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JWZ

Bio: I used to be a hacker. Now I run a nightclub.

The reason none of these providers is international (yet) is that music royalties are organized and paid in even more byzantine ways than recording contracts. Each country pretty much has their own agency/organization/whatever, and some have more than one (the US has three to my knowledge). Cutting through all that red tape (this is commercial, not government, for a change) is very, very hard. Read up about some of this stuff at Jamie Zawinski's DNA Lounge.

- Christoph

I was a lieutenant in the Microsoft Army during the browser wars. Rumor has it I was next in line to be one of those little office assistant thingies. We kicked Netscape's azz and left the survivors to build bars and lament.

Someone would like to know how one gets a liquor license and all their other permits so fast and trouble-free.

And then I'm sure he'd like to scream if you show him the way. :o)

Someone would like to know how one gets a liquor license and all their other permits so fast and trouble-free.

And then I'm sure he'd like to scream if you show him the way. :o)

Webcasters of a certain size

Noncommercial stations pay 2 cents per song per listener.

SoundExchange in charge of collecting all copyrighted works (even non-RIAA)

It looks like if you are willing to make deals with EVERY artist(copyright owner) of the music you want to play, then yes, you don't have to pay the new fees that were forced upon webcasters. So it's true, you have come up with one situation where my statement could be false. But that doesn't mean what I said was "absolutely untrue". Webcasting was really catching on, and it got kicked in the nuts. Especially with the backpay.

Yeah, but with the cost of hardware and memory these days and gigabit NICs that argument is moot. Besides, Citrix is not X, and the majority of remote configuration in Linux can be done with ssh and a simple text editor. Set up remote boot with root mounted via NFS and it'll all be centralized on the servers. Just ask Jamie Zawinski.

BTW, Citrix is merely for remote configuration, not centralized. Other points:
A) There's almost no other way to configure Windows without the GUI, and
B) Microsoft hasn't bought out/assimilated/destroyed Citrix Systems yet. If they wanted to, MS could improve the functionality of Terminal Services and eliminate the need for Citrix.

Actually, yes. And I do think it's crack induced. In fact, you cannot play ANY artist (even an independent, non-RIAA one) without paying ASCAP, BMI, and finally the RIAA. If you do, then you are no longer eligible for compulsory licensing and therefore you have to negotiate each fucking song with the record label. AND the royalties are distributed on a statistical basis, based on Billboard charts. So the money would go to NSync or Britney Spears, not the band you're playing.

Anyway, read this to get the full picture of this insanity.

jamie zawinski has a great article on webcasting legality on the webpage for his nightclub.

JWZ's proof of concept pos. Note that he gave up, but IIRC thats because he couldnt find drunk-goon proof hardware.

Try Pro-boxing. Undefeated in one bout with Barney .

A rant about it

The RAVE act basically means, if there are any drugs on your property, no matter whether they belong to someone else or whether you knew about it, are your responsibility, and your property may be forfeit and you can be subject to a ludicrous fine.

The full text of the law.

That's rich. Hey Jamie, should we slashdot DNA Lounge next?

Whenever a user logs in, they get their own VM. They can install whatever they like and abuse their VM however they want. When they log out, their VM (and everything installed therein) goes away.

Yes, it's entirely feasible. JWZ did this for his nightclub.

Although I don't know if Windows is flexible enough to let you do something like this...

In his defense.

He's not a Linux basher. Actually, if you take some time to check out his website, you'll notice that he's created and implemented a lot of (impressive?) technology for his night club.
http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/src/kiosk

He has a network of a bunch of Linux boxes, all diskless, and boots off NFS. It allows the people who visit his nightclub to check the internet, chat on AIM, IRC, ICQ, and it does it in a pretty secure manner (according to him). I read the article he published on his project, and it seems quite impressive. He might run or own the nightclub, and yet, he's got time to build together a fully Linux network that safe and secure for his visitors to use.

Reading the article, anyone who knows anything about computers and about Linux, knows that he's right. I'm a Linux/Unix advocate, but yet, I am fully aware that Linux works well, but it only works well for a set of predefined criteria. Like, its a great file server, web server, dns server, etc server. And that's basically all that I use it for, just for servers. Although I did use Linux for 2 years on my Laptop computer, since I hated Windows 98. But MS Windows finally became very stable with Windows 2000, so I switched over to that.

But in reality, Linux is Linux. Most of the software available is free and open source. There are commercial versions of software available for it. Unix sofware shops have been around for decades. You can buy these software, but most people nowadays don't believe in buying software. Who can blame them, software is so damn expensive.

