I had so much fun (read: It took my mind off of how cold my condo is) coming up with anagrams for "Whirlpool Furnace" that I decided to come up with some for an equally loathsome entity. Rearrange all of the letters in "Recording Industry Association of America" and see what you get. So far I have:

Satan's demonic, sour, idiotic, angry air force
Antagonistic raiders of music. "O dear no!" I cry.
I, odious, contrary, Draconian, fascist regime

In the third one, the "I" is used like the "I" in I, Claudius. Or it could be the Roman numeral 1. Sure it's a stretch, but it just seemed wrong to dismiss such an otherwise beautiful -- not to mention, apropos -- anagram.

UPDATE:

Oi! It is acrimony o' arrogant, accursed fiends
Courts: I'm a card-carrying idiot. No one is safe.
Coercion, ransom, ado. Artistic fair use: dying.

According to this article at EFF's DeepLinks, the RIAA is now trying to claim that "format shifting" is not a "noninfringing use." In other words, if you rip a CD that you own so that you -- and only you -- can listen to it on your MP3 player instead, you are violating copyright. Not only is that the most ridiculous thing I've heard (so far) out of these bozos, it also completely contradicts what they say on their website:

What is your stand on MP3?
This is one of those urban myths like alligators in the toilet. MP3 is just a technology and the technology itself never did anything wrong! There are lots of legal MP3s from great artists on many, many online sites. The problem is that some people use MP3 to take one copy of an album and make that copy available on the Internet for hundreds of thousands of people. That's not fair. If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail. But the fact that technology exists to enable unlimited Internet distribution of music copies doesn't make it right.

(my emphasis added)

Compare that with this statement from the joint filing submitted by the RIAA and others to the U.S. Copyright Office regarding circumventing DRM:

Furthermore, as documented in Section III of this Joint Reply Comment, consumers can and increasingly do use online services to listen to sound recordings - and to download copies for their use, including by playing them on the CD drives of their computers, precisely the use they wish to make of the access-controlled CDs. Virtually all titles that are initially released in CD format in the U.S. market today are also available through authorized download services and can be listened to in this manner. The submitters have made no attempt to demonstrate that this is not the case for the titles that fall within the "particular class of works" they describe.

So now the RIAA expects us all to pay double -- once for the CD and once for the privilege of listening to the music we purchased in an alternative format -- otherwise we're infringing on their rights. I wonder what position they're hiding behind door number 3....

Boycott the music industry and support independent artists and the EFF.

This just in at Recording Industry vs The People:

Marie Lindor, a home health aide who has never bought, used, or even turned on a computer in her life, but was nevertheless sued by the RIAA in Brooklyn federal court for using an "online distribution system" to "download, distribute, and/or make available for distribution" plaintiff's music files, has requested a pre-motion conference in anticipation of making a summary judgment motion dismissing the complaint and awarding her attorneys fees under the Copyright Act.

Sheesh...

Boycott the music industry and support independent artists and the EFF.

Ripping CDs has been interesting. I had forgotten all about some of the music in my collection, like It's Great When You're Straight... Yeah from Black Grape and Electriclarryland from the Butthole Surfers. Listening to these forgotten albums has been fun and, apparently, rejuvenating: I just got carded for the first time since... I don't know when. Being 35 and looking every bit of it -- if not more! -- I was surprised.

So what has been collecting dust in your music collection? Have a listen!

UPDATE: Just found Big Band Fever (2 volume set): Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, ... Very cool!

I have been considering whether or not I need an MP3 player. "What!?!" you exclaim in disbelief, "A podcast-listening, (former) iTunes-using, geek such as yourself doesn't own an MP3 player?" Well, no, I don't -- at least not in the traditional iPodish sense. That doesn't mean I'm glued to my computer, mind you. I have placed a series of 900MHz wireless transmitters, speakers, and headphones throughout the condo through which I can listen to music, podcasts, audio books, television shows, and the radio without having to carry around an MP3 player and wear ear buds. When I want to take something on the road, I just put it on an SD card and listen on my iPAQ. The one thing that was missing was a decent way to listen in the car -- at least until yesterday when I picked up a Belkin TuneCast II FM transmitter for my iPAQ. Problem solved. So I really cannot see any reason to buy an MP3 player. Is there something I'm missing out on because I don't have one?

Anyway, now that I have a solution for the car, I figured I'd start ripping all of my CDs to disk and moving songs over to SD cards. By the way, 1 GB SanDisk cards are on sale for $69.99 at CompUSA this week, which is great given the number of music CDs I have. I hadn't counted. If you had asked me yesterday, I would have guessed around 40. It turns out I have 96, plus whatever's in the car, which could easily be 10 more. If the average CD costs $10, that's over $1000, not counting all of the music I've bought through iTunes. Granted, that's not a huge amount of money, but it's not a small chunk of change either. And it makes me wonder about the economics of the music industry's current attempts to stop illegal distribution of music through intimidation and lawsuits directed at individuals who lack the money and time to single-handedly fight back.

I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that the majority of people who get their music through file sharing networks would not have bought all of those illicitly-gained albums or songs if such networks didn't exist. Sure, they might spend a bit to get their favorite tunes, but why would you use a p2p network to get your music unless there is something preventing you from buying it legally, like a lack of money, or mom and dad telling you "no"? If I'm correct, then the end result of the RIAA's and MPA's current efforts will NOT be increased revenue because the folks in question aren't going to turn around and spend lots of money on music -- because they can't. If you ask me, that's a pretty large investment for little to no financial return. How does that make sense?

It makes even less sense when you consider the fact that the industry's actions are pissing off their existing customer base. I refuse to buy any more music from the industry at least until they stop their ridiculous behavior. Instead, I'm buying music from independent artists through services like CDBaby.com. And from what I've read in the blogosphere, I'm not the only one boycotting. So not only is the music industry failing to gain new customers through their tactics, they're losing existing ones. Are they just plain stupid? Don't they realize that they are cutting off their proverbial nose to spite their proverbial face? Guys: Proverbial noses, just like real noses, are pretty darn hard to reattach. To be honest, I've been enjoying the expansion of my music collection beyond what the industry thinks we should hear. And I'm feeling good about the fact that a significant portion of the money I spend on CDs from CDBaby.com goes directly to the artist -- which is how it should be. Now that I think about it, I might never go back to supporting the music industry. So RIAA and MPA: Keep doing what you're doing because your demise may very well be exactly what the doctor ordered for both artists and their fans.

Today I was checking out Pandora, which is a really cool service. So cool in fact that I was tempted to suspend my boycott of the RIAA in order to purchase some of the music I discovered on my new personalized station. But then I read about the latest activities of the RIAA, bullying witnesses into perjury, and my convictions were renewed: The RIAA is a scary group whose activities I refuse to support. Therefore, the boycott continues.... I did notice on the Pandora FAQ that you can submit your music for inclusion, so I'm hopeful that at some point down the road I can have a personalized station of independent artists.

If you've had it with the music industry, as I have, check out music.download.com and garageband.com. Both are great tools for locating independent artists. Hat tip to Kreg for introducing me to garageband.com.

Yesterday I blogged about the need for an iTunes-like product for independent artists. I also sent a note to the folks at the Podsafe Music Network asking if they had given such an endeavor any thought. Here is their response:

Boy, do I have some good news for you! In first quarter of 2006 we will be releasing a new version of the PMN. It will include an Itunes style store with multiple payment options, and some really great features for listeners. You will be able to find out more info on an artist, see where they are playing live, and be able to communicate directly with them... no labels, DRM, record executives in the way.

I, for one, am psyched!

Because I have thoroughly had it with the music industry, I spent some time this afternoon checking out the Podsafe Music Network. The plan was to locate an artist I liked, then go to that artist's site to learn more about them and potentially purchase their album/songs.

Given the large number of artists at the Network, I did an advanced search specifying Enigma as an influence. This quickly narrowed things down to two bands, one of which was Chronos. I listened to their offerings and decided that Chronos would be the first independent artist added to my music collection. So far so good! But if you're not a podcaster, which I'm not, you cannot download music. And the band has not listed a website. I Yahooed for Chronos and found them listed on mp3.de, but as a typical, monolingual American I found things there tough. I was able to download some of their songs, but I really do want to put my money where my mouth is and give it to the artist rather than the industry, so I continued scanning the site.

It seems that I can purchase their album from the German version of Amazon.com, and I don't mind purchasing in Euros, but since I don't read German I'm somewhat concerned about giving them my credit card number and hoping that I purchased what I think I did based soley on linguistic cognates -- and trying to resolve any problems if it turned out I was wrong! I also found a way to contact either the band or the folks at mp3.de regarding the band, though I'm not sure which (did I mention I'm German challenged?). I think it's the band. Anyway, I wrote someone a note in English apologizing for my inability to read their language and inquiring about how I can purchase their music. Because the rest of the world has taken the time to learn our language (thanks guys!), I am hoping for a response that I can read.

Still, this is WAY too much work. It's not easy to boycott the music industry support independent artists. What we really need, therefore, is an "iTunes" equivalent for independent artists. I want to be able to go to one place, search for artists based on genre, listen to samples, see what other listeners think, find recommendations a la "people who purchased Chronos also purchased ...", and, of course, purchase songs and albums. In other words, do all of the great stuff iTunes lets you do but with independent artists. Have credit card, will spend! I just need a place to do it....

Is it just me or have the music industry and reality had an ugly and irreparable parting of the ways? It's bad enough they are installing rootkits on our machines and suing children. Now they have decided that providing song lyrics and scores should be a jailable offense!

Give me a break. While one could make a semi-plausible case for file sharing being bad for business, I do not think the same can be said for sharing lyrics and scores. I mean, who says, "I have the lyrics (or the score), now I don't have to buy the song"??? More often than not, the reason why people want the lyrics is because they already have the song and want to get the wording right -- which, depending on the artist, might not be achievable just from listening. So now, thanks to the music industry, we'll all be singing things like "'Scuse me while I kiss this guy" -- at least until the RIAA and MPA get wind of it and sue us for libel on the basis that our lame attempt at singing our favorite tune was a damaging misrepresentation of the artist's message.

You know, I'm going to stop buying CDs, stop purchasing music through iTunes, and start listening to podsafe music. And the money I used to give to the industry, I'll give directly to the artists -- whose music is undoubtedly rootkit free!