A great article on the scary state of the music biz.

In 2015, 52% of All Music Spending Went to Live Concerts

A couple of things to note: First, if you look at the graphs, teens spend more on those pesky ‘physical formats’ than millennials. My guess is that this is because teens aren’t yet ‘free’ enough from their parents to pirate as much. In other words, the parents still have a modicum of control and, old farts that they are, encourage the kids to get ‘real’ CDs. My next guess is that this will fade over time.

Next, in the comments, it’s pointed out that one reason ticket prices are now so high is because live gigs are the only way most artists can actually make a living. So they compensate for the loss in album sales by jacking up the live ticket prices. This makes perfect sense to me, even though fans will likely (and rightly) feel screwed. There’s also the question of gentrification which I won’t get into […]

A very small amount of piracy is actually good (a very small amount.) And this subset of necessary evil is simply because the current copyright law is so bad.

WARNING: DO NOT CLICK THE LINK BELOW UNLESS YOU WANT TO BREAK THE LAW! AND DON’T SAY I DIDN’T TRY TO WARN YOU, EITHER.

2001 Strauss Trumpets

Not to be a tease, but if you don’t find this absolutely side-splitting? I honestly suggest that you consult a physician; your funny bone is broken.

OK, being a natural scofflaw, I assume you clicked the link and didn’t have a stroke or boils or hemorrhoids or whatever. Moving on. This one minute and forty five seconds of brass genius was something I heard maybe twenty years ago on an absolutely fantastic radio program called Schickele Mix which ran on public radio for prox. fifteen years. As you may surmise, this program was created by the composer, raconteur and re-discoverer of PDQ Bach, Dr. Peter Schickele.

Schickele Mix was a humorous […]

I have wondered aloud about the futility of fighting software piracy. Certainly, I’ve given up on any personal relief (ie. within the next 5-10 years.) But the recent ‘3 Strikes’ ruling by the Irish High Court, has given me a possible new way to think about the issue that does offer some glimmer of hope.

I call it…

The Anti-Smoking Campaign

People don’t smoke nearly as much anymore—well, at least in ‘the west’. Like our use of fossil fuels we’ve pretty much had our fun and realised that there’s a price to pay. So most people don’t smoke anymore; or if they do? They wish they didn’t because of the obvious issues (death being one, expense another.) Only the nuttiest of libertarians still proffer ‘equal rights’ to smokers.

I’m pretty sure that framing piracy like smoking is the way to go;#8212;not only as personally damaging but also injurious to the society as a whole. Seen from that POV, it’s possible to envision a marketing campaign that could change hearts and minds over the […]

Confession? Get it? Catholic joke.

I was recently screamed at about my selective ethics. About intellectual property no less! For years I have been a subscriber to NetFlix. Love it. Sometimes, I can’t watch the videos when they send ’em to me—I’m out of town or whatever. So I rip ’em. Yep I do. And then, perhaps a month later, I watch ’em. But then I toss ’em. This is bad, if for no other reason that I’m contributing to the toxic waste problem. But more to the point, it’s also a violation of federal law that states that no copying at all is allowed. Tough, I say. It passes the JCHVSEST because at no time do I pass the content on and never do I watch more than once before giving the disc the boot.

And while I’m confessin’ the blues, I’ll tell ya another way I’m a total scofflaw. I got over 800 DVDs at last count. I purchased pretty much every last one of ’em used for […]