Damn You Squidoo! :(

I'm not pleased. I am supposed to create a Squidoo lens to promote this blog and whatnot, and I was all set with my idea and details, then I go to Squidoo to set it up only to discover that I need to have a Paypal account - even if I don't want any of the money myself. So, I say "ok, I'll go set up a paypal, I bet you don't actually need to put a credit card # in." But no. If I want to make a Squidoo (which I have to do for HW) I need to give Paypal my CC# or my Bank acct #.

Not cool.
Not acceptable.
Not doing it.

I have not created a paypal yet because I'm not down with giving my financial info away online, and there is no way I'm going to do it for a dumb website that seeks to dilute good information with invasive advertizements simply because they want to monetize everything. (note - no adsense on this blog. there never will be. I do not approve of the monetization of information on the internet.) So, instead, I will post what would be my Squidoo lens here on my blog. So, prepare for a long blog post. ;)

Quality Audio Editing, Music Production, and Recording on the Cheap

Many DAW (digital audio workstation) manufacturers and plug-in companies would like you to belive that in order to create "pro" level recordings you need "professional tools," and the only way to get those is to spend hundreds of dollars on software. Though, yes, some of the most well known music is made on expensive equiptment, it is not true that you need this stuff to make great music and great recordings. I'll give you some links and information about my very low budget set up, and how I use it to make music using the same techniques and ideas I would if I was using a $30K ProTools set up.

First off, since this is a computer based set up, you will need a DAW. A DAW is a way to put all your different audio information together in a way that is easily manipulated. ProTools is the "industry standard" DAW. Many people also like Steinberg's Cubase and Apple's Logic Pro. For those who are budget minded though, many low cost alternatives exist. Personally, I like REAPER.
The greatest advantages to REAPER (in my opinion) are 1) Price - a personal license is only $50, 2) Support quality - the forums on the REAPER site are AMAZING. Support is fast, accurate, and friendly, and major updates (bugfixes with new user requested features) every month or so, 3) Power of program - REAPER is simultaiosly an insane routing junkie's dream, and extraordinarily simple, 4) Included Plugins - More on this later, 5) Cross platform - Windows (95, 98, 2K, ME, XP, Vista, 7), Mac OSX, and (under WINE) Linux. Trust me on this one, and hey, the fully functional demo is available right on the site. What are you waiting for?

Next, you'll probably want some plugins (smaller programs that work within a program to modify signals - similar to guitar pedals, and hardware compressor units, reverb etc.) REAPER comes with an excellent set of plugins. The included EQ, compressor, delay, pitch shift, and auto tune are all my first choice for plugins. Also, REAPER supports VST's, AU's, DXI's, and a special format called JS. JS is a plugin language written by the makers of REAPER for use within REAPER. It is very simple, and codeable by the user. IOW you can make your own plugins, and edit other people's. REAPER comes with an unbelievable number of JS plugins, I've done entire mixes without any plugins that did not come with REAPER. In addition to the plugins that come with REAPER, I'll list some of my favourate freeware plugins are: MDA Plugins - this whole package is worth downloading even if you only ever use the leslie emmulation, it's that good. And Bootsy Plugins - I especially love the BootEQ2, it's a great sounding eq that can help give that sought after "vintage tone" to a track.

Finally, if you are on a PC, you should download Asio4All, a special driver for audio hardware. It allows you to run audio processing much faster and more efficiently, giving you lower latency within your DAW, even with a stock "multimedia" audio card.

Now, that's the basics of a great setup. But here are some links to other awesome free/cheap software:

Sonic Visualizer - great for seeing and analyzing audio.
Audacity - powerful audio editor.
Stillwell/Schwa - OUTSTANDING, inexpensive plugins. (these rival many 3-500 $ plugins in my opinion)
Ardour - Another cross platform DAW. This one is open source and modeled after ProTools. Slightly more complex to set up, but has routing possibilties that BLOW MY MIND.

