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July 22, 2004
Audio Files
Via the worth-checking-regularly Notes From a Different Kitchen (a blog with a cool mix of some of my favorite topics: music, hip-hop, politics, culture, etc.), I stumbled upon USA Today's publication of a recent Reuters article on mp3 blogs. It's really interesting to see these mp3 blogs break away from the illusion of relative obscurity and enter a big huge grey area of legal considerations and a possible frightening future as promotional/marketing tools. I've been eagerly downloading mp3s from O-Dub's Soul Sides mp3 blog for a while now and it's been really fun hearing (and keeping) some great tracks that I probably never would have discovered otherwise. When done in this fashion, an mp3 blog can almost start to resemble a really good radio/mix show, one that's DJ-ed in extremely slow motion by someone with deep crates who gives you some good factual info and a decent amount of time to "tape" what you're hearing. On the flip side, one of the other mp3 blogs mentioned in the USA Today article (Royal Music) has been posting some very readily available tracks from the Beastie Boys, the Grateful Dead, and DJ Shadow. I guess the purchase-encouraging "Buy...." links to Amazon atone for any illicit uploading of copyrighted mp3s (which are all available on filesharing networks anyway), but I really wonder if a line is going to be drawn with regard to this sort of mp3 blogging. Clearly, posting all of the tracks of an album would be frowned upon, as would posting a very popular new single. But in between "that" and "this", there's a pretty big grey area and I don't see how the RIAA will be able to cleanly distinguish between the various cases should they decide to take any action.
Of course one way around all of this is to only post mp3s that aren't from purchasable releases or that have been OK'ed for posting by the original artist. Getting permission seems to be the modus operandi for Douglas Wolk (proprietor of the Dark Beloved Cloud label and a regular music journalist for the Village Voice, Slate, Spin, etc.). Wolk's blog Lacunae has been regularly featuring mp3s of songs from older (80s/90s) indie-rock 7-inches, all posted with the permission of the original artist. Despite helpful mp3/audioblog tips like these, I probably won't be starting my own full-fledged rip-and-upload mp3 blog anytime soon. I do, however, enjoy linking to existing online mp3s in order to provide some samples/context for whatever band/artist I happen to feel like posting about. I am often pleasantly surprised by how many legal mp3s are actually available via label and band web sites. For instance, the first five really great My Dad Is Dead albums are posted here in their entirety!
A few months back I was reading about a service called Webjay that allowed people to set up easily streamable playlists of online mp3s. I finally did some playing around with it and managed to come up with "Tuba City Radio", an hour-plus-long set of several of the artists that I've mentioned on this blog over the past few months...plus a few other online mp3s that I like thrown into the mix for good measure. What's pretty cool about this service is that I didn't upload a thing...I just typed in the mp3 URLs, specified the artist and song title, and arranged the order of the mix. Programmers, take note: this type of DJ-ing is pass by reference, not pass by value! Of course that means that my playlist is dependent on these other web servers (1) to remain up and running and (2) to continue offering the given mp3. But unlike most other streaming audio services, a Webjay playlist gives the listener the ability to go back and download specific mp3s that they may have liked. Webjay actually supports video files too, though I haven't played with that part yet. According to this recent NYTimes article, people are already using the service to do some interesting things with combining video and audio, making video "mixtapes", etc. Distributed real-time mash-up culture, here we come!
Update: Just found an mp3 blog "meta site" via Fluxblog: an mp3 blog aggregator called mp3blogs.org
Posted by Tim at July 22, 2004 11:10 AM
Comments
Hey, my name's Jesse Lee, I'm the online editor at the DCCC and came across your Enron mash-up, which was great. We were actually wondering if we could have permission to use it as audio in a flash we're putting together on Bush, Tom DeLay, and the CA energy crisis. I've been trying to email you, but for some reason it keeps bouncing. It would be much appreciated if you could email me at the address in the link either way, and I'll give you more details then. Thanks, Jesse
Posted by: jesselee at July 23, 2004 08:50 AM
Funny - I know Douglas, sort of. I have many of his mix tapes and CDs. He is at the top of my musical adventurers list of everyone I know.
Posted by: pinky at July 23, 2004 10:44 AM
t-roxx - thanks for the link to lacunae... i'm reliving freshman/sophomore year in college! haha. the 7" version of TFUL's 2x4s rules. also, there's a link to the Ex audio page which is chock full of the best: http://www.theex.nl/audio.htm
Posted by: CP at July 23, 2004 02:40 PM
Hi, thanks for linking my site. I feel that I am helping people to discover music that they might not have heard. Some/many of the tracks are readily available, but it doesn't mean that people are necessarily familiar with them. I try to make my website like the mixtapes that I used to receive from people when I was growing up, which is that some of the stuff was from "readily available" artists, but I hadn't heard it yet. As for "llicit uploading of copyrighted mp3s," sorry that's not me. I search the internet for songs that I like and that my readers might like. I don't host any of them myself.
Posted by: Michael at July 24, 2004 04:27 PM
Oops, sorry for the confusion about who was hosting them, I didn't realize they weren't on your site. Still, someone besides the band/label uploaded them...presumably illicitly? Not that I'm at all sympathetic to the RIAA, I'm just sort of intrigued by the legal issues. Anyway, I didn't mean to sound critical, I like your mixtape concept and I've downloaded mp3s via your site before. Plus I should've mentioned the disclaimer that you have regarding taking the links down if contacted.
Posted by: Tim at July 24, 2004 05:12 PM