As a musician, I think it's about time they finally did something, even if it is sending out polite letters nicely asking people to behave themselves online. I wish they'd take this more seriously, and really clamp down on the illegal file-sharing that's goign on. At the end of the day, I have made, do make, and hope to continue to make money from the 'music industry', and illegal downloading and transferring of music files robs the industry of money which could otherwise be used for developing artists like myself (yes, I know that the record company execs still rake it in - their wages don't go down because they draw the money from the new artists sections of their companies).

But then I look at my own collection of .mp3.s, and remember that I was a prolific music downloader up until a few years ago (I hammered Napster the first time around, as well as that strange Satelite site, and later Limewire), and feel the beginnings of that righteous belief that "I'm a geek - I should be allowed to get it for free!". I'm skint, and yet I love music - I very often can't afford half the albums I want, nor do I often have the cash to make it to gigs, even local ones. So downloading music from these illegal services is often the only way I had/have of getting any new music. What's a boy to do?!

In my defence (in case any record execs/Policemen/snitches are reading this), I usually only download either a) live bootleg tracks or unreleased tracks that aren'tavailable anywhere else, and so aren't robbing artists of revenue from the sale of said music, b) I download tracks as a precursor to actually buying the album. Ninety precent of my downloaded tracks fall into one of those two categories, with the remaining ten percent being things that were downloaded because I liked ONE track on an entire album, or for special occasions such as parties I've DJ'd at.

*sigh* They're taking all the fun out of the internet. What's next? No porn?!

TTFN

(articolo di Rockol)

Le sue azioni valgono poco, meno di 2 dollari, ma oggi Napster ha liquidità sufficiente, quasi 70 milioni di dollari, per attirare i finanzieri di Wall Street. Si dice, in particolare, che potrebbe essere acquistata da un suo attuale azionista, il fondo JDS Capital Management, che già possiede la piattaforma di musica digitale eMusic e controlla il distributore/aggregatore The Orchard. “L’attuale valutazione della società è assolutamente scadente”, ha spiegato a Bloomberg un dirigente di Munder Capital Management, altro azionista della Web company. “Lo scenario che garantirebbe il massimo valore per gli azionisti sarebbe la vendita a un compratore strategico”: come, appunto, JDS.
Creato nel giugno del 1999 da Shawn Fanning (allora studente alla Northeastern University di Boston) e chiuso nel luglio di due anni dopo per intervento delle case discografiche americane (vedi News), Napster venne successivamente venduto all’asta a una società, Roxio, che aveva ereditato dalle major Universal Music e Sony BMG la piattaforma di musica digitale pressplay (vedi News) e che successivamente cambiò il nome in Napster, Inc. Il suo modello di business basato sulla musica “a noleggio” e il suo parco abbonati (760 mila circa) non si sono dimostrati finora in grado di intaccare minimamente la supremazia di mercato di iTunes.

☞The keen-eyed among you undoubtedly noticed the changes in my blogroll. While it's not complete, it now reflects most of the blogs I read on a regular basis. I didn't list the ones where I lurk about inconspicuously. From time to time I will include them in my regular RTT posting (ah-ha, that sounded good).

Get Random with me after the jump...

☞Men everywhere must be thrilled with the news that scientists have made a major breakthrough in the fight against prostrate cancer.  While still early in clinical trials, the new drug, abiraterone, has shown the ability to minimize tumors and end the need for chemotherapy. Prostrate cancer kills 220,000 men each year. The clinical studies are being done at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. Pass this news on to those you know and love.

☞In case you needed further proof that the music industry is changed forever, Paul Westerberg is offering his new album of 12 songs on Amazon.com for 49¢ total. Thank you Shawn Fawning, a Cape Cod teenager (at the time) and Napster founder. Movies are next.

☞Jim Noir from Manchester, England has been on my music radar screen since 2006 with the release of his debut album, Tower of Love (My Dad). You may have unknowingly heard his songs as one tune (My Patch) was featured in a Tar-Jay Christmas ad in 2007, another (Eanie Meaney) ran incessantly in a Adidas ad and still another (I Me You I'm Your) was featured on (alarmingly) Grey's Anatomy. Noir's self-titled new album is another pop gem. It has an old-fashioned psychedelic pop sensibility sprinkled with synth electronica. Here is my favorite from that album, Same Place Holiday.[audio http://thegrandview.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/09_same-place-holiday.mp3]

☞I wanted to let you know that after much thinking, I will continue to write. However, it's extremely likely that I will be writing at a new address. This morning, after consultation with my Scottish consigliere, I decided to register my very own url www.AyeWonder.com. Besides the obvious pun, one of the Scottish meanings of "Aye" is always or ever. I am thinking of porting everything from http://TheGrandView.wordpress.com over to the new site. You will be the first to know.

☞Every week I try and give you the Grand View's quote of the week. This week's quote is the tagline for the new site, should it ever get off the ground. What do you think?

