Slashdot Mirror

There's also a lot of mediocre stuff. YMMV :)

Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie (deadtroll.com) have an excellent guide to privacy, in lyrics form.

You can find it for free download here: http://www.ampcast.com/music/22488/artist.php
Search for "privacy"
Listen.
Enjoy

• Anomic (I'm Not Gonna Take This Any More) - The Sleeping Prophet
• All Around You - Third Degree
• Final Battle - Ugress
• Awful - T-Cells
• This Day - Perfect Virus

If the RIAA members think they have a monopoly on creativity, they're the ones who are dreaming. Go ahead, charge $5 per track for the latest bubble gum pop. I won't even notice.

The RIAA is toast.

I tried to download the sysadmin song. http://download2.ampcast.com/AUD-66337-ply-6515486 -0-0-128-DLDLFQFQJNAZTAGX/The_System_Admin_Song.mp 3 Too many slashdotters :D (or connections.. i don't recall the exact message)

In most every cubicle-monkey's life, there is a person or team of people who do the jobs no one else even dares to even try to understand. They are our alpha geeks. Our nerd buddies. Our System Administrators. And it is they who truly control your life. It is to them that you must bow down and admit your ignorance every time you do something stupid on your computer. You are right to fear them, for they can destroy every file on your computer, just by leaving it alone with you for the long weekend. They are the dark lords of the I.T. industry. Invincible in their knowledge of the intricacies of NT Networking protocols and cross-platform file recovery methods. Some of them even have girlfriends. They control the information technology industry and they still want more. Friday, July 26th has been designated System Administrator Day by the Dark Kobald that controls everything. You are encouraged to buy them lunches, or install home-theatre systems in their offices. They humiliate you when you forget your password, and now they want an appreciation day? Well I for one say; let's give it to them....it's not like we have a choice.

I'm sure most sysadmins around here are allready familiar with
Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie's SysAdmin Song

(Odd how it's noted in the lyrics as July 26th... did we all sleep on this one?)

In most every cubicle-monkey's life, there is a person or team of people who do the jobs no one else even dares to even try to understand. They are our alpha geeks. Our nerd buddies. Our System Administrators. And it is they who truly control your life. It is to them that you must bow down and admit your ignorance every time you do something stupid on your computer. You are right to fear them, for they can destroy every file on your computer, just by leaving it alone with you for the long weekend. They are the dark lords of the I.T. industry. Invincible in their knowledge of the intricacies of NT Networking protocols and cross-platform file recovery methods. Some of them even have girlfriends. They control the information technology industry and they still want more. Friday, July 26th has been designated System Administrator Day by the Dark Kobald that controls everything. You are encouraged to buy them lunches, or install home-theatre systems in their offices. They humiliate you when you forget your password, and now they want an appreciation day? Well I for one say; let's give it to them....it's not like we have a choice.

I'm sure most sysadmins around here are allready familiar with
Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie's SysAdmin Song

(Odd how it's noted in the lyrics as July 26th... did we all sleep on this one?)

Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie made The System Admin Song. You can get it (and many other funny songs & skits) from their artist page on ampcast.com.

There's always Ampcast - gigabytes of free music for you.

There's even a song[mp3] about it.

Finally, perhaps we'll see computers shipped with an OS that does not suck.

That's impossible, since every OS sucks.

Your reply is offtopic...I didn't say anything that you refute, or even address. And I don't even disagree with everything you've said. But for those items I do disagree with...

First, you think nobody's taking resposibility? Look at all the people who've settled, rather than go to court over it. If paying excessive fees isn't taking responsibility, I don't know what is.

Second, Not all music is under licenses that make it illegal to download without paying. Take a look at the stuff on Ampcast, for example. Or stuff in the audio section of the Internet Archive. Or the stuff on Ourmedia.org. People have the right to make their own works available for legal free download--and some do.

(courtesy of Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie

Hey everybody, gather 'round, it's the privacy song!

I don't have no privacy, neither do you.
The government is watching us and WalMart's watching too.
Your doctor keeps your urine, for to clone your DNA.
Those albums that you bought last night, well now they know you're gay.

Interpol's got a file on you, so does the FBI.
McDonald's scans your face and there's a chip in your french fry.
You're scan recorded, sold, and sorted to a database in the sky.
So whatever you do when they're talking to you -
For god's sakes lie.

Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie

Lie about your income, your age, gender, and race.
Spell your name incorrectly, so it's harder to trace.
We can beat them back with bullshit. We can rub it in their face.
We can stick a big old monkey wrench right up their database.

Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie
Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie

You see now, WalMart thinks I'm a 75 year old pensioner.
And Sony thinks I'm a single mother of ten.
The airline company thinks I make 700 grand a year.
And VISA thinks I'm an Innuit woman named Ben.

Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie
Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie

You can lie to the man, you can lie right through your tooth.
They can take away our privacy but they can't have the truth.
Lie about your favorite drink,
your viewing habits and the color of your sink.
Make up a phone number, make up a postal code.
If we all lie together then the computer might explode.

So come on everybody, let's beat those privacy invading bastards! Let's beat them with disinformation and organized chaos. Let's crash that computer, let's skew those statistics. Because let's face it, there's only one magical person who knows all our secrets.

And if Santa ever does sell his database, we're all screwed.

Just a rehash of the infinite monkeys/typewriters problem. Might be an interesting distributed.net project to try something like that -- mind you, that is not signifigantly different than the kind of key generation/factoring work already being done.

I seem to recall a rather humourous mp3 about what can be accomplished with a large but finite number of monkeys... Steaming Pile Of Skit(album) by Three Dead Trolls In A baggy See song #12 and stream. Careful at work with the headphones on though -- their stuff is known to make a person break out in meniacal laughter on occasion, and your co-workers might think something was wrong with you.

It has been done.

Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie - The Privacy Song

http://www.ampcast.com/LST-72204-mus-24-5358238-0- 0-0-DLZTAGXSGXREDLGXFQ/Keep_Your_Parents_Off_the_I nternet.m3u "Keep your parents off the Internet" [MP3], Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie.

"Latex bondage", indeed.

This track by 'Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie' is from a few years ago, so the date is off. Other funny tech tracks by them are available here.

This track by 'Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie' is from a few years ago, so the date is off. Other funny tech tracks by them are available here.

Go to http://www.ampcast.com/music/22488/artist.php and get the Sys Admin song by Wes Borg (also known for his Internet Helpdesk skit) We're eating pizza for lunch today in celebration, and I'm being taken to see Napoleon Dynamite tonight for the same reason.

Check out the Privacy Song by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie.

Keep your parents off the internet.

(+1 Funny) or (-1 Troll)? You decide.

"Lie about your income, your age, gender and Race,
Spell your name incorrectly, so it's harder to trace."

That is the philosophy behind Three Dead Troll's fantastic Privacy Song

If anyone here hasn't heard of them, you really should have a listen. Not sure what Slashdot will do to their download link though.

Less on-topic but still relevant - I went through a phase of entering bollocks on forms to see what got through. I recieved regular letters from my ISP for Ms. Penelope Pittstop and got regular junk mail for Hugh G. Rection.

Hopefully the new tennants in my old flat are now getting some of the other names that weren't processed before I left. ;)

One option for indy game developers are "self" publishing through sites such as cafepress.com.
On cafe press you can publish your game, your merchandise and more. Cafepress.com isn't the only one out there either. They accept all the usual, credit cards, checks, moneyorder. Best of all, the developer doesn't have to worry about deploying an eCommerce solution, and you can do quite a bit in the way of customizing your "store".
I say down with the publishers, software, print and music. For music you have sites like ampcast.com where you can put a selection of mp3s up for download and from the same page, your new found fans can order a hard copy of your CD. Add the url of your ampcast.com page (or your band's site w/link) to your mp3's header info and put them on P2P yourself. Anywho, that's OT.

Note, I don't work for cafepress.com, but my employer does use them for our swag as well as our creative pocket genius' character'sswag
.
I'd like to see more opensource and independent developers use sites like this and say f*** you to the publishers.
You can always hire somebody else to do your promotion/advertisement.

<flamebait>Publishers are obsolete.</flamebait>

There are other options out there. For electronic music creators, ElectronicScene.com is a good site. Ampcast is another good general music site that doesn't get nearly the pub that MP3.com does. Amazon has a spot for hosting MP3s. Plus, CD Baby is setting up a digital distribution channel that will let unsigned artists sell tracks on iTunes.

There are more, and there will be at least one big site to emerge out of this, because nature abhors a vacuum. A little Googling will help. Plus, let's not forget that C|Net is talking about relaunching "artist services." I don't think this domain will be just a portal for iPod & iRiver reviews in the long run.

