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The high prices, the litigation, and very restricted license is what is keeping me from buying music anymore.

Want a background track for you online video?. Forbidden. Want to make a clip a ringtone? Forbidden. Want to convert it to play on your MP3 player? Forbidden. Want to use it for annimated christmas lights? Forbidden.

Basically anything other than private in home playing of the vinyl is forbidden.

If you want to sequence Christmas Lights you can buy an additional license for the public performance. The number of titles are extremely limited and it will cost you an extra bundle of cash for the privilage of making one of those few songs popular.

The legal licenses are listed here for about $30 per track.
http://store.lightorama.com/sequences.html

If you want to use another track, good luck..

License rights for additional songs are currently under negotiation and they will be added to this page as contracts are signed.

TSO at least has been generous and provided a free license to use some tracks. Good job. You still need to buy the album though. That is fair enough.
http://www.lightorama.com/FreeTSO.html

The high prices, the litigation, and very restricted license is what is keeping me from buying music anymore.

Want a background track for you online video?. Forbidden. Want to make a clip a ringtone? Forbidden. Want to convert it to play on your MP3 player? Forbidden. Want to use it for annimated christmas lights? Forbidden.

Basically anything other than private in home playing of the vinyl is forbidden.

If you want to sequence Christmas Lights you can buy an additional license for the public performance. The number of titles are extremely limited and it will cost you an extra bundle of cash for the privilage of making one of those few songs popular.

The legal licenses are listed here for about $30 per track.
http://store.lightorama.com/sequences.html

If you want to use another track, good luck..

License rights for additional songs are currently under negotiation and they will be added to this page as contracts are signed.

TSO at least has been generous and provided a free license to use some tracks. Good job. You still need to buy the album though. That is fair enough.
http://www.lightorama.com/FreeTSO.html

That's it? When I read "high powered", I was expecting switching 500-amp supplies to banks of flood lights. I wasn't expecting... this.

This is the same stuff that hobbyists and others have been doing for years. Their lights also perform outdoors, in occasional high winds, at extreme temperatures. The only thing that MIGHT be interesting here is the music analysis program, if it's capable of picking up actual musical qualities, rather than just levels of noise.

a) something I wanted to hear and
b) something I could use the way I wanted to use it.

Now I don't because a) or b) (or more and more often both) are simply not fulfilled. Must be because I copy that shit that ain't even worth wasting the bandwidth.

With the digital age, this is very true. As we have more and more uses for music, the restrictions prohibit each possible use. Each restriction is a devaluation of the CD. How do we tell the music industry to get real?

I shoot digital video and post on Youtube. I assemble powerpoint slideshows for weddings. I thought of doing an animated christmas light show, but canned the idea due to the cost of licensing from a very limited library offered on Lights O Rama.

License rights for additional songs are currently under negotiation and they will be added to this page as contracts are signed.

So far their list of legal music that can be licensed is now up to 12 choices. Wow, huge legal catalog. It's about $30/song for most tracks for the license. You still have to buy the album in addition to getting the license for some songs. Some come with a 128K MP3. Wow, I can play one of the same dozen or so songs played everywhere. No thanks.
http://store.lightorama.com/sequences.html

Somehow the "For Private home use only, No public performance" just cuts the value to next to nothing if I can't have a music track on youtube, do a christmas light show to music or play music in sync with the slideshow. End result.. I don't spend top dollar on CD's I can't use.

It doesn't mean I pirate them. I look for other stuff without the legal risk or do without.

I won't be doing a Animated Christmas display again this year. I have a full DMX512 sequencer, dimmer packs, cable, but, I'm not using it for Christmas Lights. I won't be putting it on youtube, and I'm not buying the CD. There is no reason to buy the CD. I can't use it. All public uses is forbidden.

Lock-in is anything that creates barriers to moving to a competitor.

Often lock-in is the driving force to open standards and the proprietary vendors have to change or die. The most recent example of this that I can point to is the theatrical lighting industry. Martin, Strand, MSI, and other inteligent lighting manufactures all had their own standard for running lighting. Touring companies found it difficult to interface with all the lighting systems. A committie was formed to produce a standard that wasn't any of the already established standards to avoid any patent and royalty bias toward any one manufacture.

The birth of the DMX-512 standard came out. Now it is almost impossible to sell any lighting system that doesn't support the standard.

http://www.usitt.org/standards/DMX512.html
"This standard is intended to provide for interoperability at both communication and mechanical levels with controllers made by different manufacturers."

