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he major music companies may fret over falling revenue, but one label saw its business jump 33 percent last year -- thanks in part to the recordable compact discs that the industry says are hurting its sales.

The label, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, is using recordable CD's, or CD-R's, to ensure that each release in its extensive catalog is always available. And in doing so, the label best known for dusty recordings by Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly is taking initial steps toward creating a 21st-century "celestial jukebox," where nothing recorded ever goes out of print.

The Folkways inventory includes 2,168 titles dating to 1948. Some of those are collections by familiar troubadours like Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs. But many more are obscurities like "Music From Western Samoa: From Conch Shell to Disco" (1984) and "Folk Songs of the Canadian North Woods" (1955).

Most recording companies, if they would ever release titles like that to begin with, would let the master tapes languish once a first pressing was sold out and initial interest had waned.

The notion of any recording falling into history's dust bin was said to gall Moses Asch, founder of Folkways Records. Dan Sheehy, director of Smithsonian Folkways, recalled that Mr. Asch used to ask if Q would be dropped from the alphabet just because it wasn't used as much as the rest of the letters.

When the Smithsonian Institution bought Folkways from the Asch estate in 1987, the museum agreed to keep every title in print. Initially, requests for rare, out-of-stock albums were fulfilled with dubbed cassettes.

Now, music fans hankering for "Burmese Folk and Traditional Music" from 1953 can pay $19.95 and receive a CD-R "burned" with the original album, along with a standard cardboard slipcase that includes a folded photocopy of the original liner notes.

The Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group representing the major music corporations, worries that CD-R technology aids music piracy. Rather than buy new CD's, the theory goes, people will burn downloaded music onto CD-R's or burn a copy of a friend's CD.

In 2002, 681 million CD's were sold, down from 763 million the year before, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But Smithsonian Folkways Recordings has been using the CD-R technology since 1996 to sell its obscure titles, essentially creating a just-in-time delivery model for record companies. Every time an order comes in, a Folkways employee burns five copies, one for the customer, and four for future requests.

Last year, the company sold 13,467 CD-R's, accounting for 6 percent of its CD sales, said Richard Burgess, director of marketing. Over all, Smithsonian Folkways had net album sales of almost $2.9 million in 2002, up 33 percent from 2001, despite its cutting its advertising budget more than 50 percent.

Interest in Smithsonian Folkways has jumped since the bluegrass-flavored soundtrack to "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (2001), from Universal, won a Grammy for Album of the Year and went platinum six times over.

But it is not just rustic American music that Smithsonian Folkways is selling.

A 2002 double-CD set of Middle Eastern and Asian songs called "The Silk Road: A Musical Caravan" has sold 7,800 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Though that is just a fraction of the sales for Eminem in a single week, it is a respectable figure for a museum label that makes no videos, places few ads and deals primarily in music recorded by artists long dead, or in foreign languages, or from locales most Americans will never visit.

"Getting rid of inventory, which is what this custom on-demand stuff is about, is a huge step in the right direction toward making even low-selling albums into a business," said Josh Bernoff, principal analyst at Forrester Research.

Industry analysts say it is also a step toward making all music forever available, one the record business has yet to take successfully.

In 1999, Alliance Entertainment's RedDotNet subsidiary unveiled kiosks that would burn discs in retail outlets while customers waited. But that program failed, in part because the company was not able to secure licensing agreements with major labels, according to Eric Weisman, president and chief executive of Alliance.

Echo, a new consortium of retailers including Best Buy, Tower and Wherehouse, is considering development of in-store stations that would allow customers to download music onto portable digital music players like Apple's iPod.

While the Smithsonian Folkways CD-R operation allows the company to fulfill its obligation to keep everything in print, it is a labor-intensive solution that would be inefficient for the higher-demand catalogs of the major labels.

But Smithsonian Folkways is also venturing into just-in-time delivery for more popular titles. Last fall, the company enlisted the print-on-demand company Americ Disc to manufacture CD's, which are expected to sell significantly more copies than typical CD-R's, but fewer than full-blown retail releases. These Collector's Series discs come with full-color booklets and are identical in quality to commercial releases, but are sold only through the Smithsonian Folkways Web site (www.si.edu/folkways).

The first CD in the series, "Bells & Winter Festivals of Greek Macedonia" proved so popular through mail order that the company quickly made it a regular retail release.

It is hard for some to ignore the irony that as Smithsonian Folkways uses CD-R's to further its business, much of the industry hopes to limit the technology's use.

"It's almost like a little bootlegger's operation going on," said Dean Blackwood, owner of Revenant Records, an esoteric Americana label.

Why don't you take a look at T-Mobile's Hotspots in many Starbucks. They make you sign up for an account with a credit card, although I imagine the phone company could just bill you like they do with your regular phone bill. I use this all the time as it can sometimes be difficult to find decent high-speed internet access when I am travelling.

Microsoft -- and its Passport partners -- are already attempting to coerce users to sign up and give them personal information. For example, if you attempt to visit the Starbucks.com Web site, and your system is set up to refuse unwanted cookies, you get this page. Far from convincing me to sign up for Passport, this message has, instead, convinced me not to patronize Starbucks.

Send them an e-mail

Send them this letter:



Dear Starbucks:

Your company has begun using the same transmission channel that a non-profit organization uses in Oregan.
You may find information about the issue here:

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf ?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/front_page /102975810817580.xml

I acknowledge that the channel which your company is broadcasting on is public, and therefore not regulated; however, as this organization has been at the Oregan site prior to your network's existance, it reflects badly as an attempt to take over a public channel. I may choose, therefore, not to buy my coffee from Starbucks, as I disagree with the actions which your company is taking. I am not asking for your company to stop using it's service, merely to change the channel at this location, as Personal Telco has been using this channel for the prior 6 months. I would be very grateful if you would recognize the prior existance of an organization on channel 1, and change your channel, so as to stop the signal interference from the 2 networks clashing (thereby reducing both their speeds).

Thank you for your time,
**************INSERT YOUR NAME HERE***************


I sent my letter. Did you send yours?

Hell, I used to work for the company that provides the free access (the donor company, WebCriteria, not Personal Telco) and I used to 'work' from that Starbucks all the time. (Computer with WiFi NIC, work phone forwarded to my cell phone, ah, what a life.) I know that a couple Starbucks employees knew I was using that connection, becuase I was asked about it by one of them!

One thing to remember is that it is NOT Starbucks that is doing this. It is T-Mobile. Starbucks has a contract with T-Mobile to provide this service. The Starbucks employees do not have any access whatsoever to the WiFi equipment. Don't blame Starbucks, blame T-Mobile. (Disclaimer: My aunt works for Starbucks, but I personally don't like them. I like small local coffee shops more.)

And www.starbucks.com is "temporarily closed for maintenance". I assume that was thier site.. not somewhere I've ever tried to go before.

"Starbucks.com is temporarily closed for maintenance.
Please call 1-800-STARBUC to place an order.
Customer service representatives are available to assist you
during the following hours:

Monday - Friday, 5am - 8pm PST
Saturday - Sunday, 6am - 6pm PST

We apologize for any inconvenience."

...a Caramel Frappuccino from Starbuck's. I believe Starbuck himself enjoys one after a hard day (night? does it matter in space?) fighting with Apollo against the tyranny of Lucifer, Baltar and the evil Cylons.

What's the deal with Starbucks? If you don't let them force-feed you a cookie, you can't see anything on their website except a page extolling the virtues of Microsoft Passport.

Let's stamp this out now before Microsoft owns the whole web. How about an emailing campaign?

ATT and NTT DOCOMO announced a strategic partnership way back in November 2000, " to develop the next generation of mobile multimedia services on a global-standard, high-speed wireless network...As part of the agreement, AT&T Wireless will license from NTT DoCoMo itsi-mode technology platform." As well, over the past few weeks regular advertisements have appeared in the NYT and WSJ promoting the IPO that mention a nationwide roll-out of i-mode in the US.

I still don't really see what the big fuss is about these next generation services. The two basic constraints are bandwidth and device. I bet that ATT uses G2.5 technology to bring about this nationwide roll out, G3 is just too cost prohibitive right now. In that case, you will not receive a high-latency network connection with a theortical thouroughput of ~128kbps. If you have ever used DSL, you will not tolerate this for general web surfing. The bigger problem, imho, is that a cell phone makes a lousy interface to use the internet. The screen is, by definition, far too small. There is no easy way of typing in text. I really believe in the Palm.net approach with applets that cache most data on the handheld device conducting database queries to provide location and time-sensative information. Especially with the new i705 keyboard, it is easy to input web addresses. I think in the short and medium terms that people will receive certain high-value services, like email and location/time sensative databases, on a handheld and will either wait for home/office/hotel/school for wired internet use or will use wi-fi to connect at high traffic areas like Starbucks or airports. Just my two cents.

MMmmmmmm Venti vanilla Double Chai Latte no-water.

Starbucks rules.

especially when you have 802.11 and sit near the power outlet.

In related news, Starbucks's coffee card, one likely gift to be in your stocking, comes with an interesting caveat... if you want any value-add to your card, you have to tie it to a Microsoft .NET Passport account.

All your coffee are belong to us.

In related news, Starbucks's coffee card, one likely gift to be in your stocking, comes with an interesting caveat... if you want any value-add to your card, you have to tie it to a Microsoft .NET Passport account.

All your coffee are belong to us.

In related news, Starbucks's coffee card, one likely gift to be in your stocking, comes with an interesting caveat... if you want any value-add to your card, you have to tie it to a Microsoft .NET Passport account.

All your coffee are belong to us.

Starbucks is here. Note the "Passport" login at the top right of the page.

Forget the commerical pages... maybe all pages. Try going to starbucks and you can't read any page there (even the privacy policy! ) without passport cookies. All I wanted to do was to check on there 802.11b implementation progress - not even buy something over the web.