Remember, there's the old saying, you get what you pay for.

You can also.. write your own software. Emacs anyone?

How is it?

Training tools for learing this fanciful new keyboard layout? Anyone? Anyone?

Want to switch Ctrl and Caps Lock? Make your h's into m's or 6's into 9's? Be sure to check out jwz's XKeyCaps. You can rewire your primary input device to your heart's content. From the site...

xkeycaps is a graphical front-end to xmodmap. It opens a window that looks like a keyboard; moving the mouse over a key shows what KeySyms and Modifier bits that key generates. Clicking on a key simulates KeyPress/KeyRelease events on the window of your choice. It is possible to change the KeySyms and Modifiers generated by a key through a mouse-based interface. This program can also write an input file for xmodmap to recreate your changes in future sessions.

Nice home page Jamie. (BTW This is the guy behind everybody's favorite collection of screen hacks, XScreenSaver, the DNA Lounge and an explanation of cut and paste in X, among other things .)

Multi-format, live and on-demand, real and ogg, gain control, open-source, and on top of that it's called the "DNA Producer"?

I think somebody has been listening to jwz bitch about the problems he's had streaming from his nightclub!

Jamie Zawinski (former Lucid Emacs / Netscape hacker) looked into the option of Linux POS devices for his nightclub. You might want to read about his experiences.

Nice thought, but tough in practice.

You'll have to swear off recordable media, just for starters. The record industry gets a percentage from every cassette and, yes, CD-R sold. Their justification is that you're surely buying these to rip them off.

You can also never patronize any public establishment which plays pre-recorded music, either via jukebox or in-house sound system. The record labels get a cut of that, too, whether it's their music playing or not. Just ask jwz.

There are more, but this is too depressing to go on.

• GlobalSunTech develops Wireless Access Points for OEM customers like Linksys, D-Link and others. Capturing the traffic of a WISECOM GL2422AP-0T during the setup phase showed a security problem.

  Sending a broadcast packet to UDP port 27155 containing the string "gstsearch" causes the accesspoint to return wep keys, mac filter and admin password. This happens on the WLAN Side and on the LAN Side.

  Systems Affected:

  • 
    Vulnerable, tested, OEM Version from GlobalSunTech:
    
  • WISECOM GL2422AP-0T
  
  Possibly vulnerable, not tested, OEM Version from GlobalSunTech:
  • D-Link DWL-900AP+ B1 version 2.1 and 2.2
  • ALLOY GL-2422AP-S
  • EUSSO GL2422-AP
  • LINKSYS WAP11 v2.2

In other news, JWZ's DNA Lounge is having troubles with their Linksys WAP11-based wireless link, which is their only connectivity right now.

• "...the best sustained throughput they can handle is on the order of 64k."

(They lost their T1 due to XO's bankrupcy and above.net closing a facility. Another T1 is on the way, but it'll be a couple weeks...)

• GlobalSunTech develops Wireless Access Points for OEM customers like Linksys, D-Link and others. Capturing the traffic of a WISECOM GL2422AP-0T during the setup phase showed a security problem.

  Sending a broadcast packet to UDP port 27155 containing the string "gstsearch" causes the accesspoint to return wep keys, mac filter and admin password. This happens on the WLAN Side and on the LAN Side.

  Systems Affected:

  • 
    Vulnerable, tested, OEM Version from GlobalSunTech:
    
  • WISECOM GL2422AP-0T
  
  Possibly vulnerable, not tested, OEM Version from GlobalSunTech:
  • D-Link DWL-900AP+ B1 version 2.1 and 2.2
  • ALLOY GL-2422AP-S
  • EUSSO GL2422-AP
  • LINKSYS WAP11 v2.2

In other news, JWZ's DNA Lounge is having troubles with their Linksys WAP11-based wireless link, which is their only connectivity right now.

• "...the best sustained throughput they can handle is on the order of 64k."

(They lost their T1 due to XO's bankrupcy and above.net closing a facility. Another T1 is on the way, but it'll be a couple weeks...)

Jamie Zawinksi (of netscape and Dna Lounge fame

Had a webcam going in the club during remodelling.
Someone stole the web cam while is was broadcasting. And JWZ has a HORRIBLE picture of some figure coming up the the cam... and then no more pictures!

I couldn't find the pics on the site...