STAR DINER!!

By the way, I just wanted to let everyone in the White Plains area (Purchase students thats you), that there is this AMAZING diner on East post road in White Plains. It's called the Star Diner, and the food is great. The interior of the diner is very small, just five booths and the bar with the grill behind it. It's very affordable, but they only accept cash. I got french toast (3) with an egg and 5 pieces of bacon for about 6.50. Great great place that you should visit if you have a midnight hungering for good food.

More End of Semester Nonsense.

Figured I'd let you know what is keeping me busy right now.

I've finished the six mixes I needed to do last week, and made large headway on tracking for Andrew and Kelly. Still have to plan out the large live-sound/recording on Saturday, but I'm getting help with that one.

I can finally start turning my mind to actual school work such as the viral marketing final I have to do for tomorrow, the art law final for next week, keyboard final on Friday, studio comp final project and final exam for next Wednesday, ear training final also for Wednesday, and a planning a whole summer tour including dates, venues, merch, contracts, etc for touring class on Tuesday.

wow. now I wish I hadn't written that all down - makes me realize how much work I need to do.

End of Semester Insanity

It's the end of the semester and I'm going crazy with all this work I have to do. Ironically, very little of it is my school work, most of it consists of mixes and tracking for other people - junior recitals, Downtown Cabaret, competitions, etc - it just seems to all converge on the end of April.

Three mixes to do for Andrew Fox (find more on him at ben's blog here and here) and Dylan Ezzie; they're a combination of 80's dance, film score, and hilarity and are for a series of dance performances next week.

Three mixes to do for Kelly Izzo (previously mentioned in this blog) that need to be done for a singer-songwriter composition contest (deadline is REALLY SOON).

Huge tracking session with live sound for a junior recital on the 2nd - prog-metal-rock - with a mix needing to be done afterwards.

Oh, and tracking and mixing for a piece Kelly and Andrew wrote together which calls for prepared piano.

I don't really have time to be doing this now, but it's for class.

Interview with Singer-Songwriter Kelly Izzo

Last night we finished tracking for three new songs for singer-songwriter Kelly Izzo . It was a great experience for everyone involved - we tracked an excellent jazz drummer and jazz bassist, something Kelly had never done before. Up to this point she had worked exclusively as a solo artist - just her and her guitar. Now that we're moving on to the mixing stage, here's a short interview with her where she discusses her thoughts on the process.

The Silly People

So, apparently about a year after Qtrax announced that it had deals with all the major labels, it has launched. For those who do not know (or totally forgot - like me) Qtrax promises to make music from the major labels available for free on it's Gnutella based P2P service. The model is supported by ads on the site. In theory, this sounds like a great idea - use P2P, the way most people aquire music, and make music available for the price that people want to pay for it - nothing. Unfortunately, the scheme is crippled by an excessive DRM scheme.

The problem with any service like this is IT CANNOT COMPETE WITH FREE, EASILY AVAILABLE MUSIC. The model presented in regular P2P services and Torrents is king - all the music you ever want for free. In my opinion, you cannot make a model where you "sell" digital music - it is not profitable or sustainable when people have the options of open P2P and Torrent.

This is crazy!

This is insane - look at the Billboard top 200 right now - the first three albums are Now 30, The Hannah Montana Soundtrack, and the Twilight Soundtrack. This is the first time I ever have seen this - collections of SINGLES getting the top slots on the Billboard charts. It's not ALBUMS it's singles. Evidence that a pick and choose approach to music is seriously taking hold - I would attribute this to the rise of iTunes. But anyway, I consider this highly unusual and quite revolutionary. The artist now has a much different type of freedom on how they release music.

Finally!

