…I guess posting this here is preaching to the converted, but there you go. Enjoy.

So for the five people who follow the link (LOL) you can listen to any TPN Rock show from this very web browser - just hit play on the little flash player on each entry. You can also download the MP3 file directly, subsribe to the RSS feed, or do what Tom does and subscribe to the show in iTunes.

And if you want to let me know what you think, leave a comment or give me an email (ewan@thepodcastnetwork.com).

Decided I wanted to listen to some TPN Rock (awesome podcast - check it out) as I ate. Pulled laptop forward, got the music going, pushed it back, and… splash …Giant super-gulp sized Taco Bell Mountain Dew tips over and floods the table. And the floor. And the bench seat across from me. And it even spreads down into the storage area inside the bench.

It was everywhere! I scrambled to try and dam (and damn) the flood and get the papers and electronics clear - but it was nearly impossible in such tight quarters. I spent the last hour cleaning up, mopping up, and dabbing Dew off of old bank statements. Hopefully things will not be too sticky in the am, ick.

Now I am sitting back down to my cold food, grumble… Ewan - I blame you for this mess!

Link: Chris Dunphy’s Live Journal

DRM has absolutely nothing to do with protecting content, it is about protecting the wallets of major corporations. The funny thing is they aren’t protecting it from you, they are protecting it from each other.

Of course, they’ve spun it as a third buy less music, but then there are always two sides to every argument. I mean legal downloads rising from $380 million to $1 billion in terms of sales between 2004 and 2005 is a great jump, and a huge amount of music distributed without relying on trucks, bricks and mortar stores and silve shiny discs.

I think though that Mr John Kennedy of the IPFI, in syaing that DRM “helps get music to consumers in new and flexible ways” completely misses the point. When I have to tell my Mum that she may have a new computer but don’t even think about playing a Celine Dion CD on it (cf Mediamaxx and XCP) and she gets upset at the music industry, then something is completely wrong. There’s less and less consumer confidence out there…

Link: BBC News.

So how does that apply to music? Pretty simply. You might have a few mega hits on your books (choose your own target here, folks… ) but you’ll make a lot more money if you can finance and support the huge number of artists that don’t selling tens of millions of ’stuff’ a month, but from the artists that sell ten units a month. Which makes sense to a mathematician, but is something that may or may not be grasped by the Recording Industry.

Of course, it’s all about how you find and promote these artists in the long tail. The obvious answer is P2P software, but that just brings out execs in hives. Why? Let’s jump over to Chris Anderson’s site on the effect P2p has on The Long Tail

In this counterfactual world with 30% less file sharing, the lower 75% of the distribution of sales is shifted further to the left, while the top of the distribution increases its sales. This is what should be expected given the estimates from above. Artists who are unknown, and thus most helped by file sharing, are those artists who sell relatively few albums, whereas artists who are harmed by file sharing and thus gain from its removal, the popular ones, are the artists whose sales are relatively high… In particular, if file sharing essentially shifts sales away from established acts toward unknown acts, this has potentially very important implications for how talent is developed and distributed in the industry.
Link: The Long Tail

It seems obvious to me that a solid P2P system, on the internet, for promotion, would serve the industry far better than churning out yet another version of The Emancipation of Mimi with one extra song added every month (currently five versions at probably $15 each and counting…)

Early US records (eg Brunswick Records, who released, among others, Robert Johnson) had “Not for play on Radio” stamped on them, for fear that radio play might harm Sheet Music sales.
Later, in the 1970’s, the Record Business claimed “Home taping is killing music”. Don’t make me laugh - home taping was a fantastic, free way of promoting records, just as Radio play (and P2P file-sharing) is.

With all this in mind, we asked our label not to use any copy-protection on our latest CD, despite their normal policy. So, despite the warning on the sleeve, “A Singsong and a Scrap” is not copy-protected. I have successfully played it in both Mac and PC (Windows 98 and XP). If anyone finds otherwise, we would like to know.

