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 […]

The first time I heard this word; the first time I heard that sentence, was the last time I wanted to hear that word or that sentence. My understanding is that the word came into being in the 70’s and I believe it. It is not a word created as were so many by Shakespeare or Milton. It is not a word of mercantile necessity from the 18th century. It isn’t even a word of 19th century commerce and business. It is a word of pure marketing and thus purely post-modern. Blechh.

OK, so how can I incentivize you to buy an album before December 24th, 2012? 😀

On December 24th I will be switching the ‘processor’ that connects my music to the various e-commerce sites. This is not the same as a ‘credit card processor’. Rather, this is yet another machination of the music biz. To keep out the riff-raff (get it?) every artist not linked to a major label must go through one of these ‘brokers’ in order to be […]

…with apologies to Aristophanes.

As I previously stated, I’m pretty sure that piracy will soon be a thing of the past. And that’s because the concept of ‘ownership’ will soon be a thing of the past. People will no longer need to steal music because they will get it all from ‘the cloud’. They will give up ownership in order to pay for convenience.

The question for me is how will artists get paid when this happens, because it sure as shit ain’t part of the business model now. There is also this whole fantasy world which is finally being questioned that states that artists will be able to derive all manner of revenue from this magical new cloud-based entertainment world. Every wannabee musician I know is amazed at the number of ‘options’ available to them for getting ‘streaming revenue’ for their work. That’s the cuckoo part of this whole cloud deal.

Here’s a quick bit of statistics courtesy of Billboard Magazine:

Here’s a quick overview: To generate revenue equal to the $1,160 […]

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 […]