Let's keep this in mind, folks -- the music itself is not being destroyed, just this directory of it. The artists themselves maintain the rights to their creations, and if they want to upload them somewhere else, such as Ampcast or ElectronicScene.com, that is their right to do. Artists could also sell CDs on CD Baby or just upload their MP3s to their own web sites, provided it's cool with the ISP. Perhaps it won't be concentrated in one place like before, but life will go on.

Also, keep in mind that we don't know exactly what C|Net is going to do with the mp3.com domain yet. It may reboot the service and make it look similar to the pre-IPO days. That might not be such a terrible thing. That catalog had a lot of clutter.

As for Michael Robertson, I would ignore him. He was the one who said that MP3.com was a data company and not a music company. He's a lucky opportunist who doesn't really care about artist rights, and as a former artist on MP3.com, I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.

There's also ampcast.com - similar thing to mp3.com, from what I can tell, though there is a tendancy for artists to have more than three songs... which was one thing that sucked about mp3.com.

M$ has even less going for it than AOL did. That merger between a huge new media company and an old one failed. The old one keeps it's content locked up regardless of it's own new best interest. Time Warner STILL only squezes it's content out through the tightest of bungholes at $1.00/pop-tune. Apple makes no money from the music itself. Do you think that the same big dumb music companies will let M$ screw them around or have any of the money? Sooner or later, music companies are going to realize DRM is a huge boondogle and M$ will be hosed away. Kerfloop - there goes another billion or two of M$'s big fat bankroll.

Oh well, back to ripping the old LPs to ogg. Between my old music and new free music services, I don't need iTunes and other DRM gimped junk. Go get you some new music:

• Ampcast
• Electronic Scene
• the dude who sent me to the above

Then go spend the money you saved on a live concert or on an ablum by people who get paid by their publisher.

M$ has even less going for it than AOL did. That merger between a huge new media company and an old one failed. The old one keeps it's content locked up regardless of it's own new best interest. Time Warner STILL only squezes it's content out through the tightest of bungholes at $1.00/pop-tune. Apple makes no money from the music itself. Do you think that the same big dumb music companies will let M$ screw them around or have any of the money? Sooner or later, music companies are going to realize DRM is a huge boondogle and M$ will be hosed away. Kerfloop - there goes another billion or two of M$'s big fat bankroll.

Oh well, back to ripping the old LPs to ogg. Between my old music and new free music services, I don't need iTunes and other DRM gimped junk. Go get you some new music:

• Ampcast
• Electronic Scene
• the dude who sent me to the above

Then go spend the money you saved on a live concert or on an ablum by people who get paid by their publisher.

Yes, plenty.

Ampcast
IUMA
Electronicscene

Perhaps you could start with me and my band's free music.

Yes, plenty.

Ampcast
IUMA
Electronicscene

Perhaps you could start with me and my band's free music.

I've had material on MP3.com for several years now. Never paid for the service, so I had less to lose than those that took the Gold Membership, etc. But I still don't understand the griping.
The era of free multimedia serving is over. There's just too much overhead to justify providing that much free bandwidth.
For those of you who bitching about MP3.com, just accept this unfortunate reality.

Who's been screwed? OK, maybe the folks that signed up for Gold Membership. But it seems like it's pointless to bitch about what's happened - it's all just business.

It's not the same as being ripped off by your producer [Beach Boys and countless others], or cheated out of payment by a venue after a performance [an ever-present risk in a business rife with unscrupulous people].

There's always an element of risk, whatever endeavour you undertake. There's no guarantee that a party with whom you have entered into a contract and paid money for future services will not go out of business, or sell out to another party. That's just a fact of life.

Fortunately, there are still plenty of free and low-cost music-hosting alternatives [sorry, I haven't checked ALL these links recently, but most should still be good. I am a lazy sod.]:


AMP3.com
AmpCast
Audiogalaxy
efolk
etree.org (SHN)
Listen.com
Lycos Music Search
MP3.com
nzmp3
peoplesound
SoundClick
stationMP3
gdlive.com
FurtherNet
CD Baby
IUMA
BeSonic
My Local Bands
SoundClick
VITAMINIC
archive.org etree listing (SHN's)
emusic
listensmart


My music (if you're curious, totally bored, and looking for something to listen to).

mp3.com used to be a great way to find independent music. After all of the law suits and site changes, it turned into a steaming pile of poo. I found many, many cool artists there back in the day. Now there are sites like Ampcast that offer a great service, but everything is so spread out, it is hard to find artists like I could back in the good days of mp3.com. I will be glad to see mp3.com gone. I would love to see one of the alternative sites become a strong hub for connecting independent musicians with an audience.