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. ~Dr. Carl Sagan

☞Why didn't all of you tell me that the television show, Heroes, is terrific?

☞You may have missed this but the Massachusetts legislature is on the verge of passing a law (if it's not already passed) that allows same sex weddings of couples from out of state. According to the Governor's office, this means $111 million in revenue for the state over three years. Hard to argue with that. How about making marijuana legal? It's a double bonus. We stop spending money on enforcement and start making money on taxes. Bad analogy to be sure but lets use our brains here.

☞It seems that cupcake stores are popping up all over the place. My lovely bride loves cupcakes for one reason only, the frosting. Well, she is going to be thrilled to hear this. The San Diego Union Tribune is reporting that not only are cupcakes becoming popular again but now people can walk in to a shop and ask for a "frosting shot." Diabetics everywhere sigh!

☞At some point this week, I am going to introduce you to a very, very special band and their new album. At this date, their album is unreleased (Sept. 13) but I have permission to play a couple of songs for you. I think you will love this. I am listening to the album now and it rocks hard, with great song construction and topical, intelligent lyrics. There's a familiarity to the album but not in a copycat type of way. As they say somewhere, watch this space.

☞Another reason to love Bill Murray or further proof that he is out of his mind? Or both? Bill Murray has agreed to jump out of a plane on August 15 at the Chicago Air & Water show. If I were him, I'd be certain his ex-wife didn't prep the parachute. That is all

Trailer: 24: The Movie @ YouTube

Which major label will buy Napster? @ Wired

Profile: Elizabeth Moss on Mad Men + The West Wing @ NY Magazine

Macrumours.com: The Doctor and the blog @ NY Times

The Dark Knight vs Thrash Hits @ Thrash Hits

Charlie Brooker: Search engine optimization is SEX-Y @ Guardian

The title of the book comes from the fact that if you cut off a spider's head, it dies; however, if you cut a starfish in half, what you've done is create a two animals. In fact, some starfish can even grow from the removed leg of another. Their persistence comes from the fact that they do not have a centralized, hierarchical control system. In the past, starfish organizations did exist, but the Internet "is a breeding ground and launching pad for new starfish organizations." As such, the lessons the two authors outline are important.

Brafman and Beckstrom are masters of finding perfect examples to illustrate their points. They easily tie together Native American history, the automobile industry and P2P networks to provide insight into the nature of starfish organizations. For example, why were the Aztecs so easily conquered by Cortez but the Apache tribe remained fiercely independent for hundreds of years? The answer, it turns out, is the same reason record labels are languishing and Napster is dead, only to be replaced by BitTorrent and eMule. The Aztecs were highly centralized with a capital city, chain of command and stationary lifestyle; in contrast, the Apache's relied on disparate communities led by example and willing to live nomadically - with no supreme leader to kill or towns to raze, the Apaches proved much more adept at avoiding conquest. Similarly, whereas Napster decentralized much of music sharing, it relied on a central database which was vulnerable to copyright enforcement. Newer approaches, like BitTorrent are fully decentralized making it near impossible to shut down.

These open systems are also, understandably, more adept at evolving or mutating. One prime example of a starfish organization is Alcoholics Anonymous which doesn't have a real headquarters or leader. AA is just a system and belief in the power of people to help each other overcome addiction. Though it began as a system for alcoholics, it spawned decentralized programs for other addicts including gambling and eating.

By being decentralized, starfish organizations take advantage of distributed knowledge. Wikipedia does this famously by allowing anyone to edit an encyclopedia page; Draper Fisher, a leading VC firm, does it by having dozens of offices around the world to hear pitches from entrepreneurs. Starfish organizations rely on the community they foster and the willingness to contribute to a cause.

One of the things I like most about "The Starfish and the Spider" is the authors' decision to structure it, in parts, as a business book with clear "how-to" and lists of strategies. One section in which they do this is how to combat decentralization. Al Qaeda is one of prototypical starfishes: they are more an ideology than an organization. Would-be terrorists do not need Osama bin Laden's approval to carry-out an attack. In this light, it makes even less sense to hunt the 9/11 masterminds while not combating the ideology that motivates terrorists. Brafman and Beckstrom say that there are three ways to combat starfishes, none of them are to further centralize yourself, even though that is the tendency (witness the rise of the Executive branch post-9/11 or the record labels in recent years). You can change the ideology of the decentralized adherents by giving them reasons to not attack the West (a future or respect, perhaps?), centralize them (as America did by providing Apaches with cattle and therefore property), or decentralize yourself.

The key, though, for decision-makers and organizers, is to find the hybrid form like Toyota or eBay. Both major corporations, Toyota relies on their much-flaunted production system which relies on outsiders for much of it and eBay has a decentralized network of sellers and buyers, but a central payment system.

At 210 pages of fun examples, plain English and smart-thinking, this book was great (I finished it the day it arrived). Though I found their discussion of the catalysts (people who empower decentralized networks) a bit tiresome, I cannot complain about the rest. "The Starfish and the Spider" will provide an important way of thinking about the world.

