My wife bought me flowers, which is the first time I can remember anyone buying me flowers.
Click the pic for a bigger one (415k) – and please do, as MovableType’s thumbnail does not do it justice, even if I say so myself.
For those who worry about such things, the camera is my nice shiny new Canon EOS 300D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm kit lens at 55mm, 1.3s exposure, f/5.6, ISO 100. No post-processing beyond a crop and resize to 50%.
When it’s published by BMG.
I purchased a copy of the new Sarah MacLachlan album the other day, and it’s really rather nice. But it’s not a CD, since it doesn’t comply with the standard for how data is stored on a Compact Disc – CD is more than the physical media, y’know. On the back cover is a logo from the IFPI and a box that states that the disc will play in home CD players, and on PCs of a certain spec level, but not much else. Of course, I didn’t spot this in the shop. There’s a lesson learned.
I bung the disc in my PC, and up pops a box saying that in order to play on my computer “a number of files need to be updated.” Not “some software must be installed.” Is this a little misleading? I think so. Not to mention that the panel on the album’s back cover made no mention of software other than Windows being required. Oh yes, if you use a Mac, sorry.
iTunes is unable to access the tracks properly – they are full of noise and skips and are totally unlistenable.
So, having purchased a new album specifically to play on a number of different devices, my options are limited to the following:
I cannot play it through the software of my choice, nor can I play it on my iPod.
The box directs me to a website listing BMG’s Company Statement on Copy Control. A choice quote is as follows:
“World music sales for the year 2001 fell by 5% in value and by 6,5% in units. Europe fell slightly by 0,8% in value and saw a drop in units sold of 2,2%. In the world?s major markets – including the US and many parts of Western Europe – this decline is attributed to a large extent to unauthorised CD-R copying. Two years ago, on a worldwide basis, one digital copy was made for every three music CDs sold. Last year, that ratio had shrunk dramatically to one-to-two. In 2001, for every CD album sold, one copy was burned. That amounts to around 2.5 billion CDs a year. At these levels of massive copying and piracy, huge damage is being done to legitimate recorded music sales.”
A footnote gives the source of these statistics as the IFPI. A not-exactly-independent body with more than one vested interest. Whose copy-protection technology is employed by BMG? Indeed.
I wonder about those statistics. How well do they take account of factors other than CD-R? Say, the current shaky global economic climate? And where exactly do they get their info on how many digital copies are made?
I cannot say whether piracy is a problem on the scale that the big record companies claim, although I’ll admit to a certain healthy scepticism. But I will add my voice to those attempting to point out that those companies, and the artists whose best interests they all claim to have at heart, could really do with getting their various heads out of the sand and start looking seriously at new delivery mechanisms for their product. Indeed, the same BMG site does say the following:
In addition, BMG is cooperating with various partners in the music industry (www.musicline.de) as well as online and distribution portals (Lycos Europe, OD2) to develop secure, easy to use and exciting digital information and download offers. In the future, fans will be offered music in a protected form on secure sound carriers as well as through mobile transfer systems.
OD2. Yay. I’ve tried it, and I wasn’t impressed. I’m still waiting for a paid-for download service that will let me use the format I want on the device I want. Given my iPod-use, I’ll even settle for the iTunes Music Store being available in the UK. I want to pay for these services, but no-one is providing one worth paying for!
The irony is, anyone who could be bothered could circumvent this copy protection with the right equipment – which I can guarantee you anyone who listens to music and has a PC will possess. And last time I checked there were still such things as MiniDiscs and cassettes. All this clever digital gubbins, and all that is required to beat it is a little bit of old-fashioned analogue thought. Which makes me ask, is it worth it?
Not that I could be bothered. But I’m left with an album that I can only play on two out of the four devices I intended to listen to it on, and a box that still misleadingly says ‘CD’ on it. If I didn’t want to listen to the music, I’d be ready to cry ‘boycott’. Which I guess is why this has come so far – we don’t like the restrictions, but we still want to listen to the music. Which gives the big businesses the power to do whatever they want.
Have you gone and browsed the Bug yet?
If not, why not?
Would I ever give you a bad tip?
Trust me.
It is good.
Now showing over at the Shoe Project, my shoes.
After an idea found here that sounded like fun, when I put iTunes on random the first 15 tracks are as follows:
Actually, that is kinda fun. Next five:
That’s very strange. I don’t really enjoy listening to ‘CCM’ (‘Contemporary Christian Music’, donchaknow) – I find the quality is generally poor, and I’m bothered by the cynical and artificially constructed niche market that somehow seems to charge more for music than the mainstream. Yet, out of the 4822 songs in my iTunes library, 9 of these random 20 fall into that bracket. Okay, Iain Archer and Brian Houston are a bit crossover, a bit mainstream, and a lot very good, but still… And that’s hardly a representative sample (my excuse and I’m sticking to it) of what’s in the collection. I have more U2 in there than any other band, by a very long way, and did one of those tracks come up?
That said, it has successfully captured the nice broad stylistic sweep of my collection.
And this wasn’t at all a sad or geeky exercise. Oh, no. Not at all.
:-/
Supportive as I am of the Irish rugby team, after the events of this afternoon I have the following to say:
Boys, you see those things on the ends of your arms? Them’s hands. Use ‘em.
Carrie Fisher. Roy Scheider. Spike Lee.
What do these three have in common? They are collectively the bane of my cinematic life.
At my favourite cinema, every showing is preceded by one of these three pitching a movie to Orange in an ‘amusing’ skit that plugs the telco whilst cajoling you into switching off your mobile.
I have no objection to advertising at the cinema – it’s a commercial enterprise after all, and I tend to to turn up slightly late for the programme, anyway, so usually miss most of the spots. But sitting through one of these three at every showing is starting to wear a bit thin, particularly when they replaced the really quite funny Jaws mini-skit, and even more particularly when they are followed by the theatre’s own in-house “please switch off.”
Why should such a little thing set my teeth on edge so?
Picked up a new toy this afternoon.
Unfortunately, I am too busy to play. So far I have taken a mere ten photographs with it – 3 of my desk and 7 of my bookcase! First impressions are very good.
Expect photoblog goodness to follow as soon as I get used to it.
As an aside, the guy in the shop was feeling generous. He threw in a whole 32meg CF card. Wow. 32 megs. If I were to shoot in RAW, I’d be able to fit a whole… 2 pictures on that card, 3 if I’m lucky. And then when I started enquiring after filters, he chucked two of them in as well. Second-hand ones, natch, but the glass looks good, if a bit grubby.
It’s now officially milder again. Last week, the central heating in the flat didn’t get switched off at all – Scottish Gas will love us – but now it’s back on the clock.
There was even a final hope for a bit of proper blizzarding on Saturday afternoon, but no such luck.
Ach well…
