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Isnt a patent void when you dont try to enforce it

Oh, you mean like this?

Hey -- ou already CAN get unencumbered MP3s online for $1! Ever visit MP3.com?

• It only runs on Windows, but Linux/UNIX users will crack it; just wait a week, or two;
  
• It theoretically won't affect consumer CD players; just wait for a complaint, or two;
  
• CDs still cost $20 and you only get a decent song, or two;
  

So .73 seconds has nothing to do with how long it took the particle to pass through the earth. As the diagram indicates, that time is 27 seconds.

Another detail: although the researchers located a "pair" of events (that is to say, "two" events) they are NOT "paired", that is to say, associated with each other.

They found one event in October of 1993 and another event in November of 1993. They make no claim that the two events were caused by the same particle.

--Brent

Math & Music

Considering I am an artist that allows my music to be broadcasted for free, I don't have any problem with it. Its not stealing, its promotion. Part of getting your name out there. Of course, I am part of the 99% of musicians who 99% of the world hasn't heard of. I imagine for musicians who are established and don't necessarily need the promotion might sing another tune, but I don't know as I'm not one.

mp3.com (biggest >1.5 million tunes, now owned by Universal Vivendi who, so far, haven't messed it up too much)

IUMA (based in the USA, but international)

Besonic (based in Germany, but international)

mp3.de (based in Germany, but international)

Soundclick (based in the USA, but international)

(Garageband based in the USA, but international)

France mp3 (based in France)

Vitaminic (free + pay - based in the USA, but international)

Washington Post (yup, the newspaper)

Online Rock (based in the USA, but international)

Peoplesound based England

mp3.com Australia (not the same mp3.com - based in Australia, but international)

Emusic (pay and not really indie per se, but smaller label and re-release oriented, based in USA)

Artistlaunch (based in the USA, but international)

mp3 Poland - (Based in Poland - mostly domestic)

Good Google will searches turn up more small sites, thousands of independent artists' sites with free mp3's, some smaller labels that have free samples, many, many links pages. The biggest problem here is that it takes time to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is some incredibly good stuff out there and a lot of crap.

Use Google - many local newspaper sites have mp3 sections for local artists and there are many mp3 sites that are specifically for local talent.

If you're not familiar with mp3.com, it can be daunting in the sheer volume of material (no pun intended). And they accept material of all (musical) quality from absolute crap to incredibly good. They have many genre-based top-40 style charts and new-release charts. Walking through those is a natural first step. One concept they have that can be a big help is "stations" - really a euphemism for fan-generated lists of tunes by various artists. The tunes can be played separately or sequentially. So, when you find an artist that you like and get to their page, click on the "stations now playing" tab. On that page could be one to several "stations" where you might find additional good material that someone else has taken the time to comb out and list. I've seen lists from 2 to 200 tunes long - this can expand your options very quickly.

I have looked for ogg sources and found precious few. Unfortunately, Ogg is still a long way from critical mass.

I'm going to say this, but you're not going to like it.

What I find interesting is that there are literally thousands of free bands out there that are more than worthy of listening too. Free as in they have not sold their souls (not to mention music rights) away to the devils of the music industry.

Simply put, no there's not. You want proof? Spend a day and go through mp3.com. Go through mylocalbands.com or GigAmerica.net and listen to a few thousand bands. Hell, listen to 20. Now tell me how good most of those bands are. The short answer is "not very". I can see that you're looking for a populist way to hear lots of good music, giving the unknown band exposure, and yourself the opportunity to check out unknown bands, but sooner or later, you're going to get tired of wading through an unranked mass of music and you'll want some guidence. After all, you don't want to listen to thousands of bands, you want to listen to the good bands from that entire music pool. Oh, and just to be clear, none of these bands would qualify as 'music pioneers'. All the music that's being put out has been put out for a long time. Beethoven was a pioneer, sorry, but these local bands don't qualify.

But how does one get to listen to these pioneers of music? The solution could be sites like mp3.com (until the mp3 royalties are forced).

I'm not a big fan of mp3.com anymore after they turned aggressively towards being profitible, but remember the old school mp3.com? That's what you want, but it seems that it's impossible to get that because it can't be profitable.