So, I finally bought a bass guitar this weekend - this is a picture of one that is identical. It's an Ibanez SRX2EX2. I really like it - the tone is really nice and it plays very well. I've never played bass before but after playing a whole bunch of different basses, I decided that this was a good value - it was inexpensive enough to no ruin my savings but nice enough to last for a while (up to an intermediate level.) There was also a fretless Warwick that I fell in love with, but have no good justification to buy it (also it wasn't cheap!)

Anyway, I'm loving playing it - my fingers are already bruised. I have to change the strings and lower the action a bit, but I'm very happy.

The Most Important Thing in the Business

Live Musics

This week I saw three great live music acts. The first was Maria Schneider and her orchestra at the Purchase College Performing Arts center. Maria is a jazz composer - the concert consisted of only her original compositions, and I haven't heard anything like it before. The tunes evoked so much pure emotion that I just sat there dumbfounded. Her music is much more melodic and harmonically complex than much of the modern jazz I've heard recently, and thus very unique - she had a strong beautiful voice that shone brightly in each work. (By the way, the drummer - who's name I do not remember this instant - was OUTSTANDING.)

Next, I saw Wagner's Das Rheingold at the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoon. This blew me away. I had seen Die Walkure the second opera in Wagner's Ring Cycle last year and I had loved it, but Rheingold was even better. The singing was incredible, even better than usual, and all the actors sang and played their rolls convincingly. Additionally, the sets, effects, and costumes would have made Peter Jackson green with envy. A stunning event, significantly more amazing than simply listening to a recording of the opera at home.

Finally, on Monday night, I saw saxophonist Walt Weiskopf play with a group of excellent jazz musicians (John Hart, guitar; Bill Moring, bass; John Richmond, saxophone; Eliot Zigmund, drums) at the Turning Point Cafe in Peirmont, NY. This show was lots of fun - great jazz in a intimate pub/bar/cafe setting in a great little neighborhood on the Hudson river with the second best French onion soup I've ever had (and I've had a lot). (Incidentally, the best was at a place in Rochester called Hogan's Hideaway - go there if you have a chance.)

Anyway, all of this made me think more about a career I had never really thought about seriously before - live sound. I don't really like live sound much, but that's because I have always thought about it in the context of rock concerts and large stadium/festival venues, but now I'm giving it some more thought.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/bastet/

A New Beginning

I finally sat down today and finished a project which I had wanted to do for a long time. I partitioned my MacBook's hard drive, installed windows XP and made a dedicated mixing OS.

Unlike many people, I like to mix in a Windows environment - my DAW works better in windows, there are more free plugins, and many of my go-to applications/plugins are windows only.

The project went very well, no problems, no hang ups, and I had everything set up within a few hours. Now, I have the tools I like to use, and an environment that is dedicated to my work. For the past few months I had been working in OSX (which I love,) but I had not been able to use some of my precious plugins. :)

Now I know that some people will say that you should be able to work with whatever tools you are presented with - and I believe that I can, but I would argue that if the engineer is more comfortable with certain tools, then they don't get into the way of working, and he can work faster, more efficiently, and come up with better final product.

So, I'm happy now, and I'm very excited to mix a jazz session that I've had sitting around since last month.

Reading Material

In addition to sitting around, I have been catching up on my Internet browsing, and here are some interesting links I have come across... (I will probably discuss them more over the course of the week)

http://www.againstmonopoly.org/ - a group of writers who share their opinions on how intellectual property laws are misused

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/can-labels-still-sell-recorded-music.ars?utm_source=microblogging&utm_medium=pingfm&utm_term=Main%20Account&utm_campaign=microblogging - an article on what some consider the future of the music industry, a compulsory "music tax"

http://www.utterli.com/ - a strange video message based social networking system...?

http://www.othermusic.com/perl-bin/OM/index.cgi?ID=2585534.25538 - a cool brick and mortar record store in NYC that I'm going to have to visit soon

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html - a fantastic description of the "long tail" theory that everyone seems to be talking about

http://app.synclive.com/ - a very cool looking web service for the streaming of live concerts - you can stream your own concerts here!

http://www.atomkeep.com/ - a website that claims to be able to keep all of your social networking profiles/pages synced

Happy reading!

