechanics routinely use personal radios while working at service centres across the UK and that music, protected by copyright, could be heard by colleagues and customers.

It is not entirely clear is the term radio is used to refer to broadcast radio stations or to CDs/Tapes payed on audio equipment. Either way this seems a ridiculous abuse of public performance licenses.

Link

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The band Radiohead has made some interesting moves lately. First they refused to host their music on any download services - specifically citing iTunes requirement of unbundling albums (the band wants to sell complete albums only). Then just last week they made their albums available on the new Amazon music service for $8.99 an album - but for some reason there are two singles for .89 cents each.

Now, they are only selling their newest album (initially) from their own website - using the tip jar method. You decide what price you want to pay, and download the entire album! It is actually a pre-sale, and the album will release on October 10th. If you don’t want a digital download, you can opt for a box set for $80.

Some are calling this the final nail in the recording industries coffin. Other than “Creep” I’ve never really liked Radiohead’s music, but I really like how they are conducting business! If they were to release under a Creative Commons license or post their master multi-tracks for remix like Nine Inch Nails they’d really screw “the man”!

From BoingBoing:

Radiohead lets fans pick price for new album

Posted by Xeni Jardin, September 30, 2007 6:12 PM 

Sweet fancy Moses this is awesome!* BB reader Daniel says,

Radiohead has just announced the details for their new album, In Rainbows.They’re only selling it through their website (at least for now), and for the digital download version, they’re letting listeners pick their own price for the album - it’s literally a donation-based product.

Obviously this is sparking confusion among many, but the only help the website provides are the words “It’s up to you.”

Link, album’s out October 10. To recap: the box set (Glorious thick 12″ vinyl! and “enhanced CD”) is $80, but the downloads are name-your-own-price. Some readers are reporting that you get the downloads for free anyway if you buy the box set.

No details on the download file format. Does anyone out there know? DRM-free? MP3s? What bitrate, what quality?

I just bought my copy (download, though I’ll probably go back and buy the boxed set, too). I got wonky html on the purchase confirmation screen indicating some code glurbles going on at the online store — not sure if my transaction actually took. Perhaps the shop’s overloaded right now, announcement just went live.

This is major, and it’s such a slap in the record industry’s face. An unsigned superband, treating loyal fans and customers like loyal fans and customers instead of thieves — what a revolutionary concept.

In related news, the band is dismissing a hoax website that duped fans this weekend:

The site — www.radioheadlp7.com — launched on Friday with a countdown timer due to reach zero on Saturday morning. It claimed it would be making a big announcement about the band. Fans speculated the “Creep” hitmakers were planning to reveal details about their next album. But a spokesperson for the band has called the Web site a “hoax” and “nothing to do with Radiohead.”

Link to SF Gate blog post. Update: More on the band’s unusual indie sales approach in these news and blog reports: Green Plastic (fansite online since 1997) Billboard, Idolatr, FQMB.

But Bob Lefsetz, as usual, sums it up best:

It’s not like Radiohead’s living in a different world. But they’re playing by a different rule book. One that says the money flows from the music, that people have to believe in you, that you’ve got to treat them right.Shit, you can barely get a ticket to a Radiohead show. The venues aren’t big and the demand is incredible. They’re doing it all wrong, don’t they see?? Well, obviously they don’t.

This is big news. This says the major labels are fucked. Untrustworthy with a worthless business model. Radiohead doesn’t seem to care if the music is free. Not that they believe it will be. Because believers will give you ALL THEIR MONEY!

This is the industry’s worst nightmare. Superstar band, THE superstar band, forging ahead by its own wits. Proving that others can too. And they will.

Disclaimer: I AM THE HUGEST RADIOHEAD FAN ON THE PLANET. (* Thanks Coop)

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 More great news that shows judges aren’t sitting idly by allowing the RIAA to flood the courts with their ridiculous lawsuits against customers. In this case, the judge is granting the dependent’s attorney fees be paid by the RIAA.

