What the HECK is going on with the Music Industry‽‽‽

Yes, THREE interrobangs!

But seriously, what is going on? It seems every day over the last week I've been reading about incredible change, and yet I'm still seeing business as usual.


First off is the whole debacle over Trent Reznor's remix site remix.nin.com. After butting heads with Universal (apparently releasing NIN samples in this manner would impact Universal's lawsuit against Youtube/Google, lol), Reznor just threw the site up anyway. Universal's control is weakened, but not completely absent as Reznor did make some small concessions. From LiveDaily.com:

The head-scratching apparently ended on Monday (11/26), when Reznor unveiled remix.nin.com, where an FAQ explains how the site is dealing with the aforementioned concerns about fans using unauthorized materials in conjunction with their NIN remixes. The site describes unauthorized materials as "samples of songs by other artists, or samples from movies, TV shows, or video games," and says that any remixes containing such elements "will be rejected during the approval process."
"Please understand that it is not our wish to impose these restrictions on your creativity or the functionality of this site, but we have no choice in the matter," the FAQ continues.

So Universal's been hamstrung, and apparently so has Warner. Hot on the heels of Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr's admission of mishandling music's digital conversion (add that to Doug Morris bumbling through his explanation of how these new intarwebs frighten his age-ed soul, via Wired), we're now witnessing an accelerating drop in CD sales. Warner specifically, is reporting a 58% drop in CD sales over this time last year, and a net profit of only five million dollars (as opposed to twelve last year, via Yahoo/Reuters).
Warner's plan is to get more involved in artist "packaging" including image rights, management, advertising, and touring revenue, but for a company that is, admittedly, reactionary and obstinate about change, one has to wonder if they can actually shift gears fast enough to stay relevant. Madonna has already left to pursue more non-traditional distribution, not to mention a whole slew of others like NIN and Radiohead. Will others follow their example, or stay with the current, failing business model?
[Cartoon from HijinksEnsue]


Lastly, EMI is considering pulling funding for the RIAA. One of the Big Four that support the fan-suing organization, it's looking to cut a significant portion of the $132 million it contributes to the RIAA each year. This would be a positive step in my opinion, and right in line with EMI's new radical stance (Idolator), but I can't let go of that number. One HUNDRED and THIRTY TWO MILLION dollars, every year! That's TEN times the profit Warner made LAST year on album sales. You really have to question an industry that will pay ten times what it makes to sue and harass the very customers it's trying to attract. [Story @ Ars Technica]


So, we've got all this news, newsnewsnews, and yet the RIAA is still blackmailing people, artists aren't getting paid any better for their work, and it still costs me $15+ for a new-ish album (unless I go "gray market", or locked DRM crappy low bitrate download). Great.

*sigh*

Enough bitching from me, back to work...

Conan O'Brien pays salaries of 80 people

Conan O'Brien is digging deep to help his staff weather the WGA strike. Host of NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" will cover the salaries of his non-writing production staff for the foreseeable future, an NBC U spokeswoman confirmed Thursday.

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Natalie Portman Interviewed by NYT - 'Screentest'

I usually hate interviews. I don't want to know too much about the actors I enjoy watching. I used to enjoy Tom Cruise movies, for example, but now I can't separate his characters from the nut that jumped on Oprah's couch and told Matt Lauer that he was being "glib".

That's why it's so refreshing watching Natalie Portman in this interview. She's classy cool, and demonstrates a remarkable poise for woman her age. Engendering an instant respect, I think she'll be one of the