(picture courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/0olong/)

Being Home

Apparently, being home makes you want to work more - this is what I discovered over the past few days.

Though I truly enjoy sitting around doing nothing all day long, sleeping till 12, watching the West Wing, and playing Crysis, being home for spring break just makes me want to get back to school and get work done. Fortunately, I am in a major where I can work on what I want, not being burdened with an excess of busy work. But unfortunately, the nature of the program also means that much of my work I cannot do while at home. Lets face it, you either need someone to record, or a good set of monitors to mix on.

So here's to spring break, and also to the end of it.
(picture courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/ception/)

I love charts!

So, I found this very interesting set of graphs here: (there's more on the second page too.)
http://www.verysmallarray.com/

They detail various differences between the top 100 songs on Billboard's 2008 charts and the top 100 popular on Pitchfork (an indie rock news/review community) for the same time frame. Since indie rock seems to be the vogue these days I found it interesting to see comparisons drawn between the "old" rating system of Billboard and the "new" Pitchfork reviews.

The first thing that stood out to me is that the average/median "age first musically active" of all artist in Pitchfork's list is 21. Very very strongly 21.I'm going to have to take issue with this. Now, I'm going to make an unfair generalization, and probably get in to a lot of trouble but... To me, the majority of music labeled "indie rock" sounds the same. It sounds like immature, angsty, recycled noise, often infused with poor arrangement, mixing, and intonation. It sounds like it was written by a 21 year old with no prior musical activity. Wait a minute... oh - it makes sense now.

The next thing I find amusing is how geographically concentrated all of pitchfork's top US pics are - a staggering portion come from the NYC/Long Island/Connecticut area.

The last thing is that interesting is how fragmented the genres are on pitchfork. There are 37 separate genres represented on pitchfork's list, and only 24 on Billboard. BUT, if you listen to all the songs from pitchfork, they sound (to me at least) like they all come from the same genre. It seems like the artists are labeling themselves extravagantly in order to be unique and fresh, yet all producing the same sounds.

I guess my point from this would be that even though the new music scene prides itself on individuality and diversity, to a certain extent, it still suffers from limitations similar the "old" major label system. Is this bad? Maybe. Does it matter? Probably not.

Down with copyright laws?

This segment on the Colbert Report really got me thinking about copyright openness and how I feel about the restrictions music artists place on their work.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Lawrence Lessig

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Rap Battle
Joke of the Day

I subsequently went to Lessig's website (http://www.lessig.org/blog/) and downloaded his books as pdfs (for free). I have not read through them yet - I have skimmed them quickly though - but I have come to agree with him: our current copyright system is too restrictive. Now I'm not sure what the best solution is (though I am confident there is a problem). Creative Commons licensing seems to be heading in the right direction (http://creativecommons.org/), and many well known artists (in many different fields; music, photography, journalism, writing) are endorsing this direction by licensing their art with CC.

Now what reminded me about Lessig's segment on the Report was this page:
http://thru-you.com/#/videos/1/

The above link displays one man's amazing artistic combination of many Youtube videos all chopped up and sequenced together to make an entirely new product. Under traditional copyright, this type of thing would be walking a fine line between copyright infringement lawsuits and fair use.

In a digital age where people access the collective knowledge of the whole human population on their cell phones, a more uninhibited flow of information should be encouraged. Now, as a musician myself I understand the desire to protect copyright, and I also understand that music as a profession inherently requires the exchange of money. How should we progress in order that information can flow, creativity is encouraged - not stifled, and people can enjoy the creativity of others without worrying about being sued by the very people they admire?

I really don't know. But I know there needs to be changes made.

Teenagers!