But what people want is a locals only site that streams, guess what, the music from free local bands only. Not just for your community but local bands from all over the US (and the world).

Apparently not, since other sites that offer (or offered) this service have not fared well.

We need a site that collects these bands and we need a streamer that plays them. No CARP royalty problems since these bands are unsigned and own the music themselves. Make it so that the artists can hopefully sell their own CD's or single songs from the same site. Anyway, mix and bake at multiple bit rates and you have a solution to the copy protected CD (I haven't bought one yet from an Indie Band).

No, we don't need that. First, we need to prove that there's a desire for a whole bunch of people to use a service that promotes unknown (and largely not very good) acts that are very musically diverse. We can't even make a good case that people want diverse music, because if they did, the Billboard Top 200 would look drastically different than it does now. Once we find that crowd, we need to figure out a way to make money from providing this service to them. Nobody's going to pony up the cash or resources to do something like this unless it's profitable. Sorry, but welcome back to reality.

The big guys go down because they can't compete with free, better than great music on the web with a low cost distribution.

You're assuming a few things here. First, you're saying that the big guys can't compete with free. This is true, but they're ALREADY competing with free. That's why they're doing dumb things like copy protection. Business is down, but it's not over. Although if they continue to go after their customer base, this could change. Next, you're assuming that the music that's NOT out there is better than the music that's already signed to major record labels. Here, I think that you just have a lack of experience with the catalogs of major record labels. Just what kind of good music are you looking for? Pop music might not be your flavor, so what is? Jazz? Blues? Techno? Heavy Metal? I guarantee you that you can go to a record store and come out with an armload of quality music. Just because your favorite artist isn't number one on the chart doesn't mean that they aren't available for purchase. So this assumption rings hollow with me.

So, where is this utopia? Oh! And dump the necessary registration required to listen (are you listening mp3.com?)."

Simply put, it doesn't exist. Why? Because you're in the minority. It's fine for you to wish that this existed, but unless a few million other people feel the same way - you can forget it. It's unrealistic, and not grounded in real world economics or even real world band quality. Sure, there are diamonds in the rough, but are we all willing to go through a lot of rough to get to the few diamonds?

The whole Jimmy Neutron character evolved out of a Lightwave animation contest nearly 10 years ago. It might have even been rendered on an Amiga. (The contest winner, not the movie).

Rock that shit, homey

That's a big problem I have with Max (aside from the crap interface). Everything is done with third-party plugins. The feature set for Lightwave is a lot more impressive. You could easily spend as much on plugins for Max as you did on the program itself.

More Geek Rappers Than You Can Shake A Slide Rule At

Except Lightwave. It has the best interface of any 3D app I have ever seen.

Geek Rappers of the World Unite!

10 Activision games in a different controller. I saw them at Wal-Mart, of all places. Sucks about the batteries, though. And they are mostly or all one player games, I would expect.

The Most Gangsta Geek To Ever Rock A Mic

Some of my music
Some more of my music
My Web Space, Though this I removed all the pages on to place up the new site and have to reupload past the cover image.

I don't know if you are commenting directly to me or in general. It sounds like you are hooking on my last comment I will sell you my cd. I wasn't looking to market so I didn't list those sites I was just debating the subject. I tend not to want to advertise my music in forums like this. Here I like sharing ideas and would like the ideas shared without critism of my music. There are many places elsewhere that focus on that aspect of music and I take that there.

If you comment was in general sorry. I tend to reply to post to my comments just to make sure I hog up some bits on slashdot but also to debate and not proclaimate.

Some of my music
Some more of my music
My Web Space, Though this I removed all the pages on to place up the new site and have to reupload past the cover image.

I don't know if you are commenting directly to me or in general. It sounds like you are hooking on my last comment I will sell you my cd. I wasn't looking to market so I didn't list those sites I was just debating the subject. I tend not to want to advertise my music in forums like this. Here I like sharing ideas and would like the ideas shared without critism of my music. There are many places elsewhere that focus on that aspect of music and I take that there.