Anyways the first concert, that I will admit to attending, was The Offspring, at the Max Bell Centre in Calgary. And upon further review of Ixnay on the Hombre I think that I could do them justice in a cover band, despite my aforementioned lack of singing or musical capabilities. This is because when I holler a la Dexter Holland, I sound fucking rad. And I feel that it wouldn't take much in cred to establish an Offspring cover band. It feels fun and nostalgic enough that I wouldn't offend anyone. Not like if I started a Radiohead or Nirvana cover band, because trust me, that would be offensive.

So there's that for my first blog.

At the printshop, we simply call it a galley cabinet, the place where trays holding previously used plates, dies and type reside. The trays are numbered so that you can keep track of what's stored where.

Pretty simple, eh?

It was, when Typecast Press was just starting out. Shop Boy had cleaned the trays and the dusty insides of the first galley cabinet we'd claimed from an old printshop that was dumping its letterpress stuff. We inserted the trays in order, No. 1 to No. 100, drew up a sheet of paper with Nos. 1 to 50 on it, hung it on a clipboard beside the cabinet and waited hopefully for jobs to roll in.

You know the feeling, right? Will this letterpress thing work? Will we ever get to Job No. 10? (Never mind No. 100.)

Well, we did pretty quickly. Soon, we needed another galley cabinet. Cool, right?

So why was Mary cursing, pulling out tray after tray, then slamming each one back into the cabinet? Because she couldn't find the polymer plate for a restaurant gift card that had been reordered. The first run was about a year ago.

Oh, and about five systems ago, too.

True story: Mary was leaving a job in Denver, where she did design and PR for the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities. She was conscientiously cleaning up behind herself, trying to make sure that the person who replaced her would be able to navigate the nonprofit's files.

It was late at night -- isn't it always? That part of Denver, LoDo, is now one of the glitziest parts of town. Back then, it wasn't too cool a spot to be walking around alone late at night. So if Mary was working late, Shop Boy was going to be there. The hero type. That's me.

So ... sometime just before sunrise, Shop Boy was sprawled half-dozing atop a conference table. (There wasn't a comfy chair in the place.) Mary had spread out on the floor before her an entire filing cabinet worth of photos. She was stumped. How in the world was she supposed to file all this: photos of events, places, people, you name it.

Desperate, she called her sister (a two-hour time difference meant Melissa was already awake for the day) and explained her plight.

Mary: "What should I do? I have no idea how to file all this crazy stuff!"

Melissa (deadpan): "How about alphabetically?"

Shop Boy nearly rolled off the table. Soon we were all howling.

Now, Mary's got a keen mind. She might not know exactly where something is right this second, but she sure can find it in a flash -- as long as you don't move her stacks. She's just not real good with actual organization. (She learned this from her mom, also Mary Mashburn, the original queen of piles.) When in doubt, Mary invents a new system. After a while, it becomes sort of like spaghetti.

And now, the plate storage "system" was mocking her.

After a while, Shop Boy shooed Mary away from the trays, figuring they'd been slammed enough, and found the needle in the haystack by pure, dumb luck.

That's my system, and I'm sticking to it.

Mary?

"There's got to be a better way to organize this, Shop Boy. What if we ... ?"

Shop Boy heard her out, then offered as how perhaps we should morgue her latest system plan. Not for all eternity, perhaps. But at least until we sort out what killed the last one.

***

Letterpress List No. 43

How about an hour's worth of music to, oh, I don't know, alphabetize your files -- or CD collection -- by? Most of the tunes should be available in the usual places. Goofy and great video links are to YouTube.

ABC -- the Jackson 5 (Time travel.)
Lose Yourself -- Eminem (Carpe diem, or something.)
Photograph -- Def Leppard (Mary'd file this one under "E" for "English guys in tight pants.")
The Search Is Over -- Survivor (Under "L" for lame.)
Where It's At -- Beck (He can always find his "weird" button.)
Comfortably Numb -- Pink Floyd (Nowadays, Shop Boy's a little more prepared.)
Angry Chair -- Alice in Chains (Not very comfy either. ;-) )
You Get Me Lost -- Freedy Johnston (Doesn't take much.)
Lost in the Supermarket -- the Clash (Shop Boy's lament -- the grocery list as a treasure map.)
Your Number Is One -- Rollins Band (Looking high, looking low.)
Mary, Mary -- Run-DMC (Why ya bugging?)
Slam -- Onyx (Trays feel no pain.)
Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers -- Elvis Presley (So true.)
Gone Daddy Gone -- Gnarls Barkley (Fun update on a Violent Femmes song.)
I'm a Mess -- the Murmers (Been there.)
Somewhere Out There -- Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram (OK, Shop Boy's lost it.)
*&%$ the System -- System of a Down (Mary hates the band, but can embrace the notion.)

...in short, I am now legitimately purchasing compact discs and ripping them to a music server in Apple Lossless format. I hope the music industry will continue producing CDs. I bought some CDs through Amazon Marketplace in the past, but now prefer Second Spin. Unless a recording is very rare, I'll only pay between $5 and $10 for it.

Check out Amazon, Rhapsody or ,dare I say it,...Napster.

(Via MacNewsWorld)

Shop Boy doesn't like humidity. (Nor, as we have discussed, does he care for some residents of Baltimore that do.)

"Is that you?" Mary asked, wrinkling up her nose.

"What?" Shop Boy asked defensively. "Look, it's been a long day, if that's what you mean."

Mary should have been born a bloodhound. Dang. She gets a whiff of something out of the ordinary, she's gonna find out what the heck it is. Shop Boy even uses, ahem, special French soap that Mary buys because she likes the smell. That doesn't by itself make me a wimp, by the way.

True story: One newspaper that Shop Boy worked for had renovated its restrooms and installed those scent boxes that release a puff of perfume every couple of minutes. So it was that Shop Boy returned home one night and almost immediately was getting strange looks from Mary. Apparently, a molecule or two of the eau de brothel had stuck to my clothing. It wasn't until I brought Mary to work and made her hang out in the women's restroom that she fully bought Shop Boy's innocence.

Whew.

See, Mary will tell anyone who'll listen her rules for dealing with a straying husband: He dies. The lover? "Hey, we all make mistakes, right? Get out, hon. You don't want to see this."

Shop Boy prefers being alive to the alternative, so ... there you go.

Of course, Mary's parents will also tell anyone who'll listen that if Mary ever dumps Shop Boy, they'll find me someone better. Kind of a mutually assured destruction type of deal. Besides, Mary and Shop Boy apparently like each other or something. Who knew?

Anyhow, I'm willing to accept that, as a male member of the species, Shop Boy can get a little funky. After this three-day printshop schedule -- Friday: 9 a.m.-2:30 a.m. Saturday: 11 a.m.-1 a.m. Sunday: 10 a.m.-1:30 a.m. -- you might be a touch ... unfresh as well.

This time, though, it wasn't me.

After sniffing every single item in the Typecast Press printshop (swear to god), Mary finally produced a humidity-warped sheet of the thick paper we were using to print a really cool wedding invitation and stuck it under Shop Boy's nose.

"Smell this ... it's horrible."

"No, thank you," Shop Boy answered. "I'll take your word for it."

Oh, once they dried, the invites were fresh as a daisy. But we were a bit traumatized.

The wedding's in Oregon.

Did I happen to mention that it's a little moist in Oregon most times of year?

***

Letterpress List No. 42 (a little early, to beat the holiday weekend)

How about an hour's worth of music to fill your heart with love, tempt your nostrils with the scent of flowers and wipe any, um, stray thoughts from that simple mind of yours. Most of these tunes should be available in the usual places. Goofy and great video links are to YouTube.

That Smell -- Lynyrd Skynyrd (You fool, you.)
You Oughta Know -- Alanis Morissette (A subtle reminder.)
Guilty Conscience -- Eminem (Favorite part: "Mr. Dre ... Mr. NWA ... Mr. AK coming Straight Outta Compton, you're gonna make way?")
Tempted -- Squeeze (So not ...)
I Think I Smell Rat -- White Stripes (Mary once called Baltimore Gas & Electric to report the smell of a gas leak. There was a small leak, BGE said. On the other side of the city.)
Da Funk -- Daft Punk (Funky.)
Don't Let's Start -- They Might Be Giants ("I don't get around how you get around.")
Roses -- Outkast (Just playin'.)
Rough Justice -- Rolling Stones (You're gonna have to trust me.)
Nearly Lost You -- Screaming Trees (Not in a million years.)
Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights) -- Pat Travers Band (For more reasons than that.)
You Know I'm No Good -- Amy Winehouse (She ain't, apparently, but she sure can sing.)
Ball and Chain -- Social Distortion (Ha!)
The One -- Foo Fighters (She is.)
Scentless Apprentice -- Nirvana (Sorry. Been a long day.)
It Wasn't Me -- Shaggy (Deny everything.)
True Blue -- Madonna (Have to ask the New York Yankees' third baseman about that one.)
Not That Kind -- Anastasia (Don't get on the wrong side of that voice.)
Think -- Aretha Franklin (This one either.)
Goodbye Earl -- the Dixie Chicks (The Mary Mashburn seal of approval.)

• Vodafone + Myspace (que lleva cierto tiempo dándole vueltas al tema): Vodafone Music Reporter, con vocación de "comunidad".

• Real Networks + MTV: Rhapsody, con socios como Yahoo y Verizon Wireless.

Bienvenida sea la competencia, aunque yo diría que mucho van a tener que cambiar las cosas para que iniciativas de este tipo tengan futuro.

