Liberty Mutual – a firm I’d never heard of before, briefly caught my attention this evening via a new TV Ad. This ad features a rather obscure group – HEM. I first learned of this band via Bob Boylan’s All Songs Considered several years ago.
Category: Music
Great Weekend for the Isthmus Jazz Festival
and a perfect location on the Memorial Union Terrace.
105.5 MMM Payola ?
Rich Albertoni follows the money at Entercomm’s local station, 105.5 (NY AG Spitzer filed suit against Entercomm recently). I rarely listen to it – how often must we hear the Police or Sting for that matter?
We’re fortunate to have WORT and WSUM along with our public radio stations. Those interested in the nuts and bolts of the music business would likely find the Lefsetz Letter useful “First in Music Analysis“.
I also very much enjoy listening to KCRW [LA], WFUV [NYC] and WXPN [PHL] online.
Kristian Knutsen has more.
I wonder if any other local media outlets will pick this up?
Richard Davis’s Birthday Party: Audio / Video
Often in life, the best things are free. Thanks, Richard and friends! |
Richard Davis’s Friday night Birthday Bash (Richard mentioned that his birthday is actually tax day, April 15) seemed an appropriate way to wrap up a beautiful Madison week, with temperatures reaching into the 70’s. The bash was held Friday night at Mills Hall and included participants from the Bass Conference Faculty.
Audio / Video:
Conference pictures are available here. |
Neko Case Interview
Music journalist Ashley Kahn profiles singer-songwriter Neko Case. She has a unique approach to lyrics and uses vivid musical imagery. Case’s new album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, has just been released.
Ligeti and a Madison Speeding Ticket
Flashing lights from an unmarked black sedan; sudden short blare of a siren out of nowhere. I pull over, but the police car doesn’t move on. Those lights, for me? For me?
I’d been tooling along John Nolen Drive, lost in Ligeti’s propulsive first Étude. Is that what it was about the throbbing blue Beetle, swimming along in a sea of cars going just as fast, that asked for special attention?
Rosanne Cash Live on KCRW
Blodget on Amazon’s Music Strategy
The WSJ reported Amazon’s plans to offer an Amazon-branded iPod competitor and digital music download store. I haven’t done much work in this area yet, so please weigh in, but this strikes me as a startlingly bad move.
First, Amazon’s entry into this business is shockingly and annoyingly late. As with the Netflix DVD business, Amazon could have owned this category, but in the name of moving deliberately (or of trying to become all things to all people), it allowed other competitors to build a dominant market position. No matter what the company says, winning significant market share in digital music is going to be much harder now than it would have been three years ago.
RIAA: Ripping Your CD’s is Not Fair Use (!)
EFF:
It is no secret that the entertainment oligopolists are not happy about space-shifting and format-shifting. But surely ripping your own CDs to your own iPod passes muster, right? In fact, didn’t they admit as much in front of the Supreme Court during the MGM v. Grokster argument last year?
Apparently not.
As part of the on-going DMCA rule-making proceedings, the RIAA and other copyright industry associations submitted a filing that included this gem as part of their argument that space-shifting and format-shifting do not count as noninfringing uses, even when you are talking about making copies of your own CDs:
Some of our politicians have been serving Hollywood’s interests (to the detriment of ours) rather well, including Jim Sensenbrenner and John Conyers, among others.