I really wish some big name company would have the guts to start a 0.10c service for non-DRM downloads, available worldwide, and see how it goes.

It probably wouldn't go very well at all. Your company could have the best intentions in the world, but good luck getting record execs let songs go for that price or not have DRM on there. That's $1.40 and album, and the company running the service will have to take a cut of the money to stay profitable. Record execs are looking at digital music as a way to increase profits. $9.95 might seem like a nice price for a cd, but after the service's cut it's pure profit - no costs for shipping or printing, and an online service could take less of a cut of the price than a bricks-and-mortar store would. And I'd imagine that few industry executives would be brave enough to offer non-DRM downloads. I don't think record companies would be too willing to let the company's products float off into what they see as the unregulated, pirate-filled chaos of the Internet - even though music from store-bought CD's can be distributed almost as easily as MP3's. It's an opportunity to increase control on music while offering new freedoms.

I'm not saying that your idea is bad - actually, I think it would be great - but I don't think music executives would bite. There's just not a whole lot in it for them - I'm not sure such a service would get them many new customers, and their old ones who used the service might have an easier time getting their hands on independent music. Indie musicians might like a system like this, although there's already stuff like Emusic and Ampcast out there. Again, I think that what you proposed would be great, but I just can't see it happening. From the perspective of a service provider, I don't think it's an issue of guts so much as realities of the way the industry works.

I've looked for an RIAA-free venue as well, and have come up mostly empty, however I will pass along what I did find:

• AmpCast (a service much like what mp3.com used to offer) not entirely RIAA-free, but mostly indy.
• Moonshine Records (an RIAA-free electronica label)
  

Should that read: "Now may be the time to stop cheating people and start paying for your music!"

I dunno... I have mixed feelings on the whole record industry thing. While I try to respect people's copyrights and don't use filesharing software, I don't like a lot of the record industry's practices, and so I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for them when they complain about people stealing music - especially when said people wind up purchasing that music if they like it.

That said, $19 is an outrageous price for a CD (that's generally what I saw at the Virgin Megastore the other day), and when I buy a CD, I want to be able to rip it onto my computer for easy access, or make Mix CD's or whatever. Copy protection is unfair, and at any rate looks like it's easily broken.

The solution to this isn't to steal the music; it's to start supporting the little guys who don't gouge you like the big labels do. After downloading a bunch of free songs by the Jazz-Electronica group Subthunk, I had good reason to buy their $11 CD from their website. MP3.com has some good, free music and cheap CD's if you're willing to do some looking, not to mention Ampcast and a bunch of other, similar download sites and independent labels.

I don't support posting copyrighted material on the Internet, but I do think that the RIAA should loosen up. The best way to get them to do that is to help the little guys give them a run for their money. It's been said before, but I'll say it again - vote with your wallet!

This is a power thing. Only the RIAA will determine what music gets to be popular and what does not. Not the listeners.

I don't know about that... if the RIAA can scare people away from sharing major-label music on P2P networks, the main source of free music on the Internet will be independent musicians. If you buy the argument that free downloads promote CD sales, this might hurt the RIAA in the long run (although I don't think it'll be *that* big).

It's also important to notice that a lot of big-name bands - not just the little ones - are offering full-length, high-quality "previews" of songs - bands like Linkin Park, Jimmy Eat World, and The Dropkick Murphys. In the end, I think the main result of the RIAA trying to kill P2P is that people won't be able to get free music. P2P is certainly a nice way to "sample" music, but there are other ways to expose yourself to new music - anyone use MP3.com, Ampcast, IUMA, or Internet Radio? I don't think P2P is that big of a threat for record companies, and I don't like the way the RIAA is messing up people's finances for sharing MP3's - but at the same time, the bottom line is that people are stealing the information that the RIAA people's paychecks are based off of. What else would you expect them to do?

You should also be looking at ampcast.com and besonic.com and so on- Ampcast and Besonic are NOT RIAA at all.

