the dotmatrix project

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch breaks news of a $5 “tax” that Warner Music is cooking up to impose on ISP’s — per individual customer — to guarantee protection from future liability caused by their customers downloading music, regardless of the fact that only a minuscule fraction illegally download music, let alone download music through proper channels at all.

Admittedly, this degree of hubris reaches a new level for the Industry, but dying business models will be dying business models.

The important question to focus on is: What’s going to replace these dinosaurs?

Cause there’s no way this scheme will ever fly.

In the comment thread, Dennis Ramirez makes a few good points:

[...] no, a band does not need a manager nor a label to play a local coffeeshop nor VFW hall. sometimes, they may even be able to organize a small tour for themselves.

if they are content with that, fine. more power to them.

but the majority of artists themselves are not, and there are only 24 hours in a day, so it is much more efficient if a band can hire someone to route touring, get them P.R., reviews, solicit labels or investors, etc., so the band can find time to write songs and record them.

a couple can do it, like Ani DiFranco, but they are overwhelmingly teh excpetion, not the rule.

and the manager needs to be paid (i dont know where you get the 25 manager thing from, bands only have 1), as does the booking agent, the recording engineer, the producer, the artist who designed the cover artwork, the web designer, their rent, their bills, etc. etc.

and that’s if they distribute everything themselves.

a music label can help a great deal with that, just like a VC helps a great deal in getting a startup off the ground. it’s not hard to understand that.

Ramirez names at least eight disparate communities that must be involved in an artists world to assist them in their quest for exposure and compensation. Right now, that’s what the label offers. So what could take its place?

Sounds like the perfect storm necessary for creating an industry-specific social network.

Sketching…

Time Squared from Matt Trecartin on Vimeo.

Running The World by Jarvis Cocker

(via Chris Locke)

(Shmoo by Michael Paulus)

Seth Mnookin penned a great interview with Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group, in the December issue of Wired Magazine. There’s so much in those four pages to comment on, but the angle I found most compelling was Doug Morris’ propensity to not be had.

By anyone.

[...]

“There was a cartoon character years ago called the Shmoo,” he says in a raspy tenor. “It was in Li’l Abner. The Shmoo was a nice animal, a nice fella, but if you were hungry, you cut off a piece of him and put onions on it, and if you wanted to play football you just made him like a football. You could do anything to him. That’s what was happening to the music business. Everyone was treating the music business like it was a Shmoo.

“It was only a couple of years ago that we said, What’s going on here?’ Really, an album that someone worked on for two years — is that worth only $9, $10, when people pay two bucks for coffee in Starbucks?” Morris sighs. “People never really understand what’s happening to the artists. All the sharing of the music, right? Is it correct that people share their music, fill up these devices with music they haven’t paid for? If you had Coca-Cola coming through the faucet in your kitchen, how much would you be willing to pay for Coca-Cola? There you go,” he says. “That’s what happened to the record business.”

Morris goes on to rail against criminal-minded college students and low-life punks who steal the music that his artists work so hard to create. He admits to being fairly ignorant about technology and insists that his job is to nurture the creative side of the business — work that’s being threatened by all of this other nonsense.

So how is it that an old-school music mogul who can barely hide his indifference to technology or his contempt for the download-loving public is out front on so many digital initiatives? Clearly, it’s not because he wants to improve the music experience for consumers. It’s also not because he finally understands that MP3s are fundamentally changing his business, whether he likes it or not. And if he’s “invigorated and challenged by the opportunities of digital music,” as Caraeff puts it, that’s only because he relishes a fight. In truth, his motive is simple: He wants to wring every dollar he can out of anyone who goes anywhere near his catalog. Morris has never accepted the digital world’s ruling ethos that it’s better to follow the smartest long-term strategy, even if it means near-term losses. As far as he’s concerned, do that and someone, somewhere, is taking advantage of you. Morris wants to be paid now, not in some nebulous future. And if there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s use the size of his company to get his way.