Almost everything now uses the new standard from Drama, Dance, and Club Nightlife. If you buy an intelligeht moving light, It's almost guaranteed to use the DMX-512 signal, even if the connector isn't the standard 5 pin XLR. An exception to the DMX standard is the one for architectural using multiple wall stations for building lights. Even these control systems often output DMX-512 signals to use standard dimmers.

In some specialty fields some still try with something other than the standard. As an example the animated Christmas lights often use the Lights-o-Rama system which is incompatible with everything else.

http://www.lightorama.com/

It is a cheaper alternative with a lower cost per dimmer, but it is limited to dimmers only. It won't run all the disco and concert moving color changing lights. And of course you can only use their software and interface to run the dimmers.

I wondered about all that, and I have noticed some very important things happening at the Ligts-O-Rama website. Ever since the Carson Williams lightshow stood the internet on fire for crazy annimated lights, the question was raised. The first big dilema was with TSO who has a record label which is a member of the RIAA... Ohh bad news. At the time not many have heard of TSO.. The online free publicity has been a godsend to TSO, who publicly praised the lightsohow and gave Carson Willmans red carpet treatment to one of their concerts. This put the label and the RIAA in a fix.. Attack or grin and bear it? The TSO invite made an attack a bad move. But what about all the others that are sure to follow....

The first thing to happen in the back room was to get the software and lighting folks on board to avoid legal issues that could damage their business for making avaliable the technology. Who needs a RIO lawsuit?

The outcome is a licensing agreement. The TSO sequences are free to use with the lights-o-rama program. You must buy your own legal copy of the CD to rip it for the show. Lights-o-Rama is in negotiations with other bands and labels for additional material. Unfortunately, most have decided this can be a real money maker.. and for a fee of about $30 for most of the listed tunes, you can get a performance license for your show. Lucy and Linus is one of the approved songs. Just don't do a show without buying the license. Don't do a show without a license. Not all musicians and lables have warmed up to the idea. I would not recommend any shows to any tunes by the artist formaly known as Prince. That could get ugly, especialy if posted on youtube.

Here is a direct link to the fees for the public performance fees including a list of the songs and artists. The list is short to say the least.. A pathetic list of ten total songs to choose from.. Come on guys, lighten up a little on the licensing..
http://store.lightorama.com/sequences.html

Here is a link to the FREE TSO sequences. Remember, use a legal copy of the TSO track, not a limewire download. My head was about to explode on this one. TSO is wonderful for starting the ball rolling on this and dragging along the label and RIAA. But the songs are on RIAA member labels.. Do I buy it to suport TSO or avoid it because it's an RIAA label??? My head is going to explode!
http://www.lightorama.com/FreeTSO.html

This page explains clearly the need to purchase the CD. I have considered doing a show, but have been stopped by the licensing issues.

I am considering doing a Mannheim Steamroller track because they are RIAA safe, but they want a high fee and an entire selection to choose from is only two songs.. The fee includes MP3 downloads of the songs which is nice as you don't have to buy the entire album. I'll stick to static displays or silent annimation for now until things improve.

I wondered about all that, and I have noticed some very important things happening at the Ligts-O-Rama website. Ever since the Carson Williams lightshow stood the internet on fire for crazy annimated lights, the question was raised. The first big dilema was with TSO who has a record label which is a member of the RIAA... Ohh bad news. At the time not many have heard of TSO.. The online free publicity has been a godsend to TSO, who publicly praised the lightsohow and gave Carson Willmans red carpet treatment to one of their concerts. This put the label and the RIAA in a fix.. Attack or grin and bear it? The TSO invite made an attack a bad move. But what about all the others that are sure to follow....

The first thing to happen in the back room was to get the software and lighting folks on board to avoid legal issues that could damage their business for making avaliable the technology. Who needs a RIO lawsuit?

The outcome is a licensing agreement. The TSO sequences are free to use with the lights-o-rama program. You must buy your own legal copy of the CD to rip it for the show. Lights-o-Rama is in negotiations with other bands and labels for additional material. Unfortunately, most have decided this can be a real money maker.. and for a fee of about $30 for most of the listed tunes, you can get a performance license for your show. Lucy and Linus is one of the approved songs. Just don't do a show without buying the license. Don't do a show without a license. Not all musicians and lables have warmed up to the idea. I would not recommend any shows to any tunes by the artist formaly known as Prince. That could get ugly, especialy if posted on youtube.

