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Yes, its true. Even the boss man says DRM sucks, and that you’re better off buying a CD and ripping it. Of course, this isn’t a major revelation, but it sure is interesting to hear him admit it penalises the honest majority of users.

It has been a while since I’ve posted anything. I’ve been flat out moving house, and dealing with all the drama’s associated with that. Luckily, the worst of it is over now, and I now get to focus on unpacking at my new residence. I’m share-housing with four other musicians, all of whom are much better than I am, so I expect to learn a thing or two. It will be a bit more crowded than I am used to, but I’m sure I’ll have fun.

Since I’ve posted last, the Bronco’s won the NRL grand final by defeating the Melbourne Storm. I can tell you I was excited! I think the Storm would have been deserving victors, but the Bronco’s are certainly worthy champions. I was glad to see Shane Webcke going out on a high.

Also, some of the acts for next years Big Day Out music festival have been announced. The Violent Femmes and The Killers are two acts I have never seen that I would like to.

Anyway, there has been much else I’ve wanted to post on, but haven’t had time, so I’ll be catching up over the next couple of weeks.

I’ve touched on rootkits before, specifically the Sony rootkit. I found out today that Sophos has a free anti-rootkit package. They even have a podcast on the subject. I use Sophos, and in a professional capacity I recommend and sell Sophos. I actually really like selling it, because it is really good software in general. So I downloaded the scanner and gave it a run. It seems to work smoothly and fairly quickly.

I actually found out about when Jodie, the lovely Sophos rep, visited us at Centra Networks today. The conversation quickly turned to the Sony rootkit, and I was reminded of a recent comment by Mark Cuban:

and for all you “but i can and do download everything ” types. Good for you. Get up and away from your computer and go see how the rest of the country lives. And when you hit 27, get a real job or move out of your parents house, whichever comes first, tell me if you are still downloading 10 movies and burning them for your friends and creating 10 playlists for Itunes every week like you did in college or when you first graduated. At some point you realize the time you spend downloading and burning to a DVD is worth more than the 10 bucks to go to a movie or 20 bucks or less to buy the movie. When that happens you will have figured out that all that time you spend burning DVDs and trying to manage space on your hard drive wasnt worth it

This sums up for me a big reason why DRM is a waste of time. The people who download illegally are either students who will grow out of it soon enough, or they are perpetual losers. And last time I checked, spending tens of millions of dollars pursuing losers is bad business.

[Update] BoingBoing reports that Texas is suing Sony over the rootkit affair.

I hate just listing links, but I’m tired and I have too many I want to post.

dg links to a video of a talk give by Cory Doctorow at Microsoft regarding DRM.

dg links to another place to buy DRM-free music online.

Five suggestions for better communication with clients at The Social Customer Manifesto.

Triple J’s unearthed site - discovering unsigned bands across Australia for about 10 years.

DIY approach to getting an ISBN for your new book.

I’m not an avid fan of the Cosmis Psychos (I was probably a little too young to appreciate them in their heyday), but I absolutely loved their song Guns Away, which I first head on a Homebake compilation. It is a totally awesome track.

But sadly. their guitarist has died. My condolences to his friends and family, and also to fans of the band who had a far stronger connection with the music than I have. I know there are many.

From here:

Under the new laws, it will now be legal for people to tape their favourite television or radio programs for viewing by family and friends.

But recordings must not be sold or hired nor played at school or to public audiences.

“These are commonsense amendments which will maintain Australia’s copyright laws as the best in the world for the benefit of our creators and other copyright owners,” Mr Ruddock said.

Good to see the law catching up with the (harmless) reality.

[UPDATE] BoingBoing reports that we’ve been shafted on this! They’ve picked up on this story in the Sydney Morning Herald (my preferred source of online Australian news, btw). I guess the Government figure that a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, except that in this case the sugar is nothing special and the medicine is poison.

Cory from BoingBoing says in the article linked to above says, “You’d think Australia would be smarter than that: it’s pretty sad to be the easy-lay nation that Hollywood turns to when it can’t convince America to put out.”

Well Cory, it is sad. I thought Australia would have been smarter than too. I feel dirty and used.

[Lee Hopkins touches on the new laws in his latest post, and I leave a comment there pointing him to the SMH article above, along with some more of my views on the matter.]

The Clash are one of my favourite bands ever.

This phrase often gets overused, and I am just as guilty as the next person of using it too glibly.

But The Clash are deadset, hand-on-my-heart, absolutely seriously one of my favourite bands. Which is why I loved seeing this little clip of the clash performing live on TV, playing London Calling and Train In Vain. Cool!

I hate to be too depressing, but as they say, death is a part of life.