The problem is that a strategy based on quick returns is unlikely to pull the music industry out of its morass. After all, it was a reluctance to look farther down the road that got the labels in trouble in the first place. But Morris is much less interested in figuring out how to make digital music work for everyone than he is in not being the Shmoo.

[...]

That last line completely encapsulates the feeling I get when any of these major label guys open their mouths or allow their agile-like-a-cruise-ship businesses to bounce off their artists like icebergs in the night.

If Doug Morris wants to build a proprietary subscription-based empire (Total Music) for delivering Universal Music Group and their PIC’s recordings, he’s perfectly within his rights to do so. It’s a bold move to attempt to wrestle back market share from the iPod and iTunes with such a DRM-laden scheme, but Morris is in tight with his executive colleagues feeling the sting of iTunes growth into overall music sales, so I’m sure they’ll collude on whatever level necessary to see progress.

They want their “proper” cut back, even if they step on a bunch of potential customers in the process.

Personally speaking, I don’t give them much of a shot — they can’t even secure the domain name for the service.

In the end, it’ll be the bottom-line customer experience drivers of music fans that decides the success of Doug Morris’ venture. People really do like to play their music where and when they want, especially as technophobes die off and each new generation seems to have an additional USB port built into their skulls at birth.

The nut of all this is that major labels have been cutting into artist profits and ownership since Elvis hit the scene, taking their piece of the pie like a fat kid at Thanksgiving, but they don’t like it when “outsiders” like Steve Jobs flips the script on their own racket.

I’m getting hungry. Anyone have some onions?

More opinions:

• Universal Music’s CEO Gleefully Explains How Clueless He Is
• Open Season: Doug Morris
• Universal Music CEO Doug Morris Speaks, Recording Industry in Even Deeper Shit Than We Thought
• Is Universal’s Doug Morris the stupidest recording exec ever?
• Universal Music CEO is Like Your Cranky, Out-of-Touch Grandpa Who Happens to Run a Huge Record Label
• Apparently Abraham Simpson is running UMG
• The recording industry should thank Apple

The title pretty much sums up Edgar Bronfman Jr.’s take on how the music industry ended up in the place it is now — missing out on the digital revolution and instead of thriving in a forward-thinking business model, they’re busy suing their own customers for loving and sharing music with others.

Speaking at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, Bronfman said:

“We used to fool ourselves,’ he said. “We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or 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.”

Three Four things I want to point out:

1. No shit
2. “Your content” has never been the issue (though I’d argue that no matter what contracts have been signed with artists, the music is not “your content”). The issue has been with your industry unnaturally twisting “content” by controlling the format, price point, distribution and promotion of music to a degree that the market grew to find insulting. Omnivore music fans in the nineties began questioning the holistic value of inexpensive CDs hitting the market at a $15 price tag while MTV was simultaneously dropping off the radar as an alternative vehicle for artists to explore their creativity and gain fans. On the heals of the death of radio, digital tracks became available for preview & sale and the jig was up; everyone could see that the emperor had no clothes. YouTube and it’s Web 2.0 cousins are simply another nail in a buried coffin
3. It’s interesting to hear an executive speak of constant connection as being such a revelation, but I guess it’s understandable. I mean, back in the day, I couldn’t get my music fix until I got home from school and turned on MTV or hit my room to blast the latest Men Without Hats on vinyl. And the only connection I had then was one way, through either the TV or my speakers. Apparently, when industry can program a market — via TV, radio, controlled sales & format — people up top can get fat and lose sight of the shifting earth.
4. Another slip: “consumers won.” I’m sorry, but what exactly have “consumers” won? The RIAA is not only suing kids, but trying to extort universities into feeding this industry hand to mouth under the threat of shutting down federal financial aide. Where’s our consumer trophy for living in a state of fear, where we can be set back thousands of dollars because absolute proof of guilt without a shadow of a doubt isn’t an issue? And what would the opposite scenario look like? You know, where the music industry “wins?” Probably something very similar to the warm, bloated, cash cow feeling these guys had in the 70’s and 80’s, a time when “consumers” were being taken advantage of because we loved the product so much and would do anything — pay anything — to experience it. Until the very language the music industry uses to describe their customers changes — consumer describes this stud, not me — I don’t foresee the music industry “winning” anything again anytime soon.