DNA Lounge It's JWZ's club. (JWZ of emacs/netscape/mozilla fame).

is how they order the page so that the latest post is on the top of the page. So if you haven't been there for a while, you start reading from the bottom, scroll down, scroll down because the person wrote a lot, and then you have to scroll back up! More annoying is if the dates are sorted in reverse, but each blog that were written in a day are sorted normally according to time. scroll down, scroll down, scroll back up. Annoying. I don't think blogging sites have a feature to sort dates in the right order. Do like DNA Lounge and do it right.

And since jwz is on Slashdot: Howdy, I just moved cross country to a semi reasonable distance from the Bay area - I'm planning on hitting your place fairly soon - still poking around the local area.

--
Evan (no references)

Here is the link to the DNA Lounge page. And yes, it's useful information--although I'd rather use a BSD box as a platform.

http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/src/kiosk/

Jamie Zawinski of mozilla and xscreensaver fame owns a nightclub in San Francisco called DNA Lounge.

He installed IRC, telnet, ssh and web enabled diskless linux kiosks for just this purpose. His code is available, as well as instructions on how he did it. It may give you a good place to start.

Jamie Zawinski of mozilla and xscreensaver fame owns a nightclub in San Francisco called DNA Lounge.

He installed IRC, telnet, ssh and web enabled diskless linux kiosks for just this purpose. His code is available, as well as instructions on how he did it. It may give you a good place to start.

If you really want to listen you could just setup your own streaming server at home or whatever and plug the radio into the line in jack. Assuming you have an always-on connection, of course. If you set the bitrate low enough you shouldn't have any bandwidth issues, but the sound quality would obviously suffer. But then again that probably won't matter if it's talk radio.

JWZ had some perl scripts for doing this... http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/src/icecast/ . It looks like the app doing the actual streaming is Icecast.

He's still got his nightclub.

Also, of note, is Central Computer between 4th and Howard. It's a good place for parts. There's cheaper online, but when you need that last minute firewire cable or replacement mobo, it can't be beat.

Other good neighborhood bars include Arrow Bar (6th and Market), Pow (an Anime themed bar) at 6th and Mission, Julie's supper Club (retro-styled bar and restaurant) at 7th and Folsom, and for late night revelry the strip at 11th and Folsom (including JWZ's DNA Lounge).

• "Electricity is metered. Broadband is not (yet)."

1. When I signed up for 768/128 ADSL, the agreement specifically stated "unmetered transfers." While I was specifically prohibited from reselling the service, I could (and did!) give away access. (I only noticed one other person use my wireless -- perhaps there were more, but I only actually "saw" one.)

2. Verizon (who was NOT my ISP) certainly didn't give a hoot about how much data crossed the physical line.

   Now, about that "metered" part...

3. The amount of data that can be pulled through a 768-Kbit DSL line is finite. If your ISP charges you what it will cost them to route that much data, you aren't likely to hear complaints if you fill your pipe. (Though JWZ did, and he was using Covad at the time.) Worst case in my situation -- 31-day month with 100% usage 24/7 -- works out to ~280 Gigabytes in a month. MAX. In a conversation with one of the Blarg techs, I learned it costs ~$110/month to route 1 Mbit/sec through a Tier-1 US backbone. That's not including physical circuit fees.

4. The electricity argument is valid beyond the metering issue as well -- circuits (and transformers) have limits. If you provide one 15-amp circuit there is no danger of someone running their whole house off it, or setting up an electric-arc smelting operation (well, one of any size, anyway...) A flat-rate charge based on (120v X 15A)/1000 X 744 (hours in a 31-day month) X $0.10 (cost per KW/hour) means $134 will completely cover unmetered use of that 15-amp circuit.

Rather interesting, really... it seems the DSL providers have a more enlightened view of this issue than the cable providers. It shows the difference in culture and levels of greed. Also, my cable provider charges $15/GB for every GB (or fraction) over 10 GB/month. If I wanted to move as much data over cable as I could have on my DSL, my monthly cable bill would be ~$4100!!

Perhaps prices need to rise somewhat for "free wireless" to be ignored by all ISPs, but unlimited internet access is most definitly feasible.

a piece of software reencodes the 160/whatever kpbs mp3 into the desired streaming format. It works, but it's an ugly solution -- even if there isn't any extra quality loss due to double-encoding (I'm not informed enough on the details of the mp3 format to tell), the reencoding process is quite CPU intensive. Lower-end systems cannot manage it in realtime, and higher-end systems can only do one or two encodings at the same time, preventing a single system from effectively serving a stream at 160 and 128 and 64 and 32kps versions, let alone multiple streams at all those bitrates.