If you comment was in general sorry. I tend to reply to post to my comments just to make sure I hog up some bits on slashdot but also to debate and not proclaimate.

mp3.com (biggest >1.5 million tunes, now owned by Universal Vivendi, but so far they haven't messed it up too much)

IUMA

Besonic

mp3.de

Soundclick

Garageband

France mp3

Vitaminic (free + pay)

Washington Post (yup)

Online Rock

Peoplesound

mp3.com Australia(not the same mp3.com)

Emusic (pay)

Artistlaunch

Good Google will searches turn up more small sites, thousands of independent artists' sites with free mp3's, smaller labels have free samples, many, many links pages. The biggest problem here is that it takes time to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is some incredibly good stuff out there and a lot of crap. I hope that you have a high bandwidth connection. Who needs the big labels? I don't.

If you want people to listen to your music use a truly effective distribution channel, the internet:

cafe
mp3.com
someplace

Or heck, just put up your own website...

Y'know, I hate to point this out to the RIAA, but blank CD-R's are used for a lot more than music. Between work and home, I maintain a collection of several thousand CD-R's that contain various kinds of archival data, (legally purchased) stock images, my own photography and design work, source code, and so on, including legally purchased MP3s (from Emusic) and legal free MP3s (from MP3.com, among others. The assumption that CD-R's sold equals music CDs pirated is just plain false.

I'm fortunate in that the majority of the music I buy comes from independent labels, so this won't affect me much, especially since, henceforth, I'll be buying all of my music from independent labels. It's not a great loss -- for each of the hundred or so acts the RIAA manages, there are thousands of better independent acts. Which is, I suspect, what they're really afraid of.

I have made a couple of the more popular mixes made of the Terrible Secret of Space (Down the Stairs Mix, Protected Mix). The guy who did the original song truly is the Laziest Man on Mars, I've been pestering him since Terrible's heyday to add me to his MP3.com page. If he thought my stuff sucked all that bad, he could at least compose a two word "fuck off" email. :) In other news, my my sig is eerily on-topic today.

As legend would have it, my mom actually booked the Pistols on their ill-fated tour of the Bible Belt. Baton Rouge, Louisiana (actually, Gonzales, Louisiana). I distinctly remember her telling me about it later: "It was awful! All these faggots showed up, and they were spitting on the band!".

What the fuck was she booking the Pistols for, then? I wish I could say I was there. Alas, as a 7-year old (I think), I wasn't allowed in the bar at night.

Punk has been dead for a long time. If you ask me, grindcore is the new punk rock. And I notice a distinct lack of posts about death metal, which is a direct outgrowth of the punk/harcore scene, as much as it is from the early metal scene.

Did I mention GORTICIAN?

Sort of death metal/grindcore with hardcore vocals. Not for you Nu Metal pussies.

And High-C is possibly the first post-punk/death metal rapper...

As legend would have it, my mom actually booked the Pistols on their ill-fated tour of the Bible Belt. Baton Rouge, Louisiana (actually, Gonzales, Louisiana). I distinctly remember her telling me about it later: "It was awful! All these faggots showed up, and they were spitting on the band!".

What the fuck was she booking the Pistols for, then? I wish I could say I was there. Alas, as a 7-year old (I think), I wasn't allowed in the bar at night.

Punk has been dead for a long time. If you ask me, grindcore is the new punk rock. And I notice a distinct lack of posts about death metal, which is a direct outgrowth of the punk/harcore scene, as much as it is from the early metal scene.

Did I mention GORTICIAN?

Sort of death metal/grindcore with hardcore vocals. Not for you Nu Metal pussies.

And High-C is possibly the first post-punk/death metal rapper...

As long as they don't cripple the music to this kick ass band, I don't care.

MUSIC AS FREEWARE:

As far as publishing music for freeware/shareware, this is my opinion on the music I create(as I am not enslaved by a contract or record label):

As long as I maintain legal control over my own music, I will not prosecute those who wish to advertise for me for free(with much strong emphasis on accurate id3 tags!)...heheh.

THE DEBATE:

I'm glad that the debate at Oxford Union happened as this must surely spell out to the Music Industry that the idea is to work WITH the music fan, not against him/her.

