Monthly Archives: March 2008

Photography and The Law

18 Tuesday Mar 2008

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  If you pick up photo magazines regularly you’ll know that they  will devote pages to tips and techniques, interesting places to go take photos and so on.  But I’ve never read anything addressing the issue of the law beyond the usual model waiver (giving you copyright to your photos that they appear in).  So it has been good to read an article at photojojo  (here) which describes in simple language the basic legal position of taking photos in public places.  Although photojojo is American based the principles of their ’10 commandments’ should be valid in most western nations, but they have made the attempt to also provide links to sites that outline the legal situation other English speaking countries (to have a list of sites covering non English speaking countries would make the ultimate reference for this sort of thing – particularly for when you’re on holiday in a country that maybe a little more sensitive).

 

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Fuel Prices

18 Tuesday Mar 2008

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With the government backing down on the 2p (~$0.04) per litre fuel increase in the last budget, and the feeling that fuel prices seem to be continuously and rapidly climbing, I decided I’d like to see a graph of the price changes. Thanks to the folks at PetrolPrices.com I’ve got a set of figures (from the AA) that have allowed me to build a graph.

avgfuelprice

The figures are a lot more comprehensive than I have currently made use of. If I get time to build something richer then I’ll post that. If there is any interest then I’ll make the spreadsheet available.

Search UK Petrol Prices for free on PetrolPrices.com

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An ear attuned to sounds of greatness

14 Friday Mar 2008

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The FT (FT.com – article here) have an interesting interview with Tom Whalley the CEO of Warner Brothers Records.  Rather than blaming P2P etc for the problems the industry are experiencing he is highly critical of how the business is being run.  For example …

“One of the excuses people were making [for stealing music] was that there were not enough good songs on CDs. And they weren’t wrong,” he said. “What had happened was we took the single out of the marketplace because it wasn’t economically viable and you had to buy a full album whether you liked it or not.”

The argument that killing the single off has contributed to file sharing isn’t one I had considered. But the single is definitely being murdered. It used to be that you would be able to get a single and get several bonus tracks. Now its one extra track which is usually a remix or even cheaply the instrumental version.

Tom also is critical of the position that record companies are just trying to exploit their existing artists and not putting effort into A&R (diametrically opposite to EMI’s new boss who seems to think A&R are a bunch of overpaid slackers).  He also says in the article that the new 360 degree deals where the company’s cut in on touring profits can also be dangerous.  Keep the artists on the road, and they’re not in the studio creating new material for you to sell, and the dividend ration despite the piracy still has to favour recording.

 

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Jesse Malin – Video & pre-order link

14 Friday Mar 2008

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ordered mine 🙂

 

 

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Music Industry Proposes a Piracy Surcharge on ISPs

13 Thursday Mar 2008

Posted by in Music, Technology

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The radical idea of adding a surcharge to the fees that ISPs charge for broadband connectivity as levy for P2P piracy is to be discussed at the SXSW conference according to the wired article here (Surcharge on ISPs).  It is an interesting and brave move, and already has presidents for example the Performing Rights Society (PRS) levy in the UK on venues who play music (just about any public venue), or Canada’s charge for blank media.  The achilles heel to this that I can see is the move could seriously hurt the download what you like for a fixed monthly fee services, whilst the majors mess about with licensing contracts.

 

Hopefully a download of the session will be made available as the arguments for and against this will be very interesting.

 

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Graphical representation of Net traffic out of New York

11 Tuesday Mar 2008

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  MIT have implemented a fascinating site that analyzes net traffic showing which cities around the world the traffic is travelling to and from. The traffic is then being brilliantly visualised.  The project was developed to help people analyse and understand the volumes of traffic and how it changes over time.  To see the site go here.

 

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Jesse Malin – in this week’s Uncut newsletter

11 Tuesday Mar 2008

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On Jesse Malin in this week’s Uncut new letter which primarily focuses on Neil Young …

Coincidentally, one of the new records I’ve been playing quite a bit recently is On Your Sleeve by Jesse Malin, an album of cover versions of some of Jesse’s favourite songs. I’m not entirely sure the world needs another version of “Wonderful World”, but elsewhere there are affecting takes on Paul Simon’s “Me And Julio Down By the School Yard”, “Sway” by the Rolling Stones, The Hold Steady’s “You can Make Them Like You” and Neil’s “Looking For A Love”.
You can hear tracks from the album here: www.indian.co.uk/jessemalin/player/player.html

80s Electro Pop

10 Monday Mar 2008

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If you’re a fan of 80s electro pop such as Human League, Depeche Mode, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark then I can pass on a recommendation that a friend of mine made to me, Northern Kind’s 52°N (go here), they can also be found on myspace (here). Both their own site and myspace have tracks that can be listened to. Go check it out.

 

March and preparations for another Tapper’s show are underway

07 Friday Mar 2008

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The last weekend in July is traditionally the weekend of the Basingstoke Tappers & Jazz Dance Company’s  summer show at the Anvil Theatre. Back in January the dance company’s director set the theme for the show and started developing ideas for routines.   The dance classes now will start to incorporate the development of the routines now.

As the webmaster and for the last few years stage manager my involvement comes in short bursts.  Currently the site is getting updated with show details, the information has to be disseminated to various (largely) community sites.  This is a slow process as these sort of sites and their impact change year on year.  This year I’ve been using Google Alerts to help identify when sites get updated and how quickly Google picks up the information.

Once all of that is done, it is increasingly quiet, largely because my other half is going to classes five days a week plus performances for community organisations to help with PR. Then at the start of July (a couple of weeks before the show) it all goes a little crazy. I need to attend the rehearsals so I can see how things should work and produce a set of notes for the crew. Plus contributing with some media for the dancers and last year late on I had additional video media to produce for the show.

Things don’t end after the performance. Between shows if there are any little hitches from the previous night these get worked through – which could be a technical job for the crew with the scenery, or rehearsing part of a routine for the Tappers. Then there is the get out – stripping all the staging, lighting, sound (and there is a lot of cabling for a 20 piece Jazz Orchestra plus mics for picking up the tap from the stage plus monitors for the sound around the Orchestra and dancers), band, scenery that is being ‘flown’ in from above need to be backed and shipped out of the theatre straight after the last show.

If you would like to know more about the Basingstoke Tappers – go here. To book tickets with the Anvil Theatre go here.

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tough times for the RIAA ahead

07 Friday Mar 2008

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The RIAA are being sued by a woman who was mistakenly sued for file sharing.  The case is likely to result in the RIAA disclosing both their process model (lawyers fees, what money goes back to the artists from settlements, how organisations such as Media Sentry are paid, how settlement figures are arrived at) and how they acquire the information on which their cases are built. Given the RIAA’s apparent track record in the area of acquiring information this could look bad, if not criminal.

If the disclosure of such information does look criminal and reach the public domain then it could trigger off a class action from all those who have been on the receiving end of the RIAA’s claims.  It would be very ironic if the class action does come to court as it could end up costing the RIAA more than they have recovered in settlements.  It would validate the argument that its bad business to sue all of your customers.

What ever happens, the outcome is likely to be months away, possibly even years.  For more detail on the case see the Wired article here.

 

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