Escuchando: Childhood dream - Anathema

su valido tv.

On the subject of moleskines... people do some really cool things with them. (See here and here.)

Mine, well, is not so intense. Which is an artistic first for me.

ohoto credit: radicalgraphics.org

What is it about Big Media that makes them so resistant to change? Many American industries - automotive, telecom, software, manufacturing, and so on - have successfully adapted themselves to changing economic and technological environments; not so the media companies. Almost eight years after A&M Records v. Napster the major labels continue to reject a distribution platform and business model that was built - for free - with all the features their customer base wanted: digital storage, easy sharing, and access to the long tail of recorded music.  Instead of this we are burdened with device lock-ins, DRM, and lawsuits.  It appears the Associated Press is committed to following the same ill-advised path to obsolescence that the RIAA has been on for years.  From BusinessWeek:

The AP . . . has been using a system from Redwood City (Calif.)-based startup Attributor. Like other content recognition systems, Attributor's software extracts a small digital fingerprint—a string of bits unique to a given article, song, or video—and collects them in a database. Then it continually crawls billions of Web sites and blogs, much as Google does when a user launches a search, to detect where that fingerprint recurs.

It is not unreasonable to assume they are about to embark on a lawsuit spree, offering to settle Unauthorized Content Reproduction suits for prices that are absurd, yet a bargain compared to lawyer's fees.  One can also assume that this tactic will produce the same results for the AP that it has for the RIAA: declining sales, increasing irrelevance, and a hostile relationship with a shrinking consumer base.

Reasonable levels of copyright and IP protection are useful - while I would be flattered to have my writing quoted elsewhere, I would hate to see it reproduced verbatim - but interminable copyright extensions and the capricious redefinition of fair use by content creators are far in excess of what is desirable, or even defensible.  The occasional plagairism or wholesale reproduction of an AP article simply doesn't justify the effect combing the internet for such violations will have on free speech as a whole, nor will it increase their readership.  Print media way dying long before internet came along, just as the major record labels were losing money years before Napster.   Refuting the very technology that could save them from obsolescence will not work any better than it has before.

The Associated Press hasn't yet realized bloggers are their Napster.  We constitute a free content distribution system that greatly expands their audience.  We increase the relevance and availability of that content by narrowcasting to our particular niche of that audience, and the best of us add value with additional commentary and related information.  Further, by fostering community dialog, we create a market for more original reporting - something in which most bloggers (with notable exceptions) are uninterested but in which the traditional media excels.  Or perhaps they have made that realization, and the implications scare them.

One thing the Associated Press has done is stifle criticism of its journalism.  If you can't quote it, you can't rebuke it.  Thus, they have increased their credibility and their ability to sell a particular version of events without fear of contradiction.  Big Media would love to return to a time of the Big Three networks and credentialed journalists because they had more power then.  This is simply another in a series of attempts to recoup that power by regaining control over the distribution of information.  Expect congress to be entirely supportive of their efforts.  Big Government relies on a monopoly of information just as Big Media does.  The implications of that should scare us.

On the subject of moleskines... people do some really cool things with them. (See here and here.) Mine, well, is not so intense. Which is an artistic first for Jansen.

In the immortal words of Nelson Muntz: ha ha.

Trust me on that one.

To me, the hydraulic paper cutter, a Chandler & Price with about a 30-inch bite, is kind of like the vicious dog that lives next door. Great to have around, so long as someone else takes main responsibility for it. So ornery and loud he scares bad guys away from your house, too. But then the neighbors go away for the weekend and ask you to go next door and, um, feed their beloved pet. Gulp.

True story: My friend Janet Simmons loves dogs. BIG dogs. Rottweilers, Dobermans and beasts like a notoriously antisocial chow (is there any other kind?) named Bear. It's been a surprise to Shop Boy, who'd never seen Jan with a dog before he was met one day by her crew. Sheesh.

Now, Shop Boy is generally very good with dogs, if a bit lenient -- let Mary tell you about the time I promised to "protect" her from a gargantuan Newfoundland at a dinner party. The pup, about horse high and the length of a football field, took one look at Shop Boy, heard me exclaim "Oh, what a beautiful dog!" and decided I was no challenge. ("Now the scared one over there. How can I make her love me? I know, I'll smother her with affection.") There was no stopping this guy. He just shook me off his back.

Or the time I baby-sat Buddy, the big, funky-looking canine next door in Denver. During one famous walk to the park, Shop Boy pleaded helplessly with Buddy not to:

A. Poop on the neighbor's freshly pruned hedge -- right on top! Never seen a physical accomplishment quite like it. Not sure what that neighbor had done to make Buddy mad, but yikes.

B. Drag Shop Boy into oncoming traffic.

C. Take a flying leap into the creek, getting both of us soaked in the process.

"What happened to you two?" Mary asked as we arrived on the front porch.

I pointed at Buddy. Mary shook her head. Buddy just wagged his long, ugly tail.