CD PRODUCTION COST:

As an indie musician, and without mp3.com affiliation, it's going to cost me about $3.00 to create and mail 1 cd package(CD,inserts, jewel case, etc), due to smaller bulk materials requirements, and therefore higher per unit rates. This will be the base from which I have to work to come up with a CD cost that is usefully profitable, but at the same time reasonable for the buying music fan.

These majors MUST get their stuff cheaper per unit because they buy more, but unlike me, they have more hands in the moneypot, in the form of producers, engineers, managers, marketers, and lastly, musicians, so I think that is why their CD's are so expensive. They don't want their profit margin to absorb these costs, not even a little. Hiring people who know how to use Pro Tools well(for the music)and Photoshop or Draw well(for the artwork) costs more.

They're definitely not in it for love of the art, but if they're trying to develop a business plan that involves them moving away from CD's and people paying for downloads/streams as their sole means of listening, and so that the labels can cut out a big part of their distribution costs, I can see why they have their panties in a bunch about filesharing.

Personally, I don't think pay-to-download makes for a good business plan. All it takes is one generous p2p user to ruin the profitability of that idea, and we all know how much of a waste of time SDMI was.

I say leave the intangible free and pay for the tangible. I agree with the notion that if people like it/listen to it/use it enough, they'll buy it.

Of course, but Microsoft's current proposal is only the first step down a slippery slope. If people prove to accept restrictions "only on specific types of file", they will likely proceed to the next step. By the time people have realized how much control they've given up, it will be too late. This isn't just paranoia, either -- there are already plans for products that initially allow you to do what you want (so that you'll buy them), but as soon as the products have become indispensable, they can be remotely disabled so as only to play "approved" content. And the whole point of DRM is to make sure that you, the owner of this hardware, have little knowledge and no control over what the hardware does.

Get your hearing seen to. I say "No problem. As long as there is choice". At the moment there is.

At the moment, there is choice. Fast forward a few years, when DRM is standard on all new PCs. Nobody has complained too loudly (because, as you say, they have a choice), and so the RIAA pushes through a bill making DRM mandatory. Suddenly you are unable to buy a new machine that the RIAA can't control.

Firstly, I'll install Linux. Or rather uninstall Windows. I already have another two operating sytems on
my machine.

Linux won't do you much good if it isn't able to read any of your files. It will do even less good if the BIOS prevents it from running because it's "unauthorized software". True, that frog isn't boiled yet, but the water is getting warmer...

...the vast majority of music revenues are built around the "pay before you can listen" model in which customers have to buy a CD or cassette before they can hear a song. The Internet makes possible a wealth of new revenue models in which free music can play a significant role...

This article essentially represents how I feel about the industry today. Sure, it isn't entirely accurate and the theories aren't laws unless they work in the real world... But in theory, it looks good.

You mean like the Internet?

The truth of the matter is that artists do have a method of promotion in front of them, and there are even some taking advantage of services like mp3.com (which while not a good venue for royalties, still at least provides exposure) and FightCloud (previously mentioned on Slashdot; $5 CDs with 50% of the profits going to the artists).

But that just doesn't compete with a multi-billion dollar hype machine, for the obvious reason that money makes stuff happen. Heck, even the artists on FightCloud seem to be looking at hooking up with a label, at least based on what was said during the interview mentioned in the Slashdot article awhile back.

However, nothing's stopping independent artists from undercutting RIAA prices over the Internet. A group of independent artists can band together and offer to allow their music to be streamed for free. Anyone with a server can give away mp3s. The opportunities are there -- more people just need to take them.

All your shark are belong to us.

A beowulf cluster of sharks

Hot grits down a shark's pants

Naked, petrified shark

Yep, my dick is definitely bigger

They had better say 'Snuh'.

I've Got A Bigger Dick Than You Do, Too

I know for a fact that this simply not true. I am currently a memeber of an industrial band. The only place people have heard my music is from downloading it off of P2P networks. I do have a siteon mp3.com (Mendeleev's Machine). However, very few people have visited it. I have gotten more exposure on P2P networks by sending messages to people (on KaZaA) or by chatting to people (DirectConnect). I am able to tell them about my band and they download it and give it a try.