From Slashdot:

New Attorneys Fee Decision Against RIAA

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes “The RIAA has gotten slammed again, this time in Oregon, as the Magistrate Judge in Atlantic v. Andersen has ruled that Tanya Andersen’s motion for attorneys fees should be granted. The Magistrate, in his 15-page decision, noted that, despite extensive pretrial discovery proceedings, ‘when plaintiffs dismissed their claims in June 2007, they apparently had no more material evidence to support their claims than they did when they first contacted defendant in February 2005…..’ and concluded that ‘Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case.’ This is the same case in which (a) the RIAA insisted on interrogating Ms. Andersen’s 10-year-old girl at a face-to-face deposition, (b) the defendant filed RICO counterclaims against the record companies, and (c) the defendant recently converted her RICO case into a class action“

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Over the last week several different things have happened that put some crimps in the Recording Industry Association of America’s practice of suing consumers. At the very least it seems that it might now be much more expensive for them to continue suing people.

Here is a quick round-up of headlines/links of what’s happened. Below that I’ll add some commentary:

1. Google restores video after user DMCA counterclaims
2. RIAA Legal Complaint (suing a customer) is dismissed as “boilerplate”
3. Record Companies “Copyright-Pooling” is challenged
4. Canada’s RIAA equivelent (CRIA) admits P2P Downloading is legal in Canada
5. Internal e-mails of an RIAA attack dog are leaked

1. The first hit came when Viacom backed down on a DMCA claim to have content removed from YouTube. You see, last fall a guy named Christopher Knight (no, not Peter Brady) ran for a seat on his local school board. VH1 picked up the video and ran it on their show “Web Junk 2.0″. He thought it was cool and took that clip out of the show and posted it on YouTube so that he could link it from his blog.

Then a few weeks ago Viacom sent a take down notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to take the video down because it violates their copyright. Well, Google immediately took it down, because that’s what they usually do when they get a take down notice (especially since they are both in court right now). The thing is, most of the time the content really is infringing, and even if it isn’t almost nobody ever fights it- instead a hundred copies just go up under other peoples YouTube accounts.

Anyway, Mr. Knight did fight back (with help from the EFF) and filed a counterclaim. Google agreed and put the video back up. So far Viacom is silent, presumably because they know they did a no-no. You see, they were violating his copyright, because they never asked him if they could use his clip on their commercial television show!

At first this seemed like a blow against the very faulty DMCA. Sadly, many people feel that this just validates that it is working as intended. sigh..

2. In one of the many RIAA cases against consumers, a judge has dismissed their complaint for failure to actually state a specific claim. Funny how the judges actually want you to put a little thought into a lawsuit and actually prove something before demanding people hand over buttwads of cash. In fact, the judge said:

“Plaintiff here must present at least some facts to show the plausibility of their allegations of copyright infringement against the Defendant. However, other than the bare conclusory statement that on “information and belief” Defendant has downloaded, distributed and/or made available for distribution to the public copyrighted works, Plaintiffs have presented no facts that would indicate that this allegation is anything more than speculation.”

With this precedent, it seems that the RIAA might actually have to tailor each case to the individual and the facts, which should slow down their shotgun approach and cost them a lot more money.

3. In another RIAA copyright case (UMG v. Lindor): Marie Lindor called the record companies suing her a collusive cartel and that their agreement to pool their copyrights is a “copyright misuse” a year and a half ago. They finally came back with a motion to strike the allegations, but she held tight, arguing that their argument had no legal basis. Also that it’s brief showed no justification for their copyright-pooling agreement.

Oh, and she is the defendant who challenged that the $750 per song that the companies are claiming is unconstitutional (way to go!)

4. Canadian Recording Industry Association (their version of the RIAA) filed documents to kill the expansion of the levy on blank media. Blank media in Canada (blank CDRs) are taxed with the money going to CRIA because they might be used to pirate music.

