I don’t know how I missed this, but Courtney Love gave an incredible speech at a May 2000 conference, on the music business, copyright law, and the real music pirates – the Majors. Salon has the unedited transcript, but I recommend reading it on Dave Ray’s site.
My favorite excerpt:
Somewhere along the way, record companies figured out that it’s a lot more profitable to control the distribution system than it is to nurture artists. And since the companies didn’t have any real competition, artists had no other place to go. Record companies controlled the promotion and marketing; only they had the ability to get lots of radio play, and get records into all the big chain store. That power put them above both the artists and the audience. They own the plantation.
Being the gatekeeper was the most profitable place to be, but now we’re in a world half without gates. The Internet allows artists to communicate directly with their audiences; we don’t have to depend solely on an inefficient system where the record company promotes our records to radio, press or retail and then sits back and hopes fans find out about our music.
Record companies don’t understand the intimacy between artists and their fans. They put records on the radio and buy some advertising and hope for the best. Digital distribution gives everyone worldwide, instant access to music.
And filters are replacing gatekeepers. In a world where we can get anything we want, whenever we want it, how does a company create value? By filtering. In a world without friction, the only friction people value is editing. A filter is valuable when it understands the needs of both artists and the public. New companies should be conduits between musicians and their fans.
Courtney Love was, (dare I say), a visionary… too bad nobody at the Major labels was listening.
On this day, in 1977, I was born. At 5 lbs. 6 oz., I was six weeks early, and spent my first Christmas in hospital.
I used to think that 28 sounded so old – time for marrying, house-buying, and thinking about kiddos. Now that this day has come, those things seem as far away as they did when I was 20. I’m always amazed that people I know are doing these things now… my younger cousing Maggie has 3 kids, and she’s 2 years younger than me. My first real girlfriend from High School is married. And, it seems like every weblogger that I read is either getting engaged, married, or having a child.
So, I’m 28. I may have been in a hurry to come into this world, but hopefully I’ve learned to slow down a bit. I’ve got a great girl, good friends, and a lot to be thankful for… those other “grown-up” things will fall into place, in time.
“[!< http://static.flickr.com/39/76000226_8101782f04_s.jpg (click here to see the full greeting)!] (click here to see the full greeting)”:http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=75942629&size=o I’ve almost got everything bought, but nothing is wrapped… For those that I don’t see this holiday season, I hope you have a nice, stress-free holiday with loved-ones.
We’ll be in Buffalo this weekend, so Macy & Jeremy, you better be ready to pound some eggnog!
Happy Holidays, from Google. If you search for certain end-of-the year holidays, you get festive borders [[photo]] on the Google results page, (look between the results and text ads)
Are there more?
“[!
Apparently, they’re expecting thousands of people on 56th street, and “Yahoo!”:http://music.yahoo.com/promos/howardstern/ is covering the entire thing, including live video at 9am.
In fact, Howard has gotten all Yahoo!ed up - “Flickr photostreams”:http://flickr.com/photos/tags/howardnation/interesting/, “360° profiles”:http://360.yahoo.com/howardnation_howard, “podcasts”:http://podcasts.yahoo.com/series?s=d7299840664c005b5a3c96fe51fa60ce, and “widgets”:http://widgets.yahoo.com/howardnation/.
“[!< http://static.flickr.com/20/73584093_b001315db3_o.jpg (Kung Fung)!]“:http://www.eatanddestroy.com/?p=6 Pay attention, you Boston-area foodies! Todd is starting up “Eat and Destroy”:http://www.eatanddestroy.com/, a Boston area food/restaurant blog.
I can’t wait to try a “Mongolian Fire Pot”:http://www.eatanddestroy.com/?p=6.
“24 Ways”:http://24ways.org/ is a kind of _advent calendar_ for markup geeks. I’m now in the process of redesigning (as oposed to “realigning”:http://www.alistapart.com/articles/redesignrealign) my portfolio site, and it’s been fun tuning in to these little tutorials.
My favorites include:
* “An Explanation of Ems”:http://24ways.org/advent/an-explanation-of-ems I love using _ems_
* “Introduction to Scriptaculous Effects”:http://24ways.org/advent/introduction-to-scriptaculous-effects for a little javascript splash
* “Putting the World into World Wide Web”:http://24ways.org/advent/putting-the-world-into-world-wide-web I _work_ in localization, so I enjoy this kind of thing.
“[!< http://static.flickr.com/12/69373167_d88650940b_o.gif (Oslo Finance)!]“:http://www.iconbuffet.com/delivery Having read “Greg Storey’s post”:http://www.airbagindustries.com/archives/008482.php about IconBuffet’s “Free Delivery”:http://www.iconbuffet.com/delivery, I signed up and received my first delivery: _Oslo Finance_.
Anybody want to trade? _Taipei Night Market_ looks pretty cool.
UPDATE: I now have *Oslo Atmosphere*, *Taipei Night Market*, and *Taipei Buddies 2*… and, will gladly trade!
Don’t tell the “Governator”:http://www.miami.com/mld/mercurynews/news/nation/13210583.htm?source=rss&channel=mercurynews_nation, but you can download pirated music via “Yahoo! China”:http://music.yahoo.com.cn/search.html?pid=ysearch&p=u2&mimetype=all&source=ysearch_music_result_topsearch.