He was a funny dog. That night, Mary and Shop Boy watched a movie, and Buddy curled up at Shop Boy's feet as I reached down and petted him. At one point, the film got intense and I straightened up in my chair, my hand leaving Buddy's head for a moment.

Buddy gently closed his teeth around my hand and pulled it back down.

See, though we don't have any pets at the moment, I love dogs. But walking up to Jan's front door in the Boston 'burbs a few years back and seeing the overstimulated, toothy pack on the other side of the screen ...

"Just don't be afraid," Jan said. Then she laughed as they raced toward me.

All except Bear. He was roaring and tearing at the other side of the locked door to the basement. "He'll eat you," Jan explained helpfully, handing me some dog treats so I could earn the others' trust -- by letting them take the biscuits from my hand!

Well, in an hour or two, we were all pals. Shop Boy called Mary to let her know I'd gotten there safely, informing her that I was speaking from between the jaws of Hershey the Rottweiler, who'd found my chin irresistibly lickable. Then there was Bear, eventually released from the basement and now curled at my feet, Shop Boy's hand gently petting the chow's head. (FYI: Until the end of the visit, the hand never broke contact with the dog's fur. Not sure Bear would have been as subtle as Buddy was.)

Yeah, dogs tend to love me back. The guillotine paper cutter? Let's not push it.

The cutter does a super job. Loud as heck. Nobody bothers us at the Typecast Press studio while this thing's running. Sounds like a torture chamber in there, minus the screams ...

Until Shop Boy's got to change the blade, that is.

There we were, Mary convinced that the 34-inch steel blade (it hangs over a bit on each end) needed sharpening and Shop Boy in a flop sweat and full denial mode. "It can't be dull. We just got the thing and the guy said he sharpened it."

Typecast Press uses a loft of thick, soft paper, as well as chipboard atop and below the pile to prevent the cutter's clamp from leaving indentations in that paper. The combination tends to dull a blade more quickly. No use fighting it.

"C'mon, Shop Boy. Don't be afraid. We can do this," Mary demanded.

For those unfamiliar, doing this, or changing a guillotine cutter's blade, involves fully lowering the blade mechanism, loosening and removing the bolts that hold the blade in place, then lifting the carriage away. Finishing the blade removal requires a method Shop Boy prefers to call "grab and pray," though "pray and grab" seems equally effective -- so far -- in Shop Boy's experience. Let me be clear: "Dull," in the sense of a guillotine cutter, simply means "less razor sharp." Drop the blade and a piece of you will go away.

Ahem.

The cutter could smell my fear: Just to show which of us was the alpha male, it released a slick of motor oil onto the part of the blade I'd have to lift by. Nice.

But the blade was much lighter than I'd expected, and after a seriously uncomfortable moment or two it was sitting harmlessly in its case, ready for the trip to the sharpener. The guy who'd sold us the cutter had been kind enough to leave behind two extra blades, one sharp and one dull. In the sharp one went, Shop Boy nervously coaxing the blade back and forth and Mary lowering and raising the carriage until the holes for the bolts at last lined up. Funny -- there were seven bolt holes on the machine and only six on the blade. Not so funny -- the bolts didn't fit. The seller had accidentally dropped off a blade for a different machine, a Challenge cutter. Ugh.

Anyway, you often realize the best way to do something after you've already done it the hard way. For example, if we'd simply used a china marker to map out where the dull blade had fit, swapping in the next blade would have been much easier. (We would have almost certainly noticed right away that we had the wrong blade.) And it wouldn't have been so tough to put the original blade back in.

Now we faced a tricky cut with an imperfect blade on three sets of business cards that were due.

Oh, well. We'd just have to fudge it and hope for the best. Hey, we're printers, right? That's what we do. Besides, Mary's got a gift for gaming the system.

Meanwhile, the correct backup blade went off to the sharpener.

After a ridiculously brief turnaround -- maybe too quick -- the sharpened blade was back. Shop Boy summoned his courage once more, then dutifully marked the outline of the exiting blade. We lowered the carriage, removed the bolts, raised the carriage, slid the dull blade out, slid the fresh blade into position, lowered the carriage, tightened the blots and ... bang.

"OK, Shop Boy," Mary said. "Fetch the paper."

Good boy.

***
Letterpress List No. 41

How about an hour's worth of music to soothe the savage beast by. Most of these tunes should be available in the usual places. Goofy and great video links are to YouTube.