I'm standig in the music conservatory lobby, tyuping this on the public computer because I just read somehting in sound on sound that I thought really deserved to be spread as quickly as possible. Teenagers are the focus of all of the pop music industry! How did I miss that? Really, this is a problem, at least in my mind. How do you market to a group of consumers who do not have credit cards? They also have this obsession with sticking it to the man - a concept that potentially leads to piracy.

Hmm... this is a tough question, especially when they are becoming aware and resitant to traditional marketing (as major labels have discovered). I'm not claiming to have an answer to this dilemma, but I did figure that it was worth repeating to interested individuals.

Gear Lust

I'm in the process of looking to buy a bass guitar. I've wanted to play a real "band" instrument for a while - my main instrument is French Horn, and that's not really conducive to jamming or playing with a rock/funk band. I've had issues making this decision though, because the little voice in my head that has served me so well over the years says "you don't NEED that do you? it's just for FUN. we're in a RECESSION for crying out loud!" But then the other voice says, "but if you are really going to learn to play it, and it will bring you enjoyment, and you don't give it up in a year, it will totally be worth it."

Now, I'm not looking to buy a top of the line Warwick for three k's, just a starter bass, or whatever I can find on eBay for about 250 total. But this is a really hard decision. My entire life I have resisted what I consider "gear lust," or buying software/hardware for your music just because it's awesome. It may make your tracks better, but you could very easily do without it by learning what you already have to a fuller extent.

Not sure what to do here though. I really want to buy a bass, but I feel like I'm slapping down a big wad of money on something I don't need, at a time where it's smarter to save... :/

An Alternate session

The other day I had what I thought was a great idea. What if I set up a session in one of Purchase's recording studios without a set list of things to record, what if I invited people to play, to show up at any point during a certain time frame, and leave when they felt like it? What if some of the most talented musicians in the school played together for the purpose of enjoying themselves and making authentic music?

Well, I did it. Signed out a studio, miced up the room, started Pro Tools and didn't stop for six hours. I ignored stupid things like the door to the studio opening, people walking in and out, talking, setting up instruments, etc. The session revolved around capturing a moment in time where people gathered together and just made music without worrying about playing perfectly or wondering if the vibe was "right" for the song.

The experience was thoroughly enjoyable, at any given time three to eight jazz majors jammed together in the live room, while I sat behind the desk and enjoyed the sound. Occasionally, I would get up and move mics to capture the changing instrumentation more effectively.

What came out of this experience was an eleven gig PT session with enough great takes to make a double album. A double album which was truly a live album. An album that went back to what music, especially jazz, is all about - musical discourse and mutual enjoyment and creativity.

So what that there were errors? So what that the recording has noises interfering and could be clearer or better balanced? This is about as close to sitting in the room with the musicians as we can get after the fact. What better way to remember a great time? Yeah, ok, maybe your recording has more definition, and has no errors - my recording has more soul.

Thank you President Schwartz!

I would like to thank President Schwartz for joining us in our outrage. He appeared in a interview in The Journal News on the 18th and spoke out about the injustices of the way tuition hikes and budget cuts are effecting Purchase College students. Here is the full text of the article:

College joins tuition outrage

By Leah Rae
The Journal News • February 18, 2009



Purchase College, SUNY, is joining the uproar over what's to become of a $620-a-year increase in state college tuition, saying the extra money is being swept off to Albany and away from the schools.

State University of New York administrators were planning to use the new revenue to make up for funding cuts, college President Thomas J. Schwarz said. Instead, state leaders agreed to put the bulk of the money toward reducing the deficit.

What state lawmakers may see as another belt-tightening measure, Schwarz and his colleagues see as a major injustice: an unlucky class of SUNY students being slapped with an "excise tax" to help bail out Albany.

"I find this completely immoral," Schwarz said during a meeting with The Journal News Editorial Board yesterday.

