Definitely worth a look for those of you who use projection for your times of community worship.

So right now, I’m downloading the Killers new album from Amazon, for FOUR DOLLARS cheaper than the iTunes version. Better portability, better price, better deal.

If you haven’t, you should really check out the MP3 downloads from Amazon. Click on the Killers link in this post, and you’ll also be able to search for tunes in MP3 instead of a DRM’d format.

Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog describes how some small-scale recording artists are succeeding on the web. One interesting bit mentions the ‘pay what you can policy’ used by Jane Siberry. The result: People wind up paying more than they would at iTunes.

Like many, I’m restless and impatient with living in a world where people are made to feel like shoplifters rather than intelligent peoples with a good sense of balance. I want to treat people the way I’d like to be treated. ‘Dumbing UP’ (as opposed to ‘dumbing down’)….You decide what feels right to your gut. If you download for free, perhaps you’ll buy an extra CD at an indie band’s concert. Or if you don’t go with your gut feeling, you might sleep poorly, wake up grumpy, put your shoes on backwards and fall over. Whatever. You’ll know what to do…This is not a guilt trip. Feel no pressure. The most important thing is that the music flow out to where it could bring enjoyment. And THAT is the best thing you could give me.

The current pricing statistics listed at the site:
18% Gift from Artist
18% Standard
05% Pay Now
58% Pay Later

Avg Price/Song $1.17
07% Paid Below Suggested
80% Paid At Suggested
14% Paid Above Suggested

(Via Signal vs. Noise.)

I wonder what it would be like if authors started allowing their material to be available like this? I know I tend to read stuff on my computer more than others, so I’m not sure if it’s ready for that yet. Even if I send a four-page short film script out, I usually find printed versions when I meet with the person. I know I’d be much more likely to buy a book online where I can throw a few dollars directly to the author than to purchase another physical product which I probably won’t touch for months.

“Cory Doctorow:
Playing DRM-crippled music will shorten the battery life of your music-player. Listening to DRMed iTunes songs on an iPod shortens the battery life by eight percent; playing back WMA-crippled files on a device from Creative Labs can knock 25 percent off the life of your device’s battery. The extra battery-drain is attributed to the computation necessary to decrypt the files and verify their licenses.

We found similar discrepancies with other PlaysForSure players. The Archos Gmini 402 Camcorder maxed out at 11 hours, but with DRM tracks, it played for less than 9 hours. The iRiver U10, with an astounding life of about 32 hours, came in at about 27 hours playing subscription tracks. Even the iPod, playing back only FairPlay AAC tracks, underperformed MP3s by about 8 percent. What I’m saying is that while battery life may not be a critical issue today, as it was when one of the original hard drive players–the Creative Nomad Jukebox–lasted a pathetic 4 hours running on four AA nickel-metal-hydride rechargeables (and much worse on alkalines), the industry needs to include battery specs for DRM audio tracks or the tracks we’re buying or subscribing. Yet, here’s another reason why we should still be ripping our music in MP3: better battery life, the most obvious reason being universal device compatibility.

Link

(Thanks, Matt!)

“

(Via Boing Boing.)

And yesterday I experienced something very strange and troubling. ALL OF MY DRM’d music purchased rightfully from iTunes quit playing on my iPod. I just checked to make sure it still works on my computer, and it does. I’ll try to update my iPod again and see if that helps. It was VERY annoying, as I actually have made it a habit over the past couple years to start buying music I really want on iTunes.

Okay, curiosity got the best of me, so I updated right now. Everything’s working again. I updated with USB yesterday before getting on metrolink and spending most of the day in Los Angeles (with only music I had ripped from CD or downloaded as mp3s available to play), but today I used the firewire cable. I don’t know if that made the difference or what caused the DRM issue, but until now I’d been pretty ambivalent about DRM. I think it’s a bad idea generally, but I understand what they’re trying to do. But once it starts getting in the way of the only function music serves… to be listened to… I have issues.

I’m thinking about burning all of my DRM’d music to CDs and ripping them back as mp3s so I know this will never happen again.

These guys originated in my hometown of Fort Wayne, IN. They started nearly all of their tours in Fort Wayne. So, right now I’m listening to It is Finished.

I once had a really profound experience while listening to Petra. Unfortunately, it has only gotten cheesier with time. You see, I was raised in a Christian home, so I had a lot of Christian music, but I was not really following Christ. After my life crashed, and I finally decided to actually follow Jesus instead of just giving mere mental assent I had this experience…

While in the shower, listening to the very CD I found tonight, I was singing Clean. When I realized I was. Clean, that is. Heh. It was profound and led to an extended praise and worship session as I ended up taking a really long shower… and hoping no one was home listening to my sing and prayer fest.

Ya know you can now download Petra on iTunes? Craziness. I don’t know why that strikes me as strange, but it does. Even more strange, though, is the lack of Beat the System as an album, while 28 of their other albums are on there…

This whole thing gets worse and worse for Sony. And it should. Please pass along the info if you find it compelling…

Companies need to be held accountable. And when something as ridiculous at this, their needs to be more public awareness.

link

I can’t believe the extent the music companies are going to. iTunes has opened up a huge market for them and increased profits dramatically. People like me, who rarely spent money on music even before it could be downloaded, are spending more money on music because of the benefits of downloading music and portable music players.

Sony’s little stunt with copy-protection makes it difficult for someone with an iPod to get the music they purchased on to it. While it is a step in the right direction that they are for now removing the software, CDs already purchased cannot be listened to on someone’s computer (even directly from the CD) without their spyware installed.

Some people are going to go through the effort to crack whatever copyright protection they place on it. And when the music companies punish the legitimate consumers to prevent the few truly bad ones, no one wins.

If I ever buy another CD, I’ll make sure I know whether it is spyware’d up and made unusable for my most used methods of playback (on my computer and my iPod).

The Great Divide album’s title track can be heard in its entirety by playing the music video on Scott Stapp’s website. link

The video’s not much more than Stapp singing, but you can hear the whole song. I almost purchased it from iTunes, but I want to buy the whole album I think. You can pre-order it on iTunes for 9.99.