Nope, they don't have that one either. They have to compete with Boeing and Starbucks for Washington, so no monopoly. Sorry boys.

Mac = Mercedes

I own both, so I know what I'm talking about.
My friend has a Dell and a Citroen XP, both top of the line in their markets. I have a Mercedes 320E and a PowerBook G4/500, both only mid-range in their markets.

But sitting in my Merc, aaaaaah, that's a feeling. And driving it? You bet it feels good.
Sure it does not have all the gadgets his XP has, sure it does not come with height-adjustable suspensions, etc, but it lasts forever. And you know what service you get when you bring it to the Merc dealer for a checkup. Yeah, baby.

Same goes for my Mac. Who cares about PC users? They are the Pontiac users of the computer market. Or the Fiat users, if you are on this side of the Atlantic.

The problem is, here in good old Europe we have to pay too much for our Macs.

Over there in the 'new continent' you have to pay too much for a Mercedes. Period.

PS: not to mention that your coffee really sucks compared to ours

The authorities have tried port blocking before in the history of the Internet to prevent sharing of objectionable data, and it utterly failed then, as it will fail now.

Though it will be interesting to see if the ISPs try to claim common carrier status as a protection, after avoiding it (and the regulations that come with that status) for so many years. I bet the TelCo associated ISPs will go for it (it's what they know), and the small-fry independent ISPs will fold under pressure from the MPAA and RIAA.

I wonder which way Starbuck's will go when their IEEE 802.11b Internet access networks are deployed. Will they live up to their Corporate Social Responsibility Policy and support free speech, fair use of copyright, and open Internet access?

The authorities have tried port blocking before in the history of the Internet to prevent sharing of objectionable data, and it utterly failed then, as it will fail now.

Though it will be interesting to see if the ISPs try to claim common carrier status as a protection, after avoiding it (and the regulations that come with that status) for so many years. I bet the TelCo associated ISPs will go for it (it's what they know), and the small-fry independent ISPs will fold under pressure from the MPAA and RIAA.

I wonder which way Starbuck's will go when their IEEE 802.11b Internet access networks are deployed. Will they live up to their Corporate Social Responsibility Policy and support free speech, fair use of copyright, and open Internet access?

At $3.29 per grande cappucino at Starbucks (maybe more depending on location), they're about right.

It's unfortunate that I can't do without my Starbucks grande cappucinos. :-)

Starbucks is working on this, and I'd assume they're going to use 802.11b though it's not specifically stated in the press release. The press release is on their web site (under About Us, Press Room) and is dated January 3, 2001.

Here's a quote from it:

The relationship combines Starbucks expertise in creating an inviting and relaxing coffeehouse experience with Microsoft's state-of-the-art technologies and MSN® content and services. MobileStar, a leading wireless broadband Internet service provider, will deploy the network infrastructure beginning in late spring, delivering an enhanced consumer experience for Starbucks customers. The planned technologies represent an early step in Microsoft's delivery on the .NET vision of software that empowers users any time, any place and on any device and Starbucks' desire to address the changing lifestyles of its customers.

It's a lot of marketing stuff, but there's more information on the press release...

Remember that Katz wasn't always in the online media, the guy writes books for Pete's sake.

Hey, I've been a writer and I've even won awards for some things. Each medium is different - for a play, the dialogue is the thing; for a poem, a well crafted phrase; for a short story, brevity but multiple pages; for a magazine it's 4 to 20 columns; for online it's two to four brief paragraphs unless you are a zine.

Katz needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

If you can't hack the format, don't write in this medium!

I completly agree.
One must remember that without geeks, none of the world's computers would work. And without coffee, none of the world's geeks would work.
Check Starbucks Coffee for some great xmas gifts.

Then none of the developers on the team are worth their weight in crap. Out of the box Site Server is just samples. It is schema independent and if you feel that you where locked into the schema you must really need some relational database design help. Now don't call me a M$ supporter but I feel that the Site Server product is a good product if your client tells you to use NT as the web server. You just have to learn that the out of the box crap is all you can do with the server software. Look at Costco's website, or Gap's or even Starbucks. These sites are using Site Server and every single one of them works, and the code behind them is nothing like a sample store shipping with the Site Server Commerce Edition box. In any venture it comes down to the developers skill. Not what product is used. Some are just better and easier to use.
I am not a M$ Salesmen I just use tools that work in the enviroments I am forced to work in.

Coffee? Coffee on the Web? People are complaining about porn and there are caffeine references out there?

That's disgusting!

The stuff stunts your growth. It shorts out your circuits. It's behind the thrtow-away, get-ahead culture we have today! It turns ordinary God-fearing people into programmers!.

How many people realize that Starbucks has a Web site?

We need new blocking software, or a new service. I'm going to talk with the guys at Cyber Patrol to see if I can't license their software and make a caffeine-blocking service. Anybody wants in on this fast-growing industry, I'm accepting venture capital. The first two sites to be blocked are Starbucks and Javasoft

Excuse me, I've got to refill my espresso...