P2P has given me a free method of distributing my music. And I currently don't care much if others download my music. I would not be receiving any money anyways. I am making music because I like it and I want to let others listen to my creations. P2P gives me an easy method to do so.

This is similar to saying "when you drive a car at 60 miles per hour, you are speeding plain and simple."

The kind of blanket statement that you made is misleading and makes me furious. It is repeated day after day throughout the media and it is a misconception that the RIAA has tried to propagate for years now (and has to a large extent succeeded) in order to maintain its effective monopoly on the distribution of music. Joe Sixpack thinks that downloading music from the Internet is illegal. It is not. There are numerous legal ways to download a song from the Internet and I am not referring to the murky issue of fair use.

The correct statement would be along the lines of "When you download a song off of the Internet without having previously secured the copyright holder's permission to do so, you might be contravening copyright laws."

I have downloaded hundreds of songs from the Internet in a perfectly legal fashion from sites such as mp3.com , iuma.com , besonic.com , etc.

Please say it correctly or don't say it at all. Otherwise, you are simply aiding the RIAA's anti-competitive propoganda practices.

ogg for portables!!! Not only any portable, but from the same company that brought you the SlimX.

From here:

This morning (2:28am, EDT), I received an E-mail from Y.H. Lee, the Chief Engineer of iRiver's products. He has informed me that they are currently porting the fixed-point Ogg Vorbis decoder (Tremor) to their product. We will endeavour to assist them in any way we can.

In addition to letting iRiver know that we stand behind them ready to assist with technical issues, I believe a huge thanks is in order to the people who have contacted iRiver asking them to support our format. We're indebted to all of you who have posted looking for Vorbis support on this thread, as well as all of you who have sent iRiver E-mails and called them on the telephone.

Let's wait and see...and encode away boys and girls.

That said, my concern about file sharing is that the people who are sharing files are far more likely to share Britney Spears' or No Doubt's latest CD than they are to share innovative, talented artists. If people wish to find innovative, talented artists on the internet, they can find them at mp3.com; these artists freely share their music with the world.

- Sam

In most cases of rampant idiotic teenage download-everything-without-paying yes. However, my 2 CD's full of fully legit mp3 downloads do argue against this.

As more try-before-you-buy mp3 shops come up, hopefully this will become more popular.

Would rather pay for something I DL'ed and liked than a CD of mixed semi-crapola anyday - phorm

I think most people don't subscribe because they don't know what it's like to have fast internet integrated into their lives--and their houses and hardware aren't set up to have it be integrated:

It's got to be a total package that extols the value of sharing data (text, voice, pix, video), not just receiving it, and that also provides mobility with your "device(s)" at least while in your house. Who regularly creates digital files that s/he wants to share through the web? That person needs broadband.

I can't understand why all the web-based digital photo reprinters aren't cross selling broadband, not to mention the digital video hardware vendors. Actually, Circuit City is a big Broadband reseller.

To integate the web into your life, you need mobility, not a fixed PC in one room of your house. For your kids to do their homework while lying on the floor, for you to read the news while at the kitchen table, etc., you don't just need broadband, you need a wireless hub at your house, and one or more devices to go with it. You may need a server and a network.

This bundled solution of two way participative services and mobility is the marketing solution. But, it's got to be so easy you can bring it home and plug it in. It's got to be secure out of the box. It's got be spun in a way that convinces you your life is better now that you have it.

See Quicktopic, Shutterfly, MP3.com, Vonage, and more.

Got me 35,000 downloads.

MUSIC FOR TROLLS

Whooooo bad ass band. Slashdot rulez!!!! Free adverts, yo!

setting up an account on mp3.com couldn't hurt. other than p2p networks it's where most people (Meaning, "I") go for random new music downloads. Legal, too. :)

Triv

You've never heard of my band.

We are unsigned and produce all our material in a small, albeit sophisticated home studio. I've spent the last 15 years (off and on and in between tech jobs) playing with various bands. some of these bands were on major labels (none of them are anymore) some of them were on minors. This new band is totally independent.