Here is a direct link to the fees for the public performance fees including a list of the songs and artists. The list is short to say the least.. A pathetic list of ten total songs to choose from.. Come on guys, lighten up a little on the licensing..
http://store.lightorama.com/sequences.html

Here is a link to the FREE TSO sequences. Remember, use a legal copy of the TSO track, not a limewire download. My head was about to explode on this one. TSO is wonderful for starting the ball rolling on this and dragging along the label and RIAA. But the songs are on RIAA member labels.. Do I buy it to suport TSO or avoid it because it's an RIAA label??? My head is going to explode!
http://www.lightorama.com/FreeTSO.html

This page explains clearly the need to purchase the CD. I have considered doing a show, but have been stopped by the licensing issues.

I am considering doing a Mannheim Steamroller track because they are RIAA safe, but they want a high fee and an entire selection to choose from is only two songs.. The fee includes MP3 downloads of the songs which is nice as you don't have to buy the entire album. I'll stick to static displays or silent annimation for now until things improve.

Computer controlled, fully programmable.
Lite-o-rama

If you're insane and anal enough to do it right. Some of the displays are pretty impressive, though. In an over the top, freaky, kind of way.

Not all RIAA music is Justin Timberlake-equese crap. I happen to mostly listen to modern/hard rock. Quite a few of the bands that I like (Nickelback) are signed to RIAA members. In fact I'm hard pressed to think of a genre of music that doesn't have at least one or two prominent bands/artists signed to RIAA members.

Not all good music is on RIAA labels. In the RIAA litigation campaign, I have used RIAA radar to make my choices as the marketplace can send them a very strong message. The RIAA sometimes knows to turn a blind eye. For example, animated Christmas lights are popular on youtube. The earliest one to be a hit was the Carson Williams house. (look it up) This awesome lightshow had a soundtrack and it was by an RIAA label artist. Here was an entire song posted online. It was distributed to millions. At the home it was broadcast on the airwaves on low power FM. Care to take a stab at the legal paperwork, fees, contracts, etc are required to do this without breaking any copyright law? Did the label or artist sue?

The answer is not only did the RIAA not sue, but the songwriter and performers gave Carson Williams VIP treatment to their touring concert. Compare this to the artist formally known as Prince and a less than 30 second clip of a toddler dancing to a tune on a boom box.

The popularity of the show did raise legal questions. The maker of the automation software in cooperation with the band now has agreements to llicense the performance rights to some of the songs. If you decide to do an annimated light show and post the result online, be sure to get the proper license. Don't animate to a song you don't have a license for. It exposes you to either praise by the band or legal problems.

On this page, you can get the sequences for the lights. They have a contract with TSO. You buy the CD, rip it and use it for your show. It's OK. For other artists they best describe the deal as under negotiation. Which simply means they are fighting of the money. If you use another song and don't have a contract, and post the result online, expect a call from a lawyer for the money.

http://store.lightorama.com/sequences.html
"IMPORTANT --- YOU MUST DOWNLOAD individual sequences. (Packages are mailed on CD). At the end of the ordering process you will see one BLUE DOWNLOAD button for each individual sequence purchased.

Click Here for Free TSO Sequences!

License rights for additional songs are currently under negotiation and they will be added to this page as contracts are signed."

The sequence of most artists with an agreement are about $30/song for the performance rights as indicated on this page.
"http://store.lightorama.com/dehabymast.html

Arranged and Performed by Chip Davis
from the album entitled Mannheim Steamroller Christmas
Provided by American Gramaphone L.L.C.
©1984 American Gramaphone
©1984 Dots & Lines, Inc. (SESAC)

Includes a 16 channel sequence file, 32 channel sequence file and a MP3 Audio file encoded at 128kbps.

Once you have completed your checkout there will be a BLUE DOWNLOAD BUTTON and you can immediately download your sequence.

If there is not a download button present after checkout, that indicates that you credit card requires additional verification. This should take less than 24 hours at which time you can download your sequences.

For best lighting effect: Connect your lights horizontally or vertically in channel number order. If you use the 32 channel sequence the first 16 channels are on Unit "01" and the second 16 channels are on Unit "02". Set your Unit IDs appropriately.

Sequence $29.95

If you roll your own, be careful. It could be a RIAA nightmare.

I used the Mannheim Steamroller example as they are currently on the RIAA Radar page as safe. I haven't checked the entire list of songs on the site to see if any are RIAA labels except TSO which is on an RIAA label which is why

He was recently on the Japanese equivalent of Good Morning America.

He also sells the hardware and software used to control the lights. His website is Light-O-Rama. The major competition is Animated Lighting. The (currently slashdotted) chat rooms at Planet Christmas are your best bet for deciding which solution is your best bet.