Silent All These Years -- Tori Amos (Her dog won't bite if you sit real still.)
I Want Candy -- Bow Wow Wow (Doggie treat, anyone?)
Drop It Like It's Hot -- Snoop Dogg (For Mary.)
Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron -- the Royal Guardsmen (Oh, my.)
West End Girls -- Pet Shop Boys (Built to last.)
Who Let the Dogs Out? -- Baha Men (Football games would never be the same again.)
Don't Get Mad, Get Even -- Aerosmith (Waking up with fleas.)
Underdog -- Lisa Loeb (Puppy love.)
The Last of Me -- Bree Sharp (Might not wake up at all, if Ms. Sharp has anything to say about it.)
Gonna Buy Me a Dog -- the Monkees (Old dog, new tricks.)
The First Cut Is the Deepest -- Sheryl Crow (Had no idea this was a Cat Stevens song. Thought Rod Stewart owned it.)
I Wanna Be Your Dog -- Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (Down, boy.)
The Day I Tried to Live -- Soundgarden (Drop the blade and watch the rolling, um, heads. Hey, is that oil on there?)
What a Good Boy -- Barenaked Ladies (Newfoundland at 10 o'clock.)
Freak on a Leash -- Korn ("No, Buddy. C'mon man, don't poop there!")
Bite Me -- Electric Six (Speaking of freaks ...)
Bark at the Moon -- Ozzy Osbourne (He'll eat you.)
Move It on Over -- George Thorogood (A crowded doghouse.)
Paper Cut -- Linkin Park (Ouch.)
Razor -- Foo Fighters (Day after day, cutting away.)
Cut to the Chase -- Rush (Back to work!)

And that is why YouTube (see future post) is so important to us, because it offers us our first chance for free, yet legal, music. This is the lazy and broke youth’s dream—free and easy-to-access music.

YouTube basically is our shared MP3 player; free music means sharing, means stop the corporate culture that has already made their millions. Why not share the music? If we understand the purpose of music, as an art form, then to spread its message, music should be universally available.

At a small party last night, the music coming from iTunes was interrupted every once in a while for a song from YouTube. The conveiencene and ease of Youtube, albeit unpredictable sound quality, comes in handy when there is just that one burning song in your head, but nobody has it downloaded.

Another fundamental attribute of music is the community factor. The bringing together of people under the banner of music is also helped by YouTube which creates a forum for music talk. The sharing aspect is there as well, people uploading this and that for everyone else’s behalf.

Why is it that those bands who offer their art complimentary, via Podcasts, YouTube, or personal websites, are among the more meaningful bands? The newest trend in the youthful’s addiction to free music is seen currently by at least one band. Radiohead understood the changing trends, by “selling” their most recent album, “In Rainbows,” for whatever the listener desired. Perhaps that is why they have been catapulted into worldwide admiration. To tell you the truth, when I went to their website to download it, I didn’t believe that any band would have the courage to go against the grain and risk mediocrity. I didn’t believe it was true, I thought it was a joke, so I tested it and typed in $0.00 and sure enough, I have the whole album pumping on my iPod. I wish I would have known, I would have donated to them for the sheer respect. Meanwhile, I had free music, and I was content.

(Other meaningful bands who I have listened to and subsequently enjoyed because they offered it free: STS9 Podcasts, Of Montreal Podcasts, Dark Star Orchestra Podcasts, Umphrey’s McGee)

Como curiosidad comeantarles que Offspring abogó allá por el año 2000 por una serie de protestas a favor de la originaria Napster, pero los propios responsables  de dicha empresa prohibieron explicitamente su difusión por vulneración de sus derechos de imagen y copyright ¿?.

Más tarde, y a través de su página web, incentivaron la descarga de su disco Conspiracy of One mediante el premio de un millón de $ a uno de los fans que realizase la mencionada descarga pero, tras disputa legal con su discográfica, todo se redujo a descargar su primer single Original Prankster. El premio, según mis datos,  no se llegó a entregar.

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However in the mobile world, I see P2P being a bridge between the mobile operator, who in some sense is at a disconnect with how users interact and use phones, and the end user who is thinking of innovative disruptive uses of the mobile. We have just released a report on Multimedia Mobile Content Distribution that talks about the dangers of not paying attention to a grassroot phenomenon, i.e end user content sharing. Our estimates show that if operators and the content value chain continue to ignore this trend, they are very likely going to put $16 billion of revenue opportunity at risk by the year 2012. This will account for more than a quarter of the content revenue opportunity in that year. The report, although seen by many as a wake up call, is actually aimed at educating the mobile industry about strategies that they can adopt to mitigate this disruption.

If you take the P2P trend on the Internet, it has grown leaps and bounds. Figures in the US put it at 44% of total traffic, while in Eastern Europe estimates are quite alarming, nearing 80%. Whatever the figures, we all know that P2P is primarily used to share content. This includes music, videos, games, software and is generally associated with piracy. Although Napster, a.k.a. the Elvis of P2P, the one who started it all, has mended its ways, in the end its all coming down to ISPs throttling traffic and Google un-throttling it. The question is will this repeat itself in the mobile world? In my view it is inevitable, however the context of P2P in mobiles is different.