My best music was done after I left mp3.com. Anyone you know on mp3.com is being ripped off- it's good to support your friends but you might suggest to them to find a better hosting solution :)

What would be great, for people who can't afford a serious operation like Ampcast, would be for some Slashdotters to get together and offer just HUGE BANDWIDTH and storage for indie musicians, so they don't have to resort to mp3.com and giving money to the RIAA just to have a net presence. There's practically nobody doing free music hosting anymore because it is so costly.

You should also be looking at ampcast.com and besonic.com and so on- Ampcast and Besonic are NOT RIAA at all.

My best music was done after I left mp3.com. Anyone you know on mp3.com is being ripped off- it's good to support your friends but you might suggest to them to find a better hosting solution :)

What would be great, for people who can't afford a serious operation like Ampcast, would be for some Slashdotters to get together and offer just HUGE BANDWIDTH and storage for indie musicians, so they don't have to resort to mp3.com and giving money to the RIAA just to have a net presence. There's practically nobody doing free music hosting anymore because it is so costly.

I wonder if he's heard of AmpCast

OK, so how do I satisfy section 8 of the TOS, which requires artists to guarantee that all musical works embodied in submitted recordings must be original? It's a pretty standard requirement in the mp3.com clones' artist agreements, but how can I prevent what happened to George Harrison from happening to me as well?

I wonder if he's heard of AmpCast. A moderation system (as someone else asked for), and I understand that the artist gets $0.05 per download.

A musician friend of mine left MP3.com for them about a year ago because of MP3.com's shitty service...

But yeah- I'm doing something, as best I can. I'll keep it up as long as I can. If I'm not good enough I hope there are other people better than me also out there making an effort...

(I wrote this song, "Houston, We Have A Problem", to express exactly the opinion you just expressed...)

Recent stuff (and I mean RECENT, like yesterday and last week) includes 'Another Beautiful Friend', probably the best yet- a bunch of other songs of all different types like 'Take A Number' which is hard rock and 'Lockstep' which is brutal metal- and on an earlier instrumental album (which is buyable, actually) there's a track, 'Horse', which is totally a nod to Pink Floyd.

Cheers. The internet is a very big place, you can run into people doing what you like even through bumping elbows with them on Slashdot. What kind of Pink Floydiness do you like best? I am in the studio lately doing new songs. Maybe I should pander to you :)

Yikes- you failed to mention the one site (?) that does let you upload oggs. Ampcast. Mind you, that doesn't mean you'll find them there, but you do get to upload formats other than mp3.

Bullshit!

It's one thing if these guys seize control of all broadcast media, shut out anyone smaller than say Polygram, lock out all the rack jobbers and Wal-Marts so it's flat impossible for a competing record label to get in, ever, and brainwash the people into believing they are the gatekeepers to *feh!* quality. Fine. Go ahead and do that, oops, done it already, cheers.

However the set of all audio media is not equal to the subset of all RIAA-controlled audio media.

You know, I produce audio media myself. There's the main page where I've got songs so new I don't even have a CD for them yet- also has a number of full CDs of other types of music. There's the other page which also contains numerous full CDs, this time of much more unusual and eccentric music. These are for sale, OK?

Just because the RIAA has poisoned the well so completely that people won't even fscking buy CDs from anybody, doesn't mean that these aren't commercial, for-sale, professional quality, dithered-and-mastered-from-24-bit, Red Book Compact Discs. It is THEIR fault indies are struggling (which they are). Thanks to them, people have a vague notion that it's important to never give anybody money for 'audio media', including me.

Thanks to them, they manage to set the terms and expectations for all these things, even when they have no right or jurisdiction. I mentioned the CDs I sell through Ampcast. I mentioned they're Red Book compliant. That means they are rippable, back-upable, iTunesable etc etc. Now, I also have mp3s up on the page. I used to have a lot more- and the page got so it'd take forever to load. I axed a lot of the mp3s- those songs are still on the CDs. Does that mean I want to suppress trading of the mp3s? NO, in fact on every CD I put out through Ampcast, written ON THE CD ITSELF is the message 'Please copy this CD for your friends'. And I mean it.

If I ever earn money through CDs and music, it will be because I do such good music, and conduct my business in such an enlightened way, that people WANT to support it by buying CDs of mine, and getting the cover art and stuff along with it, and knowing they contributed to my doing more music.

Thanks to the RIAA, this enlightened attitude is so UNTHINKABLE that nobody in the world would ever for a second consider it possible, so people come to one of two conclusions: (1) I am moneygrubbing slime like the RIAA, or (2) I want to work for years and blister my fingers and labor endlessly over music solely for art's sake and would be offended if anyone offered to buy a CD from me, because obviously I'd rather they download the mp3s and burn their own.

