Yesterday’s New York Times caught up with a story that’s been making the rounds of the internet music circles since Zoe Keating published her finances about a year ago: in many cases, Spotify pays so little they might as well not be paying artists at all. Sure, artists get fractions of cents in royalties, but very …
Continue reading “Once Again, the Political Economy of Communication People Had It Right”
I’ve been stealing a few minutes here and there since early summer to re-do my main website. It had been on textpattern, which is a not-all-that-well-supported CMS (that’s “content management system” for those not familiar with the jargon–it’s the software that runs your website for you and keeps everything in order). WordPress (which I use …
Many Canadian Internet Service Providers practice traffic shaping during high-usage periods, which means that while they may sell you a connection at a particular speed (e.g., 10mbps), they may actively slow down your connection if you are using peer to peer software or doing something else they don’t like. To be clear: the regulation issue …
Continue reading “Canadians: Tell the CRTC to regulate traffic shaping”
As I may have mentioned before, my mp3 project has a bit of an oral history dimension to it, since may of the people involved in developing the technology are still alive and happy to talk about their part in it. I’ve done a couple of these interviews by telephone now, as I’ve been travelling …
I just learned of this last night. The refresh rate is too slow, but hey, it’s pictures of penguins. How can you go wrong?
Tomorrow I head off for Carbondale, Illinois to give a talk at their Center for Global Media. While there, I may have a chance to visit an anaechoic chamber. I hope I get to! In the meantime, I leave you with this new twist from Apple. For years, their iTunes Music Store has been solidly …
Continue reading “Off to Carbondale + Even Apple Thinks DRM is a Terrible Idea”
So I just went to the iTunes Store to purchase the new Elders of Zion EP. Elders of Zion is the musical project of my friend and longtime collaborator Joel Schalit (who also has a new blog), and I was excited to get the album. Now, normally I don’t buy from iTunes in general, since …
