Michael Smith lip-syncing uncomfortably

This man had a big load of heavy patter on his mI cYaan bElieVe it album...listen

Mikey on the mic...not at the controls...

This is stuff I thought I would never see...but here it is...crucial:

Yellow like cheese!

This is surprisingly good! In the fine Jamaican tradition of monopolizing on unattractive looks and an underprivileged upbringing, Yellowman awes a captive Sunsplash crowd - well I think it is Sunsplash...good stuff

...and remember children, don't try this at home

Mighty Diamonds sweet roots riddim

Is iTunes tariff putting the music buyer off?

Or even ripping them off?
ACEtone Studio is in the happy situation where every iTunes sale of an Eating Betty track (for example) yields ACEtone Studio 66c or thereabouts.
That goes to me. Nice. But don't get too excited. I don't sell very much!

But, major labels yield the same 66c (or thereabouts - don't know th e exact figure) and give the artist a pitiful microscopic royalty from that sale. Which they probably receive months after the actual download/sale.

So, good for me, but bad for the unfortunate music industry puppet performer.

In my case, I would be perfectly happy to sell downloads for way less. 50c or even 25c would be fine. Would Apple iTunes considere a tiered price scale?
They should give labels the choice of how much they want to sell the tracks for. Of course the major labels in their typical lack of wisdom would push for way higher prices. Personally I would rather see a greater number of track sales resulting in a greater return instead of the current rip-off price which I'm convinced is an impediment to the reluctant online buyer. They shouldn't really be charging more than $5.00 per album.

So that's What Baidu is all about!

there is more behind this than reported here I'm sure.

A huge number of the ACEtone downloads in particular of the the ACEtone ALLstars tracks is through Baidu and SoSo spiders.
The top hits in acetonestudio.com webstats are from these Chinese companies. I'm actually pretty happy with this because it means that lots of people in China are hearing the music I produce. Of course I would like to be paid for it, but...it is good advertising...

Now the article does say this:

Baidu provides links only to music files stored on third-party servers. No music is stored on computers owned or controlled by Baidu.

Well, what's the problem? It doesn't say that they are hacking into any servers. Sounds to me like they are not doing anything wrong. Sounds even more like the major labels are trying to quash independent artists and make only major label music available globally, and at a price. It is my choice if I want to give this music away for free and Baidu and SoSo should be able to make it accessible as long as they are not breaking any laws. Baidu is a search engine. It is possible to find free downloads, free LEGAL downloads using this search engine. Can the record companies not understand that some things in life are free? What a jaded, cynical, stupid subspecies they are!

Here also is the Slashdot angle on the subject where some comments get it right, wrong or just ridiculously misinformed.

and for some clarification here is the Wikipedia.org entry on Baidu

Here's and amusing commentary on the use of bad words on TV. FUCK!

there is so much hypocrisy about this issue it is incredible, but this ARS (e!) Technica article has an amusing take on it.

Paul McGuinness is at it again

Yeah, way to go Paul you big #%^$ing @%$hole
No way is this man the least bit concerned about the artists. The sooner musicians break free of their corporate bosses the better.
This guy should just shut the hell up.

Augustus Pablo live

This is really pretty impressive stuff - I never thought I actually see THE melodica man tinkling the Hohner plastic mini keys in this way - just look at the ease of execution - who is in the backing band?
They're playing Java too fast but still - very cool to see this: