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When I want to check out a band, I search Purevolume before resorting to Myspace.

Wait until some breakthrough artist figures out they no longer need to be beholden to the record labels for their livelihoods.

In my opinion, the article's concept is likely to have a good impact, but on many levels. I think it is important to see that if this isn't directly successful, it may be the precursor to something much more successful.

First, free music is pretty cool, especially if it is from known artists (although I have amassed TENS of fans from many countries and sold TENS of CDs and a hundred or so downloads from iTunes et. al internationally while giving away more than half my catalog on price-optional sites like iSound.com, pureVolume.com, and audiri.com). Free music as incentive for something else is a model that is evolving pretty hard right now, but I bet it will stick around for a long time.

There are lots of examples where successes have occurred with ad-driven services: broadcast TV; "free", ad-driven internet provider services, tons of "free" web sites and site hosting, etc. I don't know that the average John and Jane Q. Publique will mind the ads in this case... time will tell.

A Big Record Company is trying something fairly broad with "free" music. This is a positive step - trying to redefine oneself in business is akin to survival. I think it was W.E. Deming who said, "It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." So, perhaps this record label is trying to change for its betterment.

PureVolume, it's MySpace for bands without all of the personal stuff.

The biggest problem facing independent distribution is the signal-to-noise ratio. It's easy enough these days to make a movie, CD, app, or any other sort of media and distribute it -- and people are doing that nonstop. On any college campus, there are more artistic events than crowds to attend them. The problem is sorting out the good stuff and delivering it to passive consumers.

Old Media established itself performing that service. Now, it's becoming clear that we don't really need them to do it for us, with mainstream music and Hollywood blockbusters becoming ever more WTF-ish and handy Web apps making the task of finding high-quality independent stuff ever easier. I don't think consumers a whole see these copyrights as being anywhere near as valuable as the corporate owners do. Remember that Netscape used to sell for $40 [didn't check fact at all], videotapes used to sell for aroun $99, and a CD with one good song would sell for $20 (as opposed to $0.99 on iTunes). I'm suggesting that a media copyright isn't a perfect monopoly: As competitive, free and independent media proliferates, the value of a media copyright approaches zero.

Steve Wozniak, the (co)founder of Apple Computers, once remarked that he thought every one would write the software he or she needed, and people would be free of the big software companies forever! While many quality open source applications are available, there are still many software niches where open source alternatives are either nonexistent or lacking compared to a commercial alternative.

It gets better every year. I've found OOo even more effective than MS Office, at a company where everyone else is using MS Office. That's nuts.

When desktop publishing software became affordable, some analysts predicted that every person could have their own magazine; this is not the case.

Note the following:

• Blogger
• Livejournal
• Myspace
• Purevolume
• MP3.com [RIP]
• CurrentTV
• How are you unable to find pr0n online?

Yes, the analysts were wrong: Everyone actually has several of their own magazines now. The problem is that media isn't worth what it used be. So media companies struggle to hold onto the most valuable things they have, while consumers see less and less importance in any single item.

You haven't heard of Switchfoot, have you?
It may be rare for a Christian band to acheive mainstream popularity, but the odds of any band being a mainstream hit are slim. I would guess that you probably have a favorite band that's not regularly played on the radio.

Browsing the shared iTunes music folder at school, it was rare for me to find someone who didn't have some Christian music on their computer. Between Switchfoot, P.O.D., Jars of Clay, Five Iron Frenzy, Relient K, etc. etc., most every iTunes folder had at least a few songs by Christian bands.

And check out http://www.purevolume.com/. It's not a specifically Christian site by any means, but almost daily a Christian band is featured in the top 10 list, be it Thousand Foot Krutch, Anberlin, Relient K, Emery, and a number of others. Christian music has really grown in the last few years. You'd probably be surprised.

One really neat feature of Flash is its ability to stream an MP3 file within the browser, and do so portably and easily. Take the Xploding Plastix site -- this is an excellent demonstration of Flash done right. (It also helps that their music's great.) Pure Volume and My Space have Flash-based players as well, though the S/N ratio there is pretty weak.

It's a double-edged sword, though, and for every site that uses Flash in a decent manner like this, there's a Flash ad with sound effects, and two more with graphics that slide, blink, spin, change colors, and suck up a lot of CPU for no good reason. On top of that, now we have Flash-based click tracking. This seems to happen with a lot of promising technologies; it has an obvious benefit, but the wrong people started using it for the wrong things. Fortunately, at least there's Flash click-to-play.

There have been hundreds of 'new acts' to become fairly profitable this way, and receive plenty of playtime. Have a look at purevolume.com ever? Yeah, bands get played there, and sell their CDs there. To me, mentioning PV seems absurd, because it's a daily part of my life, but I've found that lots of people aren't aware of it yet.

The problem is, there are plenty of bands that can make a ton more money selling $7 CDs over the internet than they can selling $20 CDs in the store. U2 is not one of those bands. They can sell $40 CD/DVD sets for their new album. The internet is not the label killer that everyone wants it to be, yet. I believe that it will be. I just think the corner is a hell of a lot farther than slashdotters are willing to admit.

I'm not just speaking nonsense, either - my band is up on PV (our old recordings, no new stuff up really - http://www.purevolume.com/valign/ | http://www.valignisaband.com/). We could easily put a few more recordings up (our newer, better stuff), set up a CD on cdbaby, add a link, do some advertising, and make some money. I don't think that would be a huge problem. But making some money versus having someone pay for you to drive across the country in their van, with their fellow acts, playing shows live...they aren't really competing things. A label is about a heck of a lot more than selling CDs.

If you're just starting out trying to get your band noticed and promoted, then try submitting your music to web sites such as Pure Volume or music.download.com.

Take a look at my band's site for an example of how NOT to promote your band. Create a more professional looking site, and give more information.

I've spoken about distaste for pirating here in the past, but as the manager of an indie rock band, I'll also swear by P2P as a promotion mechanism.

Small bands make virtually nothing from club appearances. The money, at least at the beginning, is in merchandise- t-shirts, stickers, and CDs.

Every last one of them provides free downloads on sites such as Pure Volume or on My Space They still realize CD sales at performances and via web purchase as they chase the holy grail- the record contract.

File trading has, does, and will still work as part of a comprehensive business model. The Grateful Dead certainly did rather well considering that nearly everything they ever did can be downloaded from Archive.org.

P2P becomes dicey when a group's success is predicated on album sales, and not performance money. I don't think a lot of Steely Dan albums would have ever surfaced if P2P was a dominant medium in their period.

Most importantly though, it is still a decision that the artists must make- do they want to sacrifice the financial protection offered by copyright law or open the doors in hopes of atracting an audience. In the first, they've got a business entity whose hands are in the pot- in the latter, they are self-promoting and hoping to realize the success that brings.

If you want to see an example of how indie bands at their best work, check out Monty's Fan Club and see what a small band from Rhode Island can do with P2P and a willingness to get the music out there.

In the meantime, I'm going downstairs to get my kids to turn the damn guitars down.

"Isn't that blatantly illegal?"

It appears that we are in a bizarre universe when it ocmes to the question of legality in any of this.

Downloading music you don't own is illegal, but we do it anyway.

Downloading copyrighted software is illegal, but we do it anyway.

One would think that knowingly polluting an individuals machine is just as illegal. The RIAA is entering a weird world where they are justifying a bad action with another bad action. Fixing the problem would seem to have a whole lot more to do with education than with monkeying with code in files.

Even worse, all this is getting foisted onto to consumers who don't know their ass from their elbow. In a lot of cases, you've got kids downloading material onto their parents' computer and thereby mucking up the works. Often the parents know little about how all of this works, and they are then unwitting victims of the actions of both the industry and the kids.

The only solution to this starts with decent ethical education.

Or, get everyone in the universe to listen to Gratefu Dead shows downloaded from archive.org (or my kids' band at Pure Volume- they guarantee their downloads to be completely adware free.

sin city by nice kick pele enjoy.

This is probably one of the most ludicrous things ever. I would guess that 99% of the people who download these movies are a) children, or b) college/university students who don't really have any money to spend on purchasing the movie in the first place. They aren't losing sales. If anything, it is like free promotion of their products. Somebody who downloads a movie may then decide he/she liked it so much that they would go and buy it.
But the idea of taking people to court over this (unless they were selling burned DVDs of downloaded movies) is completely absurd. Sueing people seems to be the answer for everybody's problems these days.

