If we were the subtle type, we’d let the story speak for itself. We’re not. We’re such that we will guide you to our favorite thoughts. One, the creator of the art is not necessarily making the most money. Two, lower production costs have not translated to lower consumer costs. Three, lower production costs have not translated to higher royalties. On the positive side, you can get lots of great stuff electronically and eMusic is making a new push for customers. A story we didn’t link to recently talked about Audible.com has received additional investment dollars and is expanding. For […]

For the first time since this morning…ouch, it even hurts to type those words. We know our readers can’t get enough of copyright stuff. It’s like caffeine. Except maybe it doesn’t act as quickly. No drug is perfect. Or so we’ve been lead to believe. This story from Wired touches on something that comes up in conversation around our home. Yes, the same house that brings you loud outdoor rants about record labels and online music often shouts about so-called orphaned copyrights. We often wonder why our dinner parties aren’t better attended… While we could go on at length on

We think it’s okay to lie in headlines. Nobody believes them anyway, right? Sony’s acquisition of MGM is a minor source of fascination for us, not only because we were witness to Sony’s revamping of the MGM lot. We like the weird full circle aspect of the story. But it makes us wonder: do brand names matter that much to the consumer? We’re not talking about Gucci or Prada — we’re looking at publishers (labels, studios). When you go into a store, do you think, “Wow, it’s the latest from HarperCollins.” When it comes to art, are corporate labels as

If there is one* universal truth, it is something like this: independent publishers and labels will always have distribution woes. The machinery is set up to accommodate the big guys. Last week, we reported on Imajinn and their Chapter 13 filing; this was, in part, because the cash going out the door exceeded the cash coming in. It wasn’t necessarily the result of poor business decisions. Book distributors, like most people who pay bills, don’t necessarily take the concept of “Net 30” very seriously**. The distributors will argue that they can’t pay until they get paid. The bookstores will argue

This article about Damian Loeb and his use of photographs (by other artists) as the basis for his paintings leads us to wonder: what does copyright represent? We are not being obtuse. Much. Where does stealing end and homage or inspiration begin? If Loeb had identified his sources, would that have changed the nature of the argument? Though we like to think the opposite, copyright is not as black and white as it could be. And on an unrelated note, we particularly enjoyed the media relations director’s statement — it smacks, ever-so-slightly (which is sarcastic for “a lot”) of defensive.

For a long time, we assumed we couldn’t write such things because we weren’t clever enough. This theory has not been laid to rest, but we now see it’s more than cleverness: it’s the fact that we failed miserably in our musical education. If only we had stuck out the piano lessons despite a lack of talent — it is notable that we possess a prodigious ability for self-deception (hence sticking with softball for so long because we enjoyed the fantasy world wherein we could hit and catch; reality was somewhat different, though we did possess the advantage of a