Traditionally, tuition increases have filled the gap left by declines in state funding, he said, but the process changed. SUNY trustees voted last year to boost in-state tuition by $620 annually to $4,970. That could have offset some of the $210 million worth of funding reductions during the 2008-09 fiscal year. But under an agreement between Gov. David Paterson and the Legislature this month, all but 10 percent of the extra tuition money from the spring semester - when the new rate kicked in - will go toward reducing the state budget deficit. Next year, under Paterson's budget plan, 20 percent of the extra money will come back to the schools.

State officials have described the deal differently, saying the 10 percent and 20 percent allotments are "an expanded investment in the SUNY system."

Senate Higher Education Committee Chairwoman Toby Stavisky, D-Queens, said she would have preferred the tuition increase not be swept into the general fund, but that the decision was part of an entire package.

The upshot at Purchase is as follows, Schwarz said: The college has lost about $2.4 million in state funding for the current year, a 12 percent reduction. The tuition increase will generate only $190,000 in extra money for the college this term.

Students, paying an extra $310 per semester even as part-time jobs dry up, are not happy either.

"We see that the state and the country are in a tight spot, that the recession is everywhere," said Joseph Matoske, a cinema studies major and president of the Purchase Student Government Association. "But it's not right to take the money from the students. Students don't have this money."

The college is home to 4,200 students and a prominent School of the Arts. Morale has suffered amid small cutbacks - everything from colder buildings to shorter hours at campus facilities, Matoske said. He questioned how the economy will ever turn around if students are discouraged from pursuing college degrees.

"What kind of message is this sending to the schools on what our college is worth to everyone else?" he said.

Administrators have seen indications of the students' financial troubles. A review last year found that 100 students were attending classes without having paid their tuition, Schwarz said. This year, 700 students were in that category.

The college has worked out payment plans with most of those students, and the number is down to 150, Schwarz said. But higher tuition bills during a recession are clearly taking a toll.

"For some people it's nothing ... but for some people it's the difference between staying in school and not," the college president said. "What outrages me is that 90 percent of that tuition increase was swept by the Department of Budget. It didn't come to SUNY, it didn't come to us."

Reach Leah Rae at lrae@lohud.com or 914-694-3526.

When the faculty of the college start to openly and publicly join in this discourse, it lends power to our case. President Schwartz has access to numbers and statistics that we do not, and these help to show that this is not just an issue of students whining and complaining about a three hundred dollar tuition increase. The more information we can communicate to the public, the more likely people are to understand and act to support our plight.

Thank you President Schwartz for standing up for the students.

STOP STEALING FROM SUNY STUDENTS

SUNY students' tuition is being increased by appx $300 each semester. Originally, this money was going to be split 80/20 government/school, then the state assembly decided to change this to 90/10, meaning that of the extra $300 each student is paying, only $30 actually would benefit the school. Then, the state decided that not only were they going to take 100% of this money, they were going to further cut the budget of the SUNY system.

So, now, the NYS gov't is taking a brand new income of 427,398(total SUNY enrollment)*$300, or,

$128,219,400 each semester

and using it to bail out the state debt. Debt that was created by irresponsible behaviour by the higher ups who should have known better.

Why should the SUNY students be bailing out the state for mistakes they did not make? How does it make sense to borrow from future generations WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION in order to save those who made irresponsible choices? Can you afford to sit idly by and allow this to happen?

Please do understand, that a lack of action on your part IS TACET APPROVAL. By doing nothing you are ALLOWING THIS TO HAPPEN.

Please, please, please, take action, visit this site:

http://studentassembly.org/

sign the petition, and spread the word.

join these facebook groups:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=44475689714

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49311778620

set your facebook status to spead the word, twitter about it, blog about it, and help the cause.

Re-post the same facebook and twitter status multiple times, it is more likely to show up on people's feeds then.

Please, make a difference.

mp3?

I recently read an article in Mix or EM or one of those music/engineering magazines that discussed the mastering process and how some professional mastering engineers will not master specifically for mp3 but will master for really high fidelity "specialty" websites that allow high quality digital downloads of music. This lead me to an interesting thought while I walked back from practicing at the Conservatory this evening.

