Break

Edgar Bronfman, CEO of the Warner Music Group, has publicly framed the music industry’s failure to accommodate file-sharing as an ‘inadvertent’ war on consumers. I’m left wondering how you can file a series of lawsuits inadvertently. ‘We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding … By … moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won.

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RIAA Hits a Sour Note With Its File-Sharing Witch Hunt

If I were a big-shot L.A. music mogul, Jammie Thomas would not be my ideal poster child as the face of illegal file sharing.

Thomas, you’ll recall, was convicted last week in a Duluth, Minnesota, court for violating copyright law by making a couple of dozen songs available to the multitudes. For this she was ordered to pay the recording industry $222,000 in damages, and she could lose even more to court costs and appeals.

All because she was among the 26,000 people sued by those Brioni suits known collectively as the Recording Industry Association of America, and hers was the first case to actually reach trial. The RIAA, faced with plummeting CD sales and increasingly restive artists, wanted to “send a message” to all the lowlifes out there who download music for free and undercut their profit margins.

The message, apparently, is this: “We’re idiots.”

Technorati Tags: RIAA, Music, file sharing

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Anyone who doesn’t know the call sign WDRE didn’t live in the Philadelphia area in the 90s. WDRE was a Philly alternative rock station which introduced alot of amazing artists to the area.

Regrettably, the media consolidation of the late 90s made WDRE a liability and they changed their format. However, due in part to a dedicated staff including Jim McGuinn, DRE refused to die.

Anyone who knows me can attest to my distaste for radio. I may have to rethink my position. Recently I discovered that my favorite radio station has found a new home on WXPN, a radio station run by the Universty of Pennslyvania.

Y-Rock on XPN to me represent all the things I used to like about radio, DJs who care, an interesting playlist. It’s a refreshing escape from the homogeny that currently exists on the FM dial. I encourage anyone who likes the alternative to listen and support this station.

For a trip down memory lane, listen to the WDRE takeover of YROCK which aired in Feb. 2007.

I’m trying to go back and listen to all the music I’ve bought/acquired during 2006.

It’s more a list for me so that in a few years if an artist comes out with something I can recall whether or not I liked him. So, without further ado.

• Tom Waits - didn’t like at all. I couldn’t get past his raspy voice.
• Neko Case - I love her in the New Pornographers, her solo work is nothing like it. It’s country and it’s good.
• The Decemberists - The Crane Wife. It got past the first listen test. Time will tell if it stays in rotation. It reminds me a bit of Jethro Tull.