CRIA’s President argues in his affidavit that a recent decision from the Copyright Board of Canada “broadens the scope of the private copying exception to avoid making illegal file sharers liable for infringement.” The broadened scope is to also charge a levy on iPods.

I mean, if I were paying a fee to the RIAA for all of my blank CDRs and my iPod then I’d assume that I am paying a compulsory license to copy any music that I want to.. Hmm, now where have I heard that before?

5. Finally, internal e-mails from the company MediaDefender, who works with the RIAA and the MPAA (same as the RIAA but for movies studios) have been leaked to the interwebs. What do they do for the **AA’s? Well, they set up fake download sites to entrap file traders and attempt to disrupt p2p traffic, that’s what.

About 700 megabytes of e-mails from the last 6 months have been leaked onto BitTorrent sites which detail their entire plan to entrap people. The messages describe the New York Attorney General’s office working on a big anti-piracy sting; how MediaDefender spys on their competition; sanitizes their own Wikipedia entry (a big cultural no-no); how they plan to distance themselves from the fake company they set up to entrap people; and information on many other internal operating topics.

Yes indeedy- its so great to see good people paying attention to what all of these sleezeballs and crooks are doing to erode our rights to share culture.

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Twhis is one of the many reasons I admire Trent Reznor so much. He has really been pushing the boundaries of what big artists can do to embrace a remix culture. He released original multi-track files from his last two albums so that you can make new songs out of them and in the future we can look forward to direct digital album sales at $4 a pop.

There are a lot of industry experts that have been saying that songs should be $.05 cents each and albums $5 bucks - with no DRM. At those prices, there would be no reason to steal because it would be worth the convenience of easy downloading without virus/spyware risk or hunting for tracks.

Others feel that there should be a compulsory license that the ISPs pay (a few dollars per subscriber every month) and then all song downloads would be completely free. This model has worked for every major business model upheaval in the entertainment industry so far (sheet music to player piano to vaudeville to radio to television to vcr to cable, etc. etc.) there’s no reason that they shouldn’t have tried it for music download years ago. In every instance the business models have changed, but the resultant business models have made them multitudes more money than the ones!

-{c}

From Music2dot0 (via BoingBoing):

I managed to catch Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor backstage for a chat on his views on copyright and digital music distribution just before they played at the Beijing Pop Festival on 9 Sep.

In May this year, Reznor famously launched a tirade against his label Universal Music in Australia when he found out:

“Year Zero is selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US). No wonder people steal music. Avril Lavigne’s record in the same store was $21.99 ($18.21 US). By the way, when I asked a label rep about this, his response was: “It’s because we know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out - you know, true fans. It’s the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy.” So, I guess as a reward for being a “true fan” you get ripped off. “

And this week in Beijing, he again reiterated his disgust with the labels by stating

“We will put out one last album for Universal and after that we will sell albums directly to fans from our website at (say) $4 an album”.

In full empathy with their fans, he even prepared a Chinese language section on the NIN website in preparation for their first ever concert in China, with a heartfelt message to his Chinese fans which translates as follows:

“As for the special situation in China, it does not seem to be easy to obtain Western music via legal channels, so I have the following suggestion for our fans: If you can find and buy our legal CDs, I express my thanks for your support. If you cannot find it, I think that downloading from the Internet is a more acceptable option than buying pirated CDs. Our music is easy to find on the Internet, and you might not need to spend much effort to find most of our songs. If you like our songs after you’ve heard them, please feel free to share it with your friends. As I have put all my effort and heart into my music, I sincerely hope that more and more people can share the enjoyment with us.”

Reznor is adamant that fans should not have to jump through hoops of fire and pay unreasonable prices simply to get NIN’s music – least of all in this day and age when every conceivable work of music could be made available a click away online.

