In a Saturday op-ed in the NY Times (via Techdirt), Billy Bragg argues that musicians deserve royalties for the use of their music on the web. Bebo, a social networking site which rivals Facebook and MySpace in popularity in the UK, was recently sold to AOL for $850 million. Bragg […]
Yearly archives: 2008
122 posts
The other day, I wrote a (ridiculously long) post announcing my commitment to free culture, and more specifically, to free music. I didn’t expect anyone to read the entire thing, but my friend, John, not only read it but also responded to it on Facebook. I’m not sure what his […]
My mom (who runs Ubuntu 7.10) was having trouble with old PowerPoint presentations in OpenOffice.org Impress. Her machine would grind to a halt in presentation mode and she was forced to export the presentations as PDFs in order to deliver them. I investigated the issues and found some help in […]
I have a ThinkPad T61 (646562U – with Intel GM965 integrated graphics) and I run Ubuntu 7.10 as my main operating system. When I wake from a suspend, my screen is too dark to use. I figured my laptop, which is relatively new, isn’t supported properly yet and just refrained […]
Over the past few months, I have been researching and reflecting on free culture and what it means for my music. Free culture is about freedom, not price. Today, the vast majority of music (and other art) is not free due to a combination of technology, law and economics. The […]
Language is important. It shapes our view, our thinking. It’s necessary for our expression and understanding. It’s important to pay attention to the terms we choose. The commonly used phrase “intellectual property rights” is loaded and problematic. Intellectual property rights: Ambiguous; it lumps copyright, patent and trademark law all under […]
Music alone is often not enough to catch your attention. I hear a lot of good music all the time, but I couldn’t possibly come to love and know all of it. I find what makes the difference between the music that crosses the threshold and that which remains unnoticed […]
The latest Nine Inch Nails album has been released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license (via Lessig). While the license isn’t quite free as in freedom, it’s a huge step forward; it allows sharing (copying, distribution, performance) and remixing, though only for non-commercial purposes. Reznor, now label-free, released the album […]
I’ve received a few (annoying) links to offermanage.com (don’t go there) from random contacts on my msn list who I haven’t had an msn conversation with in years. First sign of trouble. Here’s a second sign. Quick piece of advice: don’t click on unsolicited links you get on msn, and […]