*scream*

I have to say, I am very angry with the RIAA for bringing about this state of affairs. They make a fscking mockery of anyone who wants to try and earn the occasional buck by working really hard at producing music. Music can be an all-consuming thing- some people who can do music aren't much good at anything else. I'm a lot like that in some ways. And I understand, I can accept if there's no place for it, if I can never even after decades of practice and work earn a poverty level living from making music. But GOD DAMN IT, is it necessary to poison the well so completely that nobody can even pay for their own guitar strings through selling their music? And then, to make public announcements that 'all' audio media worldwide will now be copy protected, further putting across the meme of 'there IS nothing but us' and having people eat it right up and fight over, pay attention to, only what the RIAA produces...

Now I know what being an 'unperson' feels like. And as it happens I need to go into the studio and work tonight- there's a tune I need to get on tape and get out there, based around a lyrical hook of 'this town ain't small enough for the two of you anymore', pushing the concept of third party politics. I have a killer chimey guitar hook for it. I don't have all the lyrics but one verse is going to end with comparing the Republicans and Democrats to 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee with fat and dirty faces'. I care about this stuff, I'm going for the throat and the stress of trying to produce something that can get OUT THERE and actually be heard is grating on me in a big way. It's a very tall order. Even if you know a lot of the tricks, making a hit song is damned hard work and will leave you wiped out with the ends of your fingers shredded.

And for what? I'm an unperson. I'm a serf and don't matter. The RIAA says so. And, odds are, YOU believe them without questioning it, because you're fixated on whether to, or whether not to, freely trade the stuff THEY make.

I'm a stubborn unperson- I'm going to go ahead anyway even though nothing happens and nobody notices and the RIAA will probably make uncopycontrolled media illegal next, forcing me to be not only an unperson but a criminal, and still for basically nothing.

A lot of life feels like that these days- maybe partly because I _do_ have that 'musician' gene. So rather than just despair about being made the unwilling serfs of psycho corporate Republicans, now I can pour heart and soul into music which I can then despair about its never being heard, due to years of determined work by guess who? Lord RIAA.

Maybe THAT would make for a good song- a song called Lord RIAA. Bearing in mind that it's not terribly singable like that, also to keep the length between three and four minutes (closer to three is better) and keep the hooks clear of overcomplications, and be sure to have the song title recognisable as the hook of the chorus.

Which is of course How You Do It, pity that by now it's completely a moot point because nobody will ever hear it regardless.

Gah. Kill me now :P

*stubbornly goes off to record anyway. hitting drums sometimes helps.*

Bullshit!

It's one thing if these guys seize control of all broadcast media, shut out anyone smaller than say Polygram, lock out all the rack jobbers and Wal-Marts so it's flat impossible for a competing record label to get in, ever, and brainwash the people into believing they are the gatekeepers to *feh!* quality. Fine. Go ahead and do that, oops, done it already, cheers.

However the set of all audio media is not equal to the subset of all RIAA-controlled audio media.

You know, I produce audio media myself. There's the main page where I've got songs so new I don't even have a CD for them yet- also has a number of full CDs of other types of music. There's the other page which also contains numerous full CDs, this time of much more unusual and eccentric music. These are for sale, OK?

Just because the RIAA has poisoned the well so completely that people won't even fscking buy CDs from anybody, doesn't mean that these aren't commercial, for-sale, professional quality, dithered-and-mastered-from-24-bit, Red Book Compact Discs. It is THEIR fault indies are struggling (which they are). Thanks to them, people have a vague notion that it's important to never give anybody money for 'audio media', including me.

Thanks to them, they manage to set the terms and expectations for all these things, even when they have no right or jurisdiction. I mentioned the CDs I sell through Ampcast. I mentioned they're Red Book compliant. That means they are rippable, back-upable, iTunesable etc etc. Now, I also have mp3s up on the page. I used to have a lot more- and the page got so it'd take forever to load. I axed a lot of the mp3s- those songs are still on the CDs. Does that mean I want to suppress trading of the mp3s? NO, in fact on every CD I put out through Ampcast, written ON THE CD ITSELF is the message 'Please copy this CD for your friends'. And I mean it.