As he pointed out, the world is getting smaller but labels are not taking advantage of this opportunity to put this music conveniently in front of fans. As proof of his intent and anger at artificial borders being upheld for profit, Reznor vetoed a label-planned European maxi-single for the song Capital G opting instead to release a Year Zero remix album at some point in the future. This way, fervent U.S. fans would not be forced to have to spend $30+ to import a two-song single that includes one new remix.

Reznor also stated that

“Since the CD came on the market, even with its relatively lower production costs compared to vinyl, labels saw it fit to increase prices exorbitantly while artists’ age-old contracts meant they got the same amount as before - and even granting that the labels invest in marketing and take risks, it is still a great rip-off”.

In his view, true fans are being made to pay to sustain the fat paychecks of label execs. These were the exact same sentiments that have been expressed by Chuck D of Public Enemy before –coincidentally Public Enemy was the other headlining act at the Beijing Pop Festival.

As a point of note, HMV is still selling music at global rate prices of US$18 in a lot of markets with imports going for the ridiculous price of US$25 and more. Makes one wonder if this also falls under the pirate CD category!

Reznor also thinks that DRM infested formats including the ones from iTunes do not serve fans well and he totally understands why they would instead resort to downloading ubiquitous DRM-free mp3s from BT and P2P networks.

Lest the misguided ‘music wants to be free’ movement conveniently hijack Reznor’s stance as an endorsement to free-load, he emphatically states that there has to be a way that musicians are compensated without imposing barriers to fans and abusing their trust by commanding unfair price premiums.. Hence NIN has built up an outstanding website not only to communicate directly with fans but with a view to making it easy to access their music at a fair price once NIN’s label dues are completed.

And what about the music?

Reznor reaffirmed his commitment to carrying on making the kind of music that’s brought them this far and which they still believe in. He also panned label executives who are panicking at the downturn in the music industry and subsequently try to force artists to adopt “flavor of the month Timbaland productions” as the panacea for their self-inflicted afflictions.

Reznor further added,

“We didn’t know what to expect in China as it is our first time here, so we brought all our equipment along. We didn’t want to compromise in any way and wanted to give fans the full Nine Inch Nails experience. I think we might probably have even lost some money on this show”

And what a fantastic show it was – probably one of the more amazing shows seen in China. Credit to Beijing Pop Festival organizer Jason Magnus who moved mountains in China to put together a radical non-conformist line-up of NIN, Public Enemy, New York Dolls, Ramones (Marky) and rebel Chinese rocker Cui Jian amongst others.

However, in this digital age, the next radical act in the music industry will probably be played out online and Trent Reznor has already set the stage for it.

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Here is a follow-up to the last Tuesday’s article about Vista slowing down your networking if you do something so amazingly intensive as (GASP!) listening to music on your computer.

From Slashdot:

quirdan writes “With the discovery last week of the connection between Vista’s poor networking performance and audio activities, word quickly spread around the Net. No doubt this got Microsoft’s attention, and they have responded to the issue. Microsoft states that ’some of what we are seeing is expected behavior, and some of it is not’; and that they are working on technical documentation, as well as applying a slight sugar coating to the symptoms. Apparently they believe an almost 90% drop in networking performance is ’slight,’ only affects reception of data, and that this performance trade-off is necessary to simply play an MP3.”

This information and exhibited behavior really shores up the arguments of Peter Gutmann in his Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection. What it comes down to is that the considerable amount of code that is in Windows Vista simply to stop bad people from copying High Definition video completely degrades every other part of Windows.

Because of the DRM mechanisms in Vista:

• All of our computer hardware is getting more expensive
• Vista users have to replace their video cards and monitors to play high definition video (without artificially degraded quality)
• Vista users have to replace their video cards to play the latest games (those requiring DirectX 10.2 support)
• You have to double the amount of RAM you buy to have decent performance
• 10% - 50% of your processor is taken up just doing content protection activities
• You will suffer 90% degradation in network performance if you listen to music.

All of this regardless of the fact if you want to play high definition content or not– there’s no way to turn the protections off and just stick with regular video watching!

No thanks… I’m not buyin.

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