Go and download this music for free, mates:
http://www.purevolume.com/nescienceredemption
We won't sue, we promise!

For many people, downloading music ecourages buying CDs. I just got back from Best Buy where I bought 2 new CDs. Where did I learn about the CDs? From listening to downloaded songs from the CDs of course. Both bands (UnderOath and Senses Fail) are smart enough to realise that by putting songs on their website (or Purevolume), consumers to discover their music, and consequently buy it.

I think everybody ought to give these Sun boys more of a chance, they're attempting to sass their way to the top rather than butt kiss their way there.
So let's see if they put their money where their mouths are.

Nescience Redemption

Hey

I don't know about all of you, but I personally enjoy having the actual CD when it comes to music. I have quite the collection, and it is a good time. You don't really experience a band when you are just listening to their manufactured singles, you've gotta buy their entire CD!
But that's just me... a humble music loving fellow.

Sam
http://www.purevolume.com/nescienceredemption

If robots are now scaling our buildings, we should all be able to sleep a little sounder these days, eh? Boy howdy if there was a robot scaling my house every night I know that no young hooligans would mess with my place.
http://www.purevolume.com/nescienceredemption
Sam

Hey Everybody! A small town basement band has recorded an EP (in their basement of all places) and put up a purevolume site. Check it out here: http://www.purevolume.com/nescienceredemption Thanks! - The band

In all the lawsuits that the RIAA has filed so far, there's been some logical basis for their case - and it's usually something like "People our using our stuff without our permission; make them stop." There's some logic in that: the RIAA makes its profit off of intellectual property that people are getting off KaZaa for free. There would be no such logic in the case that you're describing.

I don't believe that RIAA is as fanatical as the /. crowd tend to think. The RIAA is constantly looking out for their bottom line at the expense of "free information," but I don't think that they're as fanatically against free content as you think. I'm sure they don't love the idea (they're selling the stuff; free content can make bought content less desirable), but you don't see anybody suing, say, purevolume or music.download.com because they have no case and because, in many cases, the labels providing free content are members of the RIAA.

The logic RIAA's arguments have of course been slanted towards their point of view, and "knowing better" is probably defined as "being able to profit and not get in trouble," but there is some logic there, and it would say that a lawsuit wouldn't benefit the RIAA or its members.

I say this, by the way, not as some nutty corporate sympathizer but as someone who's starting a little indie record label that's giving out music for free. There are certainly a lot of problems with the music industry, but you paint labels as totally evil corporate suits. They're certainly interested in the bottom line, but that doesn't make them out-and-out jerks.

By the way, IndyMediaWatch guy, INAL, but if you're the plantiff in a lawsuit and you lose, I don't think that's really a problem - it's not like you'll be fined; it's just that the defendant wouldn't be punished or anything. You have a problem when you lose and you're the defendant.

Modern game systems, too! Hack your PlayStation 2 to boot code from the memory card or modify your PlayStation 2 for homebrew game development

Section 1201 Impedes Competition and Innovation.

Rather than focusing on pirates, many copyright owners have chosen to use the DMCA to hinder their legitimate competitors. For example, Sony has invoked section 1201 to protect their monopoly on Playstation video game consoles, as well as their "regionalization" system limiting users in one country from playing games legitimately purchased in another.

* * * *

Sony Attacks Playstation "Mod Chips"

Apart from using the DMCA against vendors of personal computer emulators of Sony's Playstation, Sony has sued a number of manufacturers of so-called "mod chips" for alleged circumvention under the DMCA. In doing so, Sony has been able to enforce a system of geographical regional restrictions that raises significant anticompetitive issues.

So-called "mod chips" are after-market accessories that modify Playstation consoles to permit games legitimately purchased in one part of the world to be played on a games console from another geographical region. Sony has sued mod chip manufacturers in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia. In the U.S., Sony sued Gamemasters, Inc., distributor of the Game Enhancer peripheral device, which allowed U.S. Playstation users to play games purchased in Japan and other countries. Although there was no infringement of Sony's copyright, the court granted an injunction under the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, effectively banning the use of a technology that would permit users to use legitimately-purchased non-infringing games from other regions.