Shewbox.org

Dear iTunes/Napster/Rhapsody/name your typical online music store/RIAA:

I have money in my pocket that I want to spend, legally, on online music. I am your potential customer, cash in hand, ready to plunk it down into your digital stores in exchange for music delivered the way I want it. But there is a problem here. You don’t offer all the music I want, and none of it is packaged to my liking. And did you know, that if you were to offer these thing I want, I would be happy to spend my hard earned money to consume that intellectual property? What should you change, you ask, to appease this lonely potential customer?

Why should I pay $10 for an album that is LESSER in quality than that which I can purchase on a CD (which, in case you haven’t noticed, hasn’t improved in the last 20 or so years)? Not only that, but I am disallowed listening to the music I purchased in situations and formats other than the ones you say I can. I grew up buying cds, and trust me, if I have more freedom from a physical media than from a digital one, then something isn’t quite working. Charging less for compressed audio that isn’t so weighed down with DRM is more appetizing since it gives me, your paying customer, more bang for his buck and more freedom with his purchase. If you want to charge me $10 for a full digital album, an option for lossless audio would be a smart choice, since some people are a bit finicky with their digital music.

But actually, now that I think about it, there is one online music store that I LIKE buying from. Magnatune gives me a full album in a lossless format with no DRM for less money than you do. They may not have the huge portfolios of intellectual property that you do, but I get music packaged in a way I like, not to mention I know the artist gets a fair share of my money. You have a big advantage over little Magnatune with your big selection of music, but if you give me such a poor deal, I may just save all of my money for a service I like.

So I guess what my little rant is all about is this: you have music I’d like to purchase, but if you keep trying to sell it the way you are now, you’re going to get very, very little of it. Sometimes being a little less controlling can produce more profits. But then again, I’m just a little drop in the bucket compared to your annual cash flow. And if you care so little about your own artists, then you probably couldn’t care less for my opinion. You current business practices, after all, do help little labels like Magnatune, so go ahead, keep it up. You may just be digging your own hole.

Sincerely,
A Potential Customer

Webjay is great for finding new music you’ve never heard of. Listening to random songs from various playlists, I stumbled on this jewel:

Smokey And Miho – Blue Glasses

(note to self: it would probably be a good idea to click that lil’ save button once in a while so the draft isn’t lost and extra typing isn’t necessary. maybe then you could actually post what you just spent 15 minutes writing, instead of going back and typing a note to self. d’oh)

4 things I found amusing today:

1. Trippy

2.The most 70s music video ever

3.Mike Davidson Wants to give away iShuffles

4. Don’t try to read too many limericks at once, you’ll start trying to read everything else as one too.

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, “let us flee!”
“Let us fly!” said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

I think it was in ‘98 that I first tried dabbling in linux. I installed whatever version of Mandrake was out then, but couldn’t get any graphical interface working and trashed it shortly after tiring of the command line. I’ve installed numerous other distros since then, but never stuck with it for various reasons, though mostly in frustration at my inability to tweak the system as effeciently as I could tweak my Windows installations.

When a recent linux craving hit me a few months back, I toyed with a few live linux distros, Mandrake (again), and finally Fedora Core 3. Keep in mind, every time I’ve attempted to live with linux, I’ve picked up bits of howto knowledge and I seem to get better with each time, but this time I finally think I’m at the point where I can actually say I’m satisfied with my linux setup. Thanks in part to Mauriat John Miranda’s Personal Fedora Core 3 Installation Guide, I have a linux setup that does all the essentials I want it to: internet browsing, im, sound playback and editing, windows disk mounting, image editing, good looking fonts, bittorrent, flash, and video support with quicktime/real browser plugins. Any experienced linux user would quickly point out that all of these things have been possible for quite some time, but my point is that I finally figured out how to get it working for me, which of course makes all the difference.

Yet all of this rejoicing doesn’t address the fact that I can’t do everything I want in Linux. I have yet to do money management (ms money), DVD backups (dvd shrink), certain games, and other lesser known programs found only in the world of Windows. But for someone who has tried to find satisfaction in linux for the last several years, it feels good to spend generous amounts of time on the open source side of my operating systems and not be displeased with the experience.

Feeling tense this evening. Needs to relax. Some Couperin might help.

Download Audio:Les Bergeries