It's not as bad as you make it out to be.

I stream the same audio in six different resolutions (128k stereo, 96k stereo, 64k stereo, 48k mono, 32k mono, and 24k mono). The bottom 5 are downcoded versions of the 128k stream: there are five processes decoding the 128k stream, re-encoding them at a lower resolution, and feeding them back into Icecast. This is all happening on a ~700MHz Linux box (hardly state of the art these days!) which is also running a web server and various other services, and its load average stays steady at around 2.8.

So downcoding is intensive, but it works just fine on low end machines like the one I'm using (it was a beefy machine three years ago, but today it's about the slowest thing you can still buy...)

The perl scripts I use for downcoding are here.

The Ogg software may (I haven't looked) make downcoding more convenient to do, but I doubt the CPU savings will actually matter to anyone. CPU is cheap. Wait - it just got cheaper. Wait - there it goes again.

a piece of software reencodes the 160/whatever kpbs mp3 into the desired streaming format. It works, but it's an ugly solution -- even if there isn't any extra quality loss due to double-encoding (I'm not informed enough on the details of the mp3 format to tell), the reencoding process is quite CPU intensive. Lower-end systems cannot manage it in realtime, and higher-end systems can only do one or two encodings at the same time, preventing a single system from effectively serving a stream at 160 and 128 and 64 and 32kps versions, let alone multiple streams at all those bitrates.

It's not as bad as you make it out to be.

I stream the same audio in six different resolutions (128k stereo, 96k stereo, 64k stereo, 48k mono, 32k mono, and 24k mono). The bottom 5 are downcoded versions of the 128k stream: there are five processes decoding the 128k stream, re-encoding them at a lower resolution, and feeding them back into Icecast. This is all happening on a ~700MHz Linux box (hardly state of the art these days!) which is also running a web server and various other services, and its load average stays steady at around 2.8.

So downcoding is intensive, but it works just fine on low end machines like the one I'm using (it was a beefy machine three years ago, but today it's about the slowest thing you can still buy...)

The perl scripts I use for downcoding are here.

The Ogg software may (I haven't looked) make downcoding more convenient to do, but I doubt the CPU savings will actually matter to anyone. CPU is cheap. Wait - it just got cheaper. Wait - there it goes again.

There is currently no way for one Icecast daemon to serve both MP3 and Vorbis streams. You have to run two versions of the server, on two different ports. Aside from being inconvenient to administer, this also means you can't do total-bandwidth-usage new-connnection throttling: you have to assign half of your bandwidth to one server, and half to the other, instead of letting the usage determine it.

I'd like to start streaming Vorbis at DNA Lounge, but I won't do it if it has to be a "flag day" where I tell the users "today you have to stop using MP3 and start using Vorbis." The only way I (and, I suspect, just about everyone else) will start streaming Vorbis is if it is convenient to give people a choice of whether to listen to MP3 or Vorbis versions of the stream. As you can see on our audio page, we stream in many different bitrates, by having the "master" stream be downcoded into various lower resolution streams. Until I can do exactly that with Vorbis, there's no way I'll use it.

The way to encourage adoption of Vorbis is to make it be an option without shutting out existing MP3 users. As the number of Vorbis users grows, you can then think about phasing out support for MP3. But a flag day will never happen unless they give us a convenient upgrade path.

The new version of Icecast has been an even bigger vaporware disappointment than Vorbis has been (weren't the both targetted for release by the end of 2000?)

(Not to mention that the current releases of Icecast still have completely broken metadata streaming, and are (again) incompatible with Shoutcast's directory services.)

There is currently no way for one Icecast daemon to serve both MP3 and Vorbis streams. You have to run two versions of the server, on two different ports. Aside from being inconvenient to administer, this also means you can't do total-bandwidth-usage new-connnection throttling: you have to assign half of your bandwidth to one server, and half to the other, instead of letting the usage determine it.

I'd like to start streaming Vorbis at DNA Lounge, but I won't do it if it has to be a "flag day" where I tell the users "today you have to stop using MP3 and start using Vorbis." The only way I (and, I suspect, just about everyone else) will start streaming Vorbis is if it is convenient to give people a choice of whether to listen to MP3 or Vorbis versions of the stream. As you can see on our audio page, we stream in many different bitrates, by having the "master" stream be downcoded into various lower resolution streams. Until I can do exactly that with Vorbis, there's no way I'll use it.