If I ever earn money through CDs and music, it will be because I do such good music, and conduct my business in such an enlightened way, that people WANT to support it by buying CDs of mine, and getting the cover art and stuff along with it, and knowing they contributed to my doing more music.

Thanks to the RIAA, this enlightened attitude is so UNTHINKABLE that nobody in the world would ever for a second consider it possible, so people come to one of two conclusions: (1) I am moneygrubbing slime like the RIAA, or (2) I want to work for years and blister my fingers and labor endlessly over music solely for art's sake and would be offended if anyone offered to buy a CD from me, because obviously I'd rather they download the mp3s and burn their own.

*scream*

I have to say, I am very angry with the RIAA for bringing about this state of affairs. They make a fscking mockery of anyone who wants to try and earn the occasional buck by working really hard at producing music. Music can be an all-consuming thing- some people who can do music aren't much good at anything else. I'm a lot like that in some ways. And I understand, I can accept if there's no place for it, if I can never even after decades of practice and work earn a poverty level living from making music. But GOD DAMN IT, is it necessary to poison the well so completely that nobody can even pay for their own guitar strings through selling their music? And then, to make public announcements that 'all' audio media worldwide will now be copy protected, further putting across the meme of 'there IS nothing but us' and having people eat it right up and fight over, pay attention to, only what the RIAA produces...

Now I know what being an 'unperson' feels like. And as it happens I need to go into the studio and work tonight- there's a tune I need to get on tape and get out there, based around a lyrical hook of 'this town ain't small enough for the two of you anymore', pushing the concept of third party politics. I have a killer chimey guitar hook for it. I don't have all the lyrics but one verse is going to end with comparing the Republicans and Democrats to 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee with fat and dirty faces'. I care about this stuff, I'm going for the throat and the stress of trying to produce something that can get OUT THERE and actually be heard is grating on me in a big way. It's a very tall order. Even if you know a lot of the tricks, making a hit song is damned hard work and will leave you wiped out with the ends of your fingers shredded.

And for what? I'm an unperson. I'm a serf and don't matter. The RIAA says so. And, odds are, YOU believe them without questioning it, because you're fixated on whether to, or whether not to, freely trade the stuff THEY make.

I'm a stubborn unperson- I'm going to go ahead anyway even though nothing happens and nobody notices and the RIAA will probably make uncopycontrolled media illegal next, forcing me to be not only an unperson but a criminal, and still for basically nothing.

A lot of life feels like that these days- maybe partly because I _do_ have that 'musician' gene. So rather than just despair about being made the unwilling serfs of psycho corporate Republicans, now I can pour heart and soul into music which I can then despair about its never being heard, due to years of determined work by guess who? Lord RIAA.

Maybe THAT would make for a good song- a song called Lord RIAA. Bearing in mind that it's not terribly singable like that, also to keep the length between three and four minutes (closer to three is better) and keep the hooks clear of overcomplications, and be sure to have the song title recognisable as the hook of the chorus.

Which is of course How You Do It, pity that by now it's completely a moot point because nobody will ever hear it regardless.

Gah. Kill me now :P

*stubbornly goes off to record anyway. hitting drums sometimes helps.*

That said, there is a simple answer to the eBay problem: simple and literally true. Advertise the CDs like this:

Music CD: Not Mass Replicated

The process by which major label CDs are made is called 'replication'. It's different from home CD burning or low-volume duplicating- both use CDRs, replicated CDs are stamped in an expensive (hundreds of dollars) process allowing them to be churned out faster and cheaper. It's mass production.

Anyone who seriously cares about not getting a CDR in their music purchase ought to know what 'mass replicated' means. If they don't, maybe they can guess. Again, this is literally the technical term for it- rather than saying 'CDR' you can say 'not mass replicated' which means exactly the same thing. Even some small label releases are duplicated on CDR rather than replicated, so if it matters you can't go by whether it was a pressing run, or outsourced. It's strictly about whether the CD was replicated or duplicated.

Oh, and go check out MY music- I don't mailbomb people ;) how's that for a sales pitch? "Listen to my music, I promise not to hack onto your computer and delete your mp3s, or mailbomb you, or prohibit you from reselling the CD you bought from me on eBay." This world we live in...

Here's what you do. Here's what you GOTTA do.

Anyone out there who can play, sing, compose, you need to get cracking and start working your ASS off- produce something. You're the front lines.