The really sad part of this speech comes later on, where Bronfman tries to sell the idea that albums packaged with ringtones is an example of a forward-thinking content bundle that meets the needs of a digital “consumer”:

“By packaging a full album into a bundle of music with ringtones, videos and other combinations and variation we found products that consumers demonstrably valued and were willing to purchase at premium prices. And guess what? We’ve sold tons of them. And with Apple’s co-operation to make discovering, accessing and purchasing these products even more seamless and intuitive, we’ll be offering many, many more of these products going forward.”

Don’t you get it? Since we all have cell phones, there must be a segment of suckers willing to buy these bloated packages of “content” just like the suckers who bought a Corey Hart album based on one catchy single in 1984 (yes, I was one of those suckers).

So sell naive folk bloated crap and sue anyone with a clue.

They’re still trying to win, not partner with or serve their market.

VRM, anyone?

Other reactions:

• Beating the RIAA: Warner Music boss regrets attacking consumers
• Warner Music CEO Fesses Up to Music Industry’s Mistakes, Slams Mobile Operators, Pats Self on Back
• Music biz bigwig Edgar Bronfman tells mobile industry to get lively, music-wise
• Music exec regrets going “to war” with consumers
• Putting the “DRM” in “drama”: Bronfman changing his tune?
• Warner Music Boss: We Were Wrong
• Edgar Bronfman admits to “inadvertently” going to war with music consumers
• Warner Music Do As We Say Not As We Do
• Music Executive Makes Startling Deathbed Confession: “We Were Wrong”
• Bronfman’s Epiphany an Insult

I’m just in that kind of mood today.

[Immortal Technique]

Most of my Latino and black people who are struggling to get food, clothes and shelter in the hood are so concerned with that, that philosophizing about freedom and socialist democracy is usually unfortunately beyond their rationale. They don’t realize that America can’t exist without separating them from their identity, because if we had some sense of who we really are, there’s no way in hell we’d allow this country to push it’s genocidal consensus on our homelands. This ignorance exists, but it can be destroyed.

Nigga talk about change and working within the system to achieve that. The problem with always being a conformist is that when you try to change the system from within, it’s not you who changes the system; it’s the system that will eventually change you. There is usually nothing wrong with compromise in a situation, but compromising yourself in a situation is another story completely, and I have seen this happen long enough in the few years that I’ve been alive to know that it’s a serious problem. Latino America is a huge colony of countries whose presidents are cowards in the face of economic imperialism. You see, third world countries are rich places, abundant in resources, and many of these countries have the capacity to feed their starving people and the children we always see digging for food in trash on commercials. But plutocracies, in other words a government run by the rich such as this one and traditionally oppressive European states, force the third world into buying overpriced, unnecessary goods while exporting huge portions of their natural resources.

I’m quite sure that people will look upon my attitude and sentiments and look for hypocrisy and hatred in my words. My revolution is born out of love for my people, not hatred for others.

You see, most of Latinos are here because of the great inflation that was caused by American companies in Latin America. Aside from that, many are seeking a life away from the puppet democracies that were funded by the United States; places like El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Columbia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Republica Dominicana, and not just Spanish-speaking countries either, but Haiti and Jamaica as well.

As different as we have been taught to look at each other by colonial society, we are in the same struggle and until we realize that, we’ll be fighting for scraps from the table of a system that has kept us subservient instead of being self-determined. And that’s why we have no control over when the embargo will stop in Cuba, or when the bombs will stop dropping in Vieques.