Commercial Piracy is one thing (and copy-protection won’t stop it), but buying a CD only to find it won’t play on your PC is just such a piss-off, it’s enough to drive you to P2P downloading.

Link: www.chumba.com

This CD cannot be burnt onto a CD-R or hard disk, nor can it be converted ino MP3 for file sharing
This CD has been manufactured for usage in regular CD players, but might not play in the following players…
CD players that can burn to MP3, players with CD/RW capability, some car stereos with satellite guidance, CD players with hard disk recording capability, some CD-R/RW recorders used for music, some portable CD players, some DVD players, somce CD/LD convertible players, some game players…
Although you can use your PC’s Windows progrmas to listen to certain tracks, this does not mean the CD can be played in all PC’s.
The first time that this program is used… it gets registered in Windows File.
This CD does not support Macs
Except for manufacturing problems, we do not accept product exchange, return or refund.
Link: Bad Bad Coldplay

There’s more follow up here (appears that Virgin Records are the culprit this time around), and here “Bottom line: wherever you are in the world, there’s a chance that your Coldplay CD came with this DRM, and there’s no way to find out without buying the disc and taking it home, and once you do, it’s too late to take it back to the store.”

I will pledge to never purchase a CD contaning any form of Digital Rights Management (DRM), but only if 500 people around the world will too… DRM severely restricts our rights as users, creators, and members of the global community. We will not stand by and let fair use grow extinct as a consequence of poorly thought out technology and the laws that support it.
Elizabeth Stark and Fred Benenson, Freeculture.org

You can join Elizabeth and Fred’s pledge at www.pledgebank.com. I have.

Despite these limitations, who wouldn’t enjoy finding a homemade copy-protected CD in their stocking? They’re a great way to spread holiday cheer while preventing anyone else from spreading it further.
Link: Freedom to Tinker

Mike Martinovich, manager for My Morning Jacket, says that even before the revelation of MediaMax’s security problems, his company had been mailing burned, unprotected copies of MMJ’s new album Z to fans who complained that MediaMax prevented them from transferring songs to their iPods. “It should have been enough that fans are annoyed,” he says. “But this should be the final reason.”
Link: Rolling Stone.

So bands are shipping direct to their customers. We’ve already seen countless examples of bands selling tens of thousands of CD’s on TPN Rock withuot major label support. A few more of these to break out and get their story out in the media are what’s needed now.

Following on from the Daily Podcast Rview, you too can review TPN Rock on a site that’s not TPN Rock! iTunes has just added “Customer Reviews” to the podcast section of the iTunes Stores (which means they’ve probably been looking at all the other catalouges and went ‘oooh that’s nice’ and implemented it). In some more shameless bandwagoning, if your on iTunes and you’ve listened to TPN Rock then I’d sure appreciate if you could post a few words on TPN Rock at iTunes. Thanks.

Songs by acts signed to UK indie record labels are to be made available to podcasters on a trial basis. The Association of Independent Music is selling six-month worldwide licence deals for its members’ music to be used on download radio programmes. Podcasters will buy licences to access a fixed list of labels’ music. Commercial broadcasters will pay an additional percentage of their revenue.
Link: BBC News.

So it’s a six month licence. Here’s a simple question. What happens after six months? Does the podcast file have to be removed? What about cached files on services like iTunes? What about commercial podcasters such as those on TPN?

More importantly… how much is the licence?

That last song [The Raygun Girls' Can't Die Now] really rocked. Throughout the podcast I found myself playing air-guitar alongside the bands and occasionally going over and grabbing my guitar and trying to play along (unsuccessfully).

Overall I would strongly recommend this podcast to anyone looking for some great, fresh music… I have a feeling I’ll be holding any others up to this one. Ewan, you just got a new subscriber.
Link: Podcast Review Daily.

Using a computer to monitor the hand movements of a “player”, the system adds riffs and licks to match frantic mid-air finger work. By responding instantly to a wide variety of gestures it promises to turn even the least musically gifted air guitarist to a virtual fret board virtuoso.
Link: New Scientist.