(feel free to ignore the following shameless hyperlinked plugs)

We started off on mp3.com about 3 years ago and have since racked up a pretty impressive 100,000 or so downloads for which mp3.com has paid us a total of around 1300 bucks (yes, they actually paid). We produced our own CD and sell it at CD baby as well as amazon.com and we are almost at the break-even point.

for us, the unsigned masses of musicians - P2P is a godsend. It's an enormous window into the hard-drives and mp3 players of potential fans worldwide. If i sell a CD to a tiny tiny percentage of these downloaders, i'm doing great. To do this, I purposely stack my own band's mp3's in my shared folders of my P2P clients. It's amazing when i do a search for us on the networks and we pop up on someone elses machine. I have no idea why someone downloaded us - maybe they thought that someone who was sharing - (some band i downloaded for free) - must have other good selections - i have no idea.

P2P is massive advertising and distribution on an unprecedented scale. The record companies remind me of the russian oligarchs who grabbed everything they could during the soviet collapse amassing enormous monopolies. But, once in place they demanded new and strict laws to maintain the stats quo and keep their ill-gotten wealth.

The question of what musicians feel about P2P is misguided and assumes that 'musicians' are all the same. For countless thousands of bands and DJ's P2P is an integral part of their distribution strategy. Personally speaking, when someone decides to 'steal' my music to the tune of millions and millions of downloads - I have a very high-class problem.

The bar to entry to record and produce your own CD's is so low and the amount of new music that is being created is so astonishingly high it's no wonder the record companies are losing money. music is literally everywhere - it (especially dance music) has become a commodity that should be sold by the pound.

This flood of new music requires record companies to pay more money to keep above the madding crowd of 'amateurs' and, in turn, decreases their profits. Also, the radio and live venue monopoly has squeezed all the 'alternative' avenues of promotion out of the reach of mortal bands. P2P and mp3 sharing is all there is left.

musicians and record companies need to understand that music is now shareware whether they like it or not. when i download something i like - i often buy it. what we need now more than ever is not restrictions on music - it's editorial.

This strategy fails to take into account the fact that an RIAA mole could easily share desireable content. For example, mp3.com has 7 free, legal tracks for download from Linkin Park (not my choice in music, but they are quite popular currently). There are quite a few other well-known bands with free tracks on there. Sharing all that content, which the various record labels have decided to share anyway, will only serve to get the sharing user voted up.

Once the mole is voted up for carrying lots of valid files that people are interested in, the mole begins to distribute poison. Sure, this will cause the mole's ranking to fall somewhat, but damage will be done in the process. Furthermore, the legit files will continue to somewhat offset the attempts to vote the user down. Multiply this whole situation by a number of different automated users, and you've got an effective poisoning attack.

In short: The mole has spread files that the RIAA already wants distributed (win for the RIAA, win for users), and the mole has spread poison for files that the RIAA doesn't want distributed (win for the RIAA, loss for users).

-- an actual quote (made partly, but not totally in jest, i'm sure) by our CEO, in which he suggested that, a day being 24 hours, a half day would be 12. Yeah -- we thought it was funny, too :-)

Regards, John

Falling You -- exploring the beauty of voice and sound

Well, all I know is I will never pay for my songs that I encoded into mp3s. Post sale price changes shouldn't really be legal. But only in this retarded country do we ever see something like that. First GIF and now MP3, the capitalism works for the parties with the most capital, aka big business. Not the people.

Well, my question is can I burn my favorite music (dTx Productions) on to one of these puppies and not lose quality.

Oh... and if you don't have the original cd, well cry me a river.

I think that a lot of fans of "non-hip" music have just gotten to the point where they don't even try to collect recordings any more. Why should they? Record stores basically shit on them and the alternative distribution systemss don't work very well for anything but Britny and dubs of live Grateful Dead concerts.
:-D

You miss the point. By voting with your money and not buying the CDs, you're not given the right to listen to the music anyway. Boycotting the music (and making the companies aware you're doing so) is an effective form of protest. Boycotting buying the CDs but still downloading the music just makes you a criminal.