But you see, here in America the attitude that is fed to us is that outside of America there live lesser people. “Fuck them, let them fend for themselves.” No, Fuck you, they are you. No matter how much you want to dye your hair blond and put fake eyes in, or follow an anorexic standard of beauty, or no matter how many diamonds you buy from people who exploit your own brutally to get them, no matter what kind of car you drive or what kind of fancy clothes you put on, you will never be them. They’re always gonna look at you as nothing but a little monkey. I’d rather be proud of what I am, rather than desperately trying to be something I’m really not, just to fit in. And whether we want to accept it or not, that’s what this culture or lack of culture is feeding us.

I want a better life for my family and for my children, but it doesn’t have to be at the expense of millions of lives in my homeland. We’re given the idea that if we didn’t have these people to exploit then America wouldn’t be rich enough to let us have these little petty material things in our lives and basic standards of living. No, that’s wrong. It’s the business giants and the government officials who make all the real money. We have whatever they kick down to us. My enemy is not the average white man, it’s not the kid down the block or the kids I see on the street; my enemy is the white man I don’t see: the people in the white house, the corporate monopoly owners, fake liberal politicians those are my enemies. The generals of the armies that are mostly conservatives those are the real Mother-Fuckers that I need to bring it to, not the poor, broke country-ass soldier that’s too stupid to know shit about the way things are set up.

In fact, I have more in common with most working and middle-class white people than I do with most rich black and Latino people. As much as racism bleeds America, we need to understand that classism is the real issue. Many of us are in the same boat and it’s sinking, while these bougie Mother-Fuckers ride on a luxury liner, and as long as we keep fighting over kicking people out of the little boat we’re all in, we’re gonna miss an opportunity to gain a better standard of living as a whole.

In other words, I don’t want to escape the plantation I want to come back, free all my people, hang the Mother-Fucker that kept me there and burn the house to the god damn ground. I want to take over the encomienda and give it back to the people who work the land.

You cannot change the past but you can make the future, and anyone who tells you different is a Fucking lethargic devil. I don’t look at a few token Latinos and black people in the public eye as some type of achievement for my people as a whole. Most of those successful individuals are sell-outs and house Negros.

But, I don’t consider brothers a sell-out if they move out of the ghetto. Poverty has nothing to do with our people. It’s not in our culture to be poor. That’s only been the last 500 years of our history; look at the last 2000 years of our existence and what we brought to the world in terms of science, mathematics, agriculture and forms of government. You know the idea of a confederation of provinces where one federal government controls the states? The Europeans who came to this country stole that idea from the Iroquois lead. The idea of impeaching a ruler comes from an Aztec tradition. That’s why Montezuma was stoned to death by his own people ’cause he represented the agenda of white Spaniards once he was captured, not the Aztec people who would become Mexicans.

So in conclusion, I’m not gonna vote for anybody just ’cause they black or Latino they have to truly represent the community and represent what’s good for all of us proletariat.

Porque sino entonces te mando por el carajo cabron gusano hijo de puta, seramos libre pronto, viva la revolucion, VIVA LA REVOLUCION!

(originally uploaded by lounger)

Senate Bill Would Empower DOJ to File Civil P2P Lawsuits

A bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday would give the Justice Department the power to pursue civil copyright enforcement actions against individuals who use file-sharing networks. The Intellectual Property Enforcement Act was introduced by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and committee member Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

The bill would authorize additional funding to investigate and prosecute intellectual property crimes involving computers and the Internet, and allocate additional funds to the FBI to assign more agents to work on intellectual property crimes; it would also classify both the importation and exportation of pirated works as infringement.

“Copyright infringement silently drains America’s economy and undermines the talent, creativity and initiative that are a great source of strength to our nation,” Sen. Leahy said in a statement.