So I sadly pass on the news that Grant McLennan, of legendary Brisbane band the Go-Betweens, passed away on the weekend. I’m sure many people who are far better qualified to eulogise him will do so; I just wanted to say I think his musical legacy to Australian music in particular is huge, and very impressive. Great songs, and sad to see him go.

[Extra] For no particular reason, I thought I would link to this recent post by Andrew Bartlett, since it spoke a little about the Go-Betweens.

Okay, so to state the bleeding obvious, MashUp’s are already a super-popular form of (re)creating and listening to music. If you don’t know what I’m on about, see this Wikipedia entry on Bastard Pop (aka Musical MashUps).

I’ve gotten some laughs out of Beatallica, a mashup of sorts that combines the Beatles and Metallica. I really dug DJ BC’s effort The Beastles, a more typical form of MashUp which forged the Beatles with the Beastie Boys. Some of the Beastles tracks have been on high rotation in my iTunes playlist over the last 9 months or so.

However, I’ve been super impressed with an outfit from the UK called The Kleptones who seem to be pretty diverse with their sources of music. I’ve just downloaded, and am listening to ‘A Night At The Hip Hopera’, which you can download for free here. You can also download their other work, of which ‘From Detroit To J.A.’ has been a stayer on my player. (Yes, I am the Scarlet Pimpernel)

Anyway, if you’re keen to listen to some new music that is very cool and definitely danceable, check out the Kleptones. Now!

I read an interesting post recently on Zan Rowe’s blog which, to a degree, mirrored some of my own thoughts in relation to how technology affects the way in which I, and the larger community, listen to and enjoy music. She talks about how it is so easy to get hold of so much new music, thanks to technology like the internet, MP3’s and MP3 players.

Although being able to access new music is a great thing, can it result in ‘overload’? Can this perhaps devalue the worth of the music? Are we likely to become less-discerning listeners, focusing more heavily on songs we like, as opposed to albums we like? (This last questions really plays on my mind - I’m a big fan of albums, and the journey they can provide for a listener).

Zan makes two points which really resonate with me. The first is the how music that is meaningful to us is often more than just a particular progression of notes and lyrics. As Zan says, “Music is about human experience.”

How so?

For instance, a particular song can evoke memories of moments of great personal, emotional importance to us. Even though they aren’t exactly my favourite band, I’ll always have fond memories pop into my head when I hear Coldplay’s song, Yellow.

It may be the manner in which we discovered a band or an album. I love the fact that I saw Blink-182 the first time they toured Australia, supporting their Cheshire Cat album. There was only about 50 people in the joint, and none of them were 14 year old girls in love with Travis (in fact, Travis wasn’t even in the band then!). Although they subsequently became a joke (and I don’t mean in a good, Ramones kind of a way), I remember that gig and regard that album very highly. My sister, Abbey, has opened my eyes to some great bands, such as the Shins and Snow Patrol, over the last couple of years. This personal recommendation from someone whose opinion of music I trust adds to the value of the music for me.

Some of the people commenting on Zan’s blog also make a strong argument for the benefit of album cover art, and I have to agree. I have purchased albums before on little more than the strength of the cover art, and some of those purchases are my favourite albums. Jebediah’s Braxton Hicks album falls into this category for me. To even draw a longer bow, I bought Guttermouth’s Covered With Ants album largely based on the fact that the guitarist played a Gibson Les Paul with a huge Victoria Bitter sticker over it in the film clip to She’s Got The Look, a song from that album. I just thought that was cool, you know?

The second point Zan makes is to do with how we are supposed to make time for all this new music in out lives. I’ve been guilty of buying new music, but not really giving it more than a cursory listen. This is usually a time issue with me, but I can only see it getting worse, not better. I left the following comment on Zan’s blog:

I’ve been thinking about this myself recently. I’ve recently completed the task of converting my entire CD collection into my iTunes Library. When that was finished, I found I wanted to add more, and more! Somewhere along the line, it became some weird kind of competition with myself. It took me a little while to realise this is strange behaviour, and to re-embrace my belief that quality of the music is important, not quantity.

This issue of quality being more important to me than quantity is a big one. Some of my favourite albums needed many listens before I really developed an appreciation for them (I’m thinking in particular about Billy Bragg’s Talking With The Taxman About Poetry album). I’m not sure that I would invest that same time into a new album these days, and it really concerns me that I’m going to miss some gems.

I think there is a larger issue here, which is what I think Zan was getting at, and that is technology isn’t necessarily improving our lifestyle. More doesn’t always equal better, because the one thing we can’t change is how much time we have. Even if you’re not a huge fan of music, or not as obsessive about it, you’ve got to agree that the issue of remaining time-poor is something that affects everyone.

Technology can’t help that, and probably just makes it worse most of the time.