You're right that there are plenty of people that would be willing to pay the artists directly, and in many cases that's doable (or at least, you can pay smaller labels, which oftentimes were created by the authors themselves). There a whole bunch of artists on Mp3.com that offer music directly to you for money. However, until the large labels get in gear, you're not going to find the big name acts. Oh well, boycott those as well. Again, you don't have the right to download that music anyway. If there's an artist or band you're interested in that doesn't offer their music online, try contacting them. Maybe they're contractually obligated, or maybe they just haven't thought to do that. Or maybe if you can get the artists to put pressure on the labels from the inside, while customers pressure them from the outside, they might see the light. But don't ruin it by obtaining illegal copies, because the labels will then just point their fingers and say, "Look, he's not boycotting our music, he just doesn't want to pay money for music. He's a thief, and good riddance."

I'll agree with that, its not a good time to get exposed to new music. The college radio stations I used to listen to are commercialized or gone, the specialty late night radio programs are gone, its a pretty sad time...

Except for the internet, mp3.com or mp3it.com or indieradio.org and the list just keeps going.

Unpublished music seems like a great way to go, and the internet makes some much available. Most of the music I listen to you probably haven't heard of, but you should have. Make the break.

The UPS Debugger Song: "Just One More Hack (and then I'll put it on the 'net)

Lyrics: Just One More Hack

Well, I've written a debugger and it suits me just fine
it'll chase away your problems, turn your water into wine
it's got so many features, in fact it's bloody clever
if it can't solve your problem then your problem probably never
can be solved
so you might as well pack it on in,
coz it's the best debugger that there's ever been.

It's got everything you wanted, everything you desire
it'll handle fancy structures, set your soul on fire
it'll indirect through pointers, and catch a falling star
and if you ask it nicely it'll pop off to the bar
and tell your friends
how to solve the problems they're in,
coz it's the best debugger that there's ever been.

If you've got a nasty problem and your data structure's bent
and your pointer's in a tangle with your structure elements
if you're losing all your memory coz your allocator leaks
and your girl's getting nasty coz she's not seen you for weeks
then stoke up Mark's debugger
you know it'll win,
coz it's the best debugger that there's ever been....

- Burt MC Weadon (Mark Wheadon), from MUSENET '92

(Ah, thank you Google, for the historical reference to first puclication!) UPS - The Song!"

Just another great reason to be an independent musician.

The last thing I want is a major-label contract stifling my creativity. I can still do what I love, including recording and producing our own CDs, without any need of their help.

Heck, here in Canada, you can even get national radio exposure.

Soon there will be a day when the big-5 labels are begging the artists to sign. All it will take is for more artists to realize that they can do it on their own.

And no, I'm not totally starving ;)

I dumped my music selection down to just what I knew I liked and started searching for new stuff/styles.

I rediscovered 4ad Records, but now mostly I listen to indie (mp3.com indieradio.org)..in case your curious.

And not to plug them, but emusic.com is all you can download for $9.99 a month and they actually have some good music...

In theory, all the iRiver and Riovolt players can be upgraded for Ogg support because of the flash firmware available on the players. One thing to note is that iRiver usually releases firmware much more frequently and much earlier than Rio does, so official Rio fw updates containing ogg might take even longer to release. However, rumor has it that iRiver is having trouble implementing Ogg support. Two reasons I've heard on the mp3.com message boards is that there's some floating point calculations involved or that they've run into legal troubles releasing the firmware (look for the reply by CrashWire). The first reason is plausible, although I don't know if that's the real reason. Can someone tell me if Ogg actually does go through some floating point calcs? The second reason sounds really really really doubtful since legal troubles is precisely what Ogg is trying to avoid.

In theory, all the iRiver and Riovolt players can be upgraded for Ogg support because of the flash firmware available on the players. One thing to note is that iRiver usually releases firmware much more frequently and much earlier than Rio does, so official Rio fw updates containing ogg might take even longer to release. However, rumor has it that iRiver is having trouble implementing Ogg support. Two reasons I've heard on the mp3.com message boards is that there's some floating point calculations involved or that they've run into legal troubles releasing the firmware (look for the reply by CrashWire). The first reason is plausible, although I don't know if that's the real reason. Can someone tell me if Ogg actually does go through some floating point calcs? The second reason sounds really really really doubtful since legal troubles is precisely what Ogg is trying to avoid.