Similar legislation (also called the “Pirate Act”) has previously cleared the Senate three times, CNET News.com reported, despite contentions from civil liberties advocates and others that the legislation would essentially have the government filing the lawsuits currently being pursued by corporate copyright interests like the Recording Industry Association of America.

“I applaud Senators Leahy and Cornyn’s leadership in working to ensure that adequate resources are available to enforce our nation’s intellectual property laws,” said Motion Picture Association of America chairman and CEO Dan Glickman.

I think I’ve officially seen it all, now.

The head of the MPAA — an outfit whose primary role is to censure artistic vision in order to “protect” the average American — applauds two Senators for pushing legislation through Congress to allocate money straight out of our pockets to police and prosecute his industry’s headaches?

Mr. Glickman, let me be the first to applaud you. Seriously. Way to teach the kids about how capitalism works. At least they’ll have that life lesson in tow as they forgo college to pay into perpetuity for downloading a copy of Rocky IV.

The only good this will do is reinforce the notion that we all need to become greater creators of culture, while only consuming independent goods.

That’s my silver-lining and I’m sticking to it.

UPDATE: Apparently, on the very same day the above legislation was introduced, the Democrats pushed through another bill to extend the Higher Education Act of 1965.

ZDNET
Democrats: Colleges must police copyright, or else

The U.S. House of Representatives bill (PDF), which was introduced late Friday by top Democratic politicians, could give the movie and music industries a new revenue stream by pressuring schools into signing up for monthly subscription services such as Ruckus and Napster. Ruckus is advertising-supported, and Napster charges a monthly fee per student.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) applauded the proposal, which is embedded in a 747-page spending and financial aid bill. “We very much support the language in the bill, which requires universities to provide evidence that they have a plan for implementing a technology to address illegal file sharing,” said Angela Martinez, a spokeswoman for the MPAA.

According to the bill, if universities did not agree to test “technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity,” all of their students — even ones who don’t own a computer — would lose federal financial aid.

Pulling financial aid from students without computers? Man, that’s low.

“Such an extraordinarily inappropriate and punitive outcome would result in all students on that campus losing their federal financial aid–including Pell grants and student loans that are essential to their ability to attend college, advance their education, and acquire the skills necessary to compete in the 21st-century economy,” a letter from university officials to Congress written on Wednesday said. “Lower-income students, those most in need of federal financial aid, would be harmed most under the entertainment industry’s proposal.”

Check out this move by the lobbyists for the MPAA and RIAA:

The old language over the summer required schools to develop “a plan for implementing a technology-based deterrent to prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property.” The new language requires “a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.”

In other words, if universities pay large, lump sums for providing campus-wide subscription services for their students to download music and film legally, then the federal government won’t be forced to turn off financial aid.

Of course the cost of these subscriptions will be pushed onto the incoming class of 2010 and beyond in the form of an extra bump to the traditional yearly tuition increase that occurs each year across our land in these fine institutions.

What a racket. Organized crime isn’t this fucking organized.

UPDATE II At least I’m not alone out here:

• No Rights Reserved: The Role of the University in Student Copyright Infringement
• New Bill Would Cut Financial Aid To Schools Who Don’t Police P2P, Sign Up With Napster
• Thank you, RIAA
• New Bill Wants Colleges To Become Copyright Cops For RIAA
• Colleges: deter copyright infringement and subscribe, or no aid
• Bill Would Tie University Anti-Piracy Efforts to Federal Funding
• RIAA Demands Universities Subscribe…or Else!
• RIAA: Now attacking School Funding
• Democrats: Colleges must police copyright, or else
• Use Napster or lose federal $: universities threat
• Bill before Congress to end college funding for schools that don’t kiss RIAA/MPAA ass
• The RIAA and MPAA Destroying Our Schools
• The College Opportunity and Affordability (and record industry subsidy) Act of 2007
• Democrats can be evil, too
• Would Congress Withhold Financial Aid From Colleges That Don’t Offer A Subscription To Napster?