The way to encourage adoption of Vorbis is to make it be an option without shutting out existing MP3 users. As the number of Vorbis users grows, you can then think about phasing out support for MP3. But a flag day will never happen unless they give us a convenient upgrade path.

The new version of Icecast has been an even bigger vaporware disappointment than Vorbis has been (weren't the both targetted for release by the end of 2000?)

(Not to mention that the current releases of Icecast still have completely broken metadata streaming, and are (again) incompatible with Shoutcast's directory services.)

Since I couldn't get this story submitted (too much Microsoft crap to fight through, apparently), this seems like a good place to pass on the story: Cuban says Yahoo!'s RIAA deal was designed to stifle competition

Mark Cuban:

Now, no one asked me any of these things prior, during, or after the first or second pricing. I'm not sure that this matters. But if it does, here it is: The Yahoo! deal I worked on, if it resembles the deal the CARP ruling was built on, was designed so that there would be less competition, and so that small webcasters who needed to live off of a "percentage-of-revenue" to survive, couldn't.

As originally seen at: http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2002/06.htm l#24-jun-2002, although JWZ seems to have taken down that news post at the moment (?).

P.S. Does anyone else who lost moderator access on the Thread of Doom find that they can't get any stories submitted any more, or is it just me? I'm beginning to cultivate a healthy persecution complex :)

Jamie Zawinski has produced a nice document describing how he did it, problems he faced, etc.

[LINK]

Oh yes, jwz is throwing a Mozilla 1.0 release party at DNA Lounge. I wouldn't call it "being sorry about quitting the project and dissing it", though... As I understand it, he never said that he didn't want Mozilla to succeed; all he said was that it was moving to slowly for him and he wanted to spend his time on something else. In fact, he would like to use it at his terminals at DNA Lounge, but can't do so yet because there is no way to rebind the mouse buttons. (I'm not posting the bug number here since I don't want Bugzilla to be slashdotted once again.)

Also check out his backstage log entry about this party; interesting stuff.

It took the guy an entire year to rehab a single nightclub, and he's still moaning about the long Mozilla release schedule?

Well, Mozilla may or may not have faced roadblocks of their own devising (I wasn't there, so I won't pretend to know. The DNA Lounge, though, famously faced roadblocks made of red tape and paper trails. Heck, I don't know if you could every permit you would need to run a nightclub in my wimpy little city in any kind of reasonable timeframe...

Hey kids! Today I'm going to take this opportunity to ridicule my former employers, now that they are customers!

On June 12, we're hosting the release party for Mozilla 1.0. For those of you who haven't been following along at home, my first ever experience in nightclub promotion was throwing the first Mozilla party back in 1998. A year later, when the company proved to me that its head was so far up its collective ass that it wasn't going to be able to ship anything usable before I went insane, I threw a second party and quit in April 1999.

Well, it's now a bit over three years since I quit, and they're finally about to release 1.0! I'm actually very happy for them, because I think it will end up being a good product. But I'm sure glad I didn't have to help them roll that boulder up the hill for those last three years. In that time, I took about a year off, and then Barry and I created a whole new business from scratch in a completely different industry, and that was far more interesting than continuing to work on the same old thing I'd been doing since 1994. (Or 1985, depending on how you count.)

So anyway, I'm organizing this party for them.
...

Hey kids! Today I'm going to take this opportunity to ridicule my former employers, now that they are customers!

On June 12, we're hosting the release party for Mozilla 1.0. For those of you who haven't been following along at home, my first ever experience in nightclub promotion was throwing the first Mozilla party back in 1998. A year later, when the company proved to me that its head was so far up its collective ass that it wasn't going to be able to ship anything usable before I went insane, I threw a second party and quit in April 1999.

Well, it's now a bit over three years since I quit, and they're finally about to release 1.0! I'm actually very happy for them, because I think it will end up being a good product. But I'm sure glad I didn't have to help them roll that boulder up the hill for those last three years. In that time, I took about a year off, and then Barry and I created a whole new business from scratch in a completely different industry, and that was far more interesting than continuing to work on the same old thing I'd been doing since 1994. (Or 1985, depending on how you count.)

So anyway, I'm organizing this party for them.
...

You might want to read this article by Jamie Zawinski (of Lucid Emacs/Netscape fame) on his attempts to get a Linux PPOS app for his club, DNA Lounge. Includes source code for his own one - I dont expect it meets your reqs but the article is useful for a review of the state of the art.

this will even effect your clubs webcast? all your streams are from you own place right? its not like your a 'radio' station.

