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elfs
The State of The Music Industry and the Delegitimization of Artists
TuneCore brings us the good news: the music industry is doing better than ever. Revenues are up 50% over 5 years ago (that's 10% growth each year, exceeding inflation!). But you would never know: the noise machine that surrounds, supports, and derives revenue from the music industry only tells us that labels are suffering.
Who gives a shit about the labels? The labels do, and they have lawyers, money and attitude. The bad news, TunaCore reports, is that the labels are working harder than ever to de-legitimize musicians you've never heard of, describing unlabeled music as "noise" and even denying "undeveloped" musicians the label of "artist." Worse, your rights as a musician are poorly articulated and frequently missed by those who just want to get their music out there, leading to your being screwed by those with the lawyers, guns and money.
An excellent article for any artist, in any medium. I hear similar arguments from the gatekeepers to the Nook or Kindle every day.
Judge in Xbox-Modding Case Berates Prosecution, Puts Trial on Hold
U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez berated the prosecution in a case involving the modification of the X-Box. Matthew Crippen was arrested for selling his skills as an X-Box modder to people who wanted their boxes hacked and the security circumvented. Guiterrez went all-out on the prosecution, saying that one of their own witnesses was himself a modder, something the prosecution fought to keep from the record, and that another witness had violated California's privacy laws to obtain evidence. (If true, the evidence is tainted; why is it even being considered?)
The judge even reversed himself and decided to permit a "fair use" defense at the trial. Now that's actually interesting, because I feel that if you own something, it's yours, and you ought not to be "protected" or prevented from modifying it in any way you see fit.
NASA announces discovery of new form of life
Although not as Earth-shaking as the discovery of alien life, this one blows my mind. I mean, the very basis for life on Earth is phosphate groups, isn't it? All DNA is made of phosphate groups. The idea that there's a bacteria that uses arsenate groups for its encoding is mind-boggling. It also implies that abiogenesis may have happened more than once.