Anyone out there who can get the word out about musicians and bands that aren't RIAA but really should be getting work anyway- take some time, do it, get the word out. You're the supply lines.

Anyone out there who can hunt down indie music and spend even half as much as you're used to giving the RIAA, do it! Just because most indie acts put up free downloads doesn't mean you should be doing the download thing only- if they don't have a way for you to buy something tangible (CDs, shirts, what have you), then FIND a way to give them something. They're only doing the free downloads because (a) they're nice to you and/or (b) the RIAA have so poisoned the industry that they have no hope in hell of ever getting paid. By YOU. The RIAA have come between these musicians and YOU by setting up a situation in which the musicians are so locked out of mass media that they've given up completely and are putting up mp3s for nothing.

OK, so who am I to be saying all this? I'm a guy who can't sit on the sidelines any more. Recent events drove me into the studio because I _had_ to start turning out songs, songs with words, words that said what I needed to say.

With tracks like "Take A Number" I'm playing in the major leagues. I have been playing for twenty years and never had the kind of capabilities I have today, and I am using it to put out musical material that is better than a heck of a lot of the major label crap. How?

When I started, you could only get cassette multitracks. Now, I work on a 20 bit ADAT- you can also work on digital audio workstations, that barrier to entry has collapsed. The major label guys running 2" 24-track tape can beat you- but the majors are using DAWs for everything now!

When I started, there was a big gulf between pro and hobbyist gear. Now, I'm using a compressor (the FMR "RNC") that's widely raved about by working sound engineering professionals, and it's just $200. There's a reputable large-diaphragm condenser mic, the Studio Projects C1, also $200. FMR's coming out with a killer mic preamp for $500. You can buy decent guitars from Samick for dirt cheap and stick better pickups etc. in them, replace the electronics. That barrier to entry has collapsed- if you know what you're doing, you can get truly professional sound for damned little.

When I started, the only source of information was trade magazines. Now, the trade rags (except for 'Tape Op') are worthless tools of advertisers, but there's dozens of Internet gathering places for pros in every area of studio and live work. You have to not be a know-it-all but the amount of learning that can be done is shocking. Google Usenet search is your friend. We didn't have that when I started.

I started out dubbing tape cassette releases, buying bulk tapes and boxes, literally pasting up artwork to photocopy tape inserts and labels, with the lettering typed on a typewriter or rubbed on with Letraset. Now- well, do I have to mention Photoshop? Desktop layout and graphic design? Thought not. That barrier is demolished.

So, now that I have ALL THOSE capabilities, now that I am ready and motivated to blow the roof off and make fantastic music (I once took a music business course from a teacher named Peter Knickles. Talked to him after class as he was packing up. His two words of greeting? "Impress me." That's still the challenge, every time), now they want to bar the doors. Worse, they want to shut everyone else down- since by this point, large numbers of musicians realise it's a rigged game and they're hosed before even starting. You've got discouraged or contemptuous musicians refusing to even deal with the majors, knowing what a hose job they'd get.

Musicians make music. Whether there's money in it or not. That's why I kept playing these 20 years (started at around 14- I'm not an old codger, just 34 ;) ). If there's no hope for paying gigs, musicians will continue to make music and try to get it heard through avenues that aren't going to pay in money, they'll just try for some exposure because music is for hearing, and even THAT isn't good enough for the RIAA, they're trying to shut down even THAT!!

Well, fuck that.

I'm going to keep making music, and I'm NOT going to resign myself to a future in which it is worthless and marginalized. There's a lot of you who are ready to copy bootlegs of majorlabel CDs around, there's a lot of you who are ready to stream majorlabel tunes over the Internet. I'm the one who is ready to curse the major labels and never deal with them and function as a serious musician and songwriter completely apart from them. And you know what? I never did like marketing hype and schmoozing people to listen to my stuff and I don't give a damn if you all continue to just wank off with major label crap, persuading yourselves that you're being rebels because you're not paying them in cash, only in attention.

I'm not doing it for YOU.

I'm doing it because of a certain kid I once was, who listened to prog-rock in the middle of the night and wanted to be just like that, who struggled to learn how to play, who eventually learned the truth about the music business some years before it became obvious to everybody else, and whose heart was broken at the loss of that dream, seemingly forever.

The various scars and blisters on my hands, and the tunes I have for downloading, say this: that dream is only as dead as you want it to be. Some of you may be learning this, too.

So. Get out there and FIGHT!

-Chris Johnson