Absolutely. It's all explained in my summary of the rules.

In order to have music performed (live, and DJ) in my club, I already pay ASCAP/BMI/etc thousands of dollars a year. On top of that, I pay them more thousands per year to simulcast that on the internet. I don't recall where the breakdown is, but the total of the two comes to around $7,000 per year.

If these new rules go through, then I'm going to owe an additional $7,000 per year, retroactive to when we started webcasting: and we've got just about the smallest scale webcasting operation as anyone has. Currently I only allow between 15 and 20 simultanious listeners! Double that number, double the fee.

And that's not counting the approximately $16,000/year I'm already paying just for bandwidth for these webcasts!

And I don't make a dime from my webcast. I don't sell banner ads, I don't have subscriptions, nothing like that. I do my internet simulcasts of what goes on inside the club because I think it's cool, no other reason. And it costs me a fucking fortune to do it. Now they say I should be paying twice as much, because of all the cash that's just rolling in.

Right.

Someone on IRC said, ``how do they expect the little guys to survive?'' I replied, ``No Mister Bond, I expect you to die.'' They're trying to legislate webcasting out of existence, because it stands in the way of their progress toward a completely pay-per-view economy.

It's very hard to justify spending this money to give away these webcasts. I look at it as basically letting people into the club for free: if people want to physically come into the nightclub, we charge them admission, but if they want to come to the club via the net, we don't charge them to listen to our music. But it's incredibly expensive for us to do that, and now they're saying I'm not paying nearly enough for the right to let people listen for free.

I am trying to run a business here, and we could really use that cash to pay for things like rent, and plumbers. I'm always trying to find ways to increase my number of simultanious listeners by getting bandwidth cheaper, and these new rules will remove any incentive to do that: if I find a way to get another few MBps for free, it's just going to increase my RIAA bill. Why should I try?

I took the DNA Lounge webcast and archives down for the day, as well as the audio portion of the video webcast. Well actually I replaced it with a synthesized voice explaining why there's no music. If you run your own webcast, I hope you'll do something similar, to help shake the listeners into action.

I've written up an explanation of how the webcasting rules currently work, and how they will work if the CARP crap goes through. The whole situation is fairly egregious, and shafts the small operator far more than it will affect the major corporations who are able to play in the same sandbox as the Big Five who control 90%+ of the global entertainment industry.

This is all about legislating the internet out of existence, to preserve their previous and now-obsolete business model.

Under the new rules, if a webcast had only a single listener -- the webcaster -- he would be expected to pay $184/year for streaming music to himself!

I took the DNA Lounge webcast and archives down for the day, as well as the audio portion of the video webcast. Well actually I replaced it with a synthesized voice explaining why there's no music. If you run your own webcast, I hope you'll do something similar, to help shake the listeners into action.

I've written up an explanation of how the webcasting rules currently work, and how they will work if the CARP crap goes through. The whole situation is fairly egregious, and shafts the small operator far more than it will affect the major corporations who are able to play in the same sandbox as the Big Five who control 90%+ of the global entertainment industry.

This is all about legislating the internet out of existence, to preserve their previous and now-obsolete business model.

Under the new rules, if a webcast had only a single listener -- the webcaster -- he would be expected to pay $184/year for streaming music to himself!

I took the DNA Lounge webcast and archives down for the day, as well as the audio portion of the video webcast. Well actually I replaced it with a synthesized voice explaining why there's no music. If you run your own webcast, I hope you'll do something similar, to help shake the listeners into action.

I've written up an explanation of how the webcasting rules currently work, and how they will work if the CARP crap goes through. The whole situation is fairly egregious, and shafts the small operator far more than it will affect the major corporations who are able to play in the same sandbox as the Big Five who control 90%+ of the global entertainment industry.

This is all about legislating the internet out of existence, to preserve their previous and now-obsolete business model.

Under the new rules, if a webcast had only a single listener -- the webcaster -- he would be expected to pay $184/year for streaming music to himself!

I hate to be redundant here, but since I just finished posting this URL as a follow-up to another post I just read, I drop it here as well, as it will probably take anyone a while to find it otherwise. This page has all the gritty details of what he's got running:

http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/src/kiosk/

JWZ has some interesting stuff written about this sort of thing. He's got Linux-based internet terminals at the club he runs in San Francisco. The information he's got on the web are for Linux systems, of course, but some of the basic concepts should be applicable to Windows-based game stations as well.

http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/src/kiosk/