Why are engineers so concerned about audio fidelity? Put another way - I understand the love of high quality audio, when I listen (really LISTEN) to music actively, I love having the ability to hear every little nuance of performance with an accurate frequency response and proper imaging. But when I'm just passively listening - ie driving, working, reading, writing, etc - a simple streamed mp3 works just fine for me. Furthermore, there are some songs that kick so much ass that I don't care if I hear them in mono from a overhead speaker on the Purchase Shuttle (examples include Superstition, Take Five, anything by the Temptations).

People argue about how artists/labels should distribute music and in what quality/format. What if the consumer had all the options (within reason)? What if when they bought an album or a song on iTunes or Amazon they could download an mp3 and a full bandwidth wav? What if they could download one and not the other? What if we stopped arguing about fidelity and just made music that was so good it transcended bad quality? (yeah, right.)

Anyway, why should we argue about these things. The beauty of the Internet and digital distribution is that iTunes doesn't have to keep a full stock of inventory with all different qualities, they just need to host single files. Unlike brick and mortar stores, the file is still in inventory after someone buys it.

Yeah? It's an idea anyway.

The Co-op

Now really, although it is kinda my assignment to talk up the Co-op I'm happy because I really do like it there. The Co-op serves as a great music venue, it's smaller than Whitson's and more intimate. Basically, it's a small coffee house complete with low lighting, couches, tea, and great music.

Tonight, Matt Levy is playing at 5, the Purchase College Blues Band (which includes Jim McElwaine and Jim Koeppel) is playing at 6, and Leila is playing at 7.

Everyone should be there. All three acts are phenomenal. Really this isn't just a "I have to write this" thing, this is a these people are great and it will be an amazing time thing.

Sticking it to the Man

For those who are unaware, which would be most people who do not have a strange nerdy obsession with all things music business, there is a very interesting lawsuit currently in development. Ars Technica has a very good rundown of the story here. But for those not inclined to read the whole thing right now I'll give a very quick summary.

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has a recent history of bringing very intimidating lawsuits against people accused of illegally obtaining music from the Internet. These lawsuits often involve people who have been accused of downloading only a few songs/files. Frequently those accused will settle out of court for large sums of money in order to avoid the potential for multi-million dollar penalties in court.

The way the RIAA goes about this comes off to many people as a disproportionately large response to the crime (if they even call it that) being committed. The tactics they use also seem to have questionable legal grounding and limited morality.

Finally, they wound up in a situation where someone decided to fight back in an unconventional way. Joel Tenenbaum got in touch with Prof. Charles Nesson from Harvard law school and secured his legal council. Nesson got his graduate students involved and now we have a whole new ball game.

Nesson and the rest of his legal team are seeking permission to stream hearings and legal proceedings over the Internet. They also are bringing a counter-suit against the RIAA claiming that their tactics are actually unconstitutional.

As we step into a new environment where intellectual property and copyright laws are questioned by the consumer and musicians seek new methods of marketing and distribution, a case like this that throws into question the legality of a group that publicly appears to represent the record industry, and hints at coming change.

The general population has for a large part abandoned the old system of CDs and brick and mortar stores in favor of instant access to almost infinite music, and now the legality of practices of those trying to maintain the old system is questioned.

Though I will not venture a guess at the future, this lawsuit certainly could effect it greatly.

First Post

This is my first post. I have to do this for my marketing class. I cannot imagine any reason why anyone would want to read about what I'm doing, so I'll try and fill this with slightly more interesting information about music, music industry, music business, perhaps some web design, and techno-babble.

First off, you should check out the page for Elephant Tree Records, a artist's collective/pseudo-label which I'm a member of.

http://virb.com/elephanttreerecords

Also, check out virb simply as a social networking site - it has some awesome features, and is customizable beyond belief.