To better understand P2P in the mobile context we need to understand the usability cases for a laptop/PC and a mobile device, when both are connected to the Internet. The fundamental difference is that the mobile is used to generate and share content, while the PC is used to consume and share content. Yes, the mobile is also being used to consume content, but more importantly it is a video and image capture device that is always on you. The best evidence is found in the 'M-generation' who you see in flocks capturing rock concerts, Obama speeches, Lakers games, Euro 2008 goals, etc. This is a trend that needs to be taken seriously. Our estimates show that videos and images will be the two prominent forms of multimedia content that will be shared on mobile networks, followed by music. 

The common string that binds all user generated content is that it will be shared with friends, family and contacts on social networks. Even content purchased from operator portals and content provider sites is likely to be shared. To better understand the sharing trend on mobiles we introduce a new term User Originated Content (UOC) which is a superset of UGC (user generated content) and Off-the-shelf content.

If you understand the above, you will begin to understand how P2P can actually benefit mobile operators and the content value chain itself. Traditional techniques like the client server model where the end user requests content from a server within the network, goes completely against the emerging UOC paradigm. If you have users constantly uploading and downloading content through their mobiles, you very quickly flood the air interface that exists between a mobile and the base station, causing a bottleneck. Imagine a Coldplay concert with thousands of fans trying to upload and download content. It reminds me of my constant struggle with WiFi at conferences. There are other alternatives in such situations, which include using Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS), picocells and femtocells, but imagine the costs and management of these ad-hoc arrangements.

Using P2P networks, operators can balance the load on their access network, assisting and augmenting content transfer. In all these approaches operators are still involved, as they can manage the forward and reverse proxies. Its just that the actual content transfer happens between end users or is assisted by the operators themselves.

There is a business case here that needs to be explored further and I believe that this can only happen with the assistance of the mobile operator, who eventually controls the end user relationship. However, if operators continue to treat P2P as their Voldemort, all of the engineering innovation and business cases that can be explored have no meaning. 

When I was a little kid in the 80s, records were starting to fade out and cassettes were coming into popularity. The cassette was a big thing because it had instant gratification. Meaning that you could record audio in real time and then you could play it back whenever you wanted. Cassette tapes were a descendant of the reel-to-reel tapes and were popular for 10-15 years through most of the 90s, especially since you could copy music on them. CDs became more popular in the 90s and after a while you could scarcely find a cassette in a store.

CDs had about a 20 year run. Initially they were very expensive and a CD boombox was more than $100 new. Eventually the price came down as CDs became more popular. The introduction of CD burners in the late 90s opened a whole new world to people. Previously all CDs were read-only meaning that the only way to copy music was a cassette tape. It took a few years for CD burners to become more standard, but after burning CDs was popular there was no going back.

Napster.com probably changed music more than the cassette and CD. Napster was started by a college guy who had access to a faster Internet connection than the average American household since most people still had dial-up at the time. The use of compressed mp3 files allowed songs to be shared for free with anyone who wanted them. This of course got the attention of the music industry so they decided to take Napster to court. Taking people to court became the way the music industry handled this new revolution of digital music.

There are many things that changed in how music is distributed in the years since Napster. Prior to Napster it was much harder to listen to music before buying it. Music was locked in a box and the only way to open the box was to buy it from the store. Record labels could charge $18 for an album with 12 songs on it and you could scarcely find an album for under $10. So there was no way to get music without buying it from the store or borrowing from friends and most of the time you couldn't listen to music before you bought it. The music industry had consumers in a stranglehold because it was "the only game in town."

As for the future, the demise of the CD is unfortunate because musically an MP3 is nowhere near the quality of the CD. However, mp3 players like the iPod encourage young people to listen to mp3s since wave files take up roughly ten times as much space or more. The bandwidth issues with downloading wave files are bound to keep digital music from moving away from mp3 or the mp4.

I think record labels will last longer than CDs because record labels are important for distribution. However, I do not think the record labels will ever make as much money or have the dominance they had before the digital music revolution. Placing a CD in a store costs overhead, which cuts into the profit margin. There is no physical overhead to selling a file on the net, so it doesn't make much sense for a record label to be taking a cut off the album unless they are financing the recording.

My personal belief is that digital music will either become incredibly cheap or it will be free with some sort of advertising. There will always be live performances of music where people will pay to see an act. But I don't think people will always pay for an album because there's no reason to keep paying money for something when you can have it for free. The only way to force people to pay for an album is to control the means of distribution and the record labels have already lost much of that control.

The beauty of Lala that separates it from the iTunes, Amazon, E-music, Napster and Rhapsodys of the net is that it's free to sign up and listen to full songs. You could listen for hours on end and never buy anything. Of course the site is hoping they can get you to buy some stuff.

As I've mentioned before there are some great sites to listen to free music: freenapster.com, imeem.com, last.fm, myspace.com, virb.com and purevolume.com. Lala.com should be added to that list because there are songs on there that aren't available on any of the other sites. Basically if a band has any distribution whatsoever you will find the songs on one of the above sites. What's also nice is that the streaming quality on Lala.com is mostly near 128 kbps.