mercredi 31 mars 2004

(Mainly) music jottings (iii) - free expression, fair dues There are alternatives, true, but the wait for the iTunes Music Store in Europe is getting a little long. Meanwhile at EMI, 1,500 jobs are to be axed, while 20 percent of the artists will have to start looking elsewhere: "The company said it expected the reorganisation of its business to save it about £50m ($91m) a year. But there would be a one-off cash cost of about £75m from the job cuts. EMI's artist roster, which includes Robbie Williams and Radiohead, will be reduced by about 20%, mostly 'niche and under-performing' acts in Europe. Other big name artists signed up to the world's third-biggest music group include Kylie, Coldplay, and Norah Jones. In London trading, shares in EMI surged 18.5 pence to 275.5p (...) But they refused to identify any of the artists who are about to get the chop, except to say they were 'local-country acts'." The penultimate paragraph of that BBC business report says it all really, doesn't it? Meanwhile, a patent application has been published for a 'Graphical user interface and methods of use thereof in a multimedia player' (US patent office). Otherwise known as an iPod. People have been saying what they think at 'Slashdot' (via the 'Guardian' blog). "The idea that we are at war works to the advantage of the Bush Administration. We have already seen how the war on terror conveniently morphed into the war on Iraq. Mr. Bush never misses an opportunity to conflate the two in his attempts to confuse the public. But is it a war, or just a shabby public relations ploy to achieve an alternate political objective?" Such questions (and attempts to answer them) are par for the course at 'Counterpunch', where Mike Whitney rejects the language of terrorism. More unusual is the place where I found that link. Bill Christison's 'thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse' often make for an interesting read. His list of media links is the most wide-ranging and freewheeling I've yet encountered in the blogosphere. It took a few minutes' work to determine that "BC" is indeed the Bill who "served on the analysis side of the (Central Intelligence) Agency for 28 years" (via 'Palestine: Information with Provenance.') Yes. I did plan to steer clear of both the mainstream and alternative political news sites until next week, but that's almost as hard as giving up smoking. Fellow junkies might care to know what 'Press Action' features as the "best of the web" (pablog). While scarcely as comprehensive as Bill's list, there are a few here I'm happy to discover. As EMI, Apple and others wage the interminable war to shape the music of the future -- and I pursue my illegal downloading of music and video without qualms, given the amount of money I subsequently legally spend on things I've sampled and liked -- I'm happy to be able to tell Matt Haughey that the 'Creative Commons' licence idea is making headway in France. Not just in the Web, but in mass circulation dailies like 'Libé'. Matt was wondering if 'Autres Directions in Music' (CC weblog) is what he thought it was. The full article about it, in French, is 'Albums de familles' (Libération). The same day, 'Libé' gave a write-up to A.S. Ambulanzen, a Berlin collective which has been militating for the abolition of copyright altogether. That's a pipe-dream, of course, but they contend that: "information does not want to be free. in fact it is absolutely free of will, a constant flow of signs of lives which are permanently being turned into commodities and transformed into commercial content. textz.com ("concept" manifesto) is not part of the information business. they say there was a time when content was king, but we have seen his head rolling. our week beats their year. ever since we have been moving from content to discontent, collecting scripts and viruses, writing programs and bots, dealing with textz as warez, as executables--something that is able to change your life. this is not promotional material. facing the unified principles of information--the combined horror of global communication and so-called guerilla marketing--there is no more need for media theory or cultural studies. the resistance against corporate culture can itself no longer remain in the cultural domain. you make a mistake if you see what we do as merely apolitical." Textz.com is a cult. It's also one of the places where, via 'juniradio' (berlin 104.1 fm, Ger.), you can you get the (in)famous 'Grey Album' (DJ Dangermouse) ... speaking of EMI (track 13). And this is where you'll have to excuse me while I watch Madonna's outlawed 'Erotica' video (pointless Amazon.com entry) and the banned Kylie Minogue lingerie advertisement. If "you'd like to ... watch Madonna", Andrew Parodi includes her in one of his many Amazon lists. A prolific reviewer, Parodi is one of those people that make Amazon so much more than simply a shop. One Acquisition (OS X peer-to-peer) leads to another... 10:14:22 PM  link   your views? [] My selfless career officially ends The first good thing about today was that I didn't wake up exhausted, as I have done since the week off began. The second was being told by gastrological expert Dr V. that the renewed bout of the Condition should be over in a couple of days at most. The third came in an e-mail from Tony. He informs that my 23-year career as an elected trade union activist officially ended last night, at the annual general meeting of Paris Branch of the National Union of Journalists. However his e-mail -- though the habitual model of brevity since the man still seems to believe he pays his Internet bill by the word count -- was unusually lacking in crucial details: "My duty won't B done until I inform U that the chair paid tribute 2 your work for the Branch @ last night's well-attended (27 members!) NUJ orgy in the Latvian Embassy. B4 U get 2 big headed I shd say I also got a tribute, along with several other persons in an evening that began with a minute's silence 4 recently deceased members, the secretary 4getting the minutes of the Feb meeting & the admission of half a dozen new members. After the nicotine break we proceeded 2 AGM, 2 numerous reports I cd not hear & the seamless & unanimous voting-in of every 1 of the single-choice candidates 4 office. I congratulated the chair on the speedy election in my best Russian accent but I don't think anyone saw the joke. JA, who'd picked me up @ M'parnasse, got us there in time to argue with the Bourse du Travail staff, who had 4gotten 2 book our room. He had a great time. I left supperless & walked 2 Gare de l'Est B4 I realised I'd taken a wrong turning. Cheers, Tony." First, my friend might make it clear that the tributes paid to us both were not part of the minute's silence. I'm ashamed to say that I've not been to a meeting for about a year, and thus could well be considered dead. Secondly, he fails to say who got elected. Thirdly, he explains neither how just one wrong turning sufficed to get from the Bourse du Travail to the Gare de l'Est nor why he wasn't fed. Fourthly, 27 members was a remarkable turnout. I need to know how many of them were old friends unseen for too long, how many were bores to be avoided and how many I wouldn't have recognised. Finally and most importantly, how many were unattached and highly attractive women? Tony has hearing problems and some of the rapporteurs may be monotone mumblers, but his eyes still work fairly well. Of half a dozen new members and others in attendance, I find it hard to believe that not one met the above criteria, deserving of the attention of a branch 'Welfare Officer (Retd.)' who is post-Conditionally determined to put his own first and foremost. 3:27:32 PM  link   your views? []

nick b. 2007 do share, don't steal, please credit under artistic licence terms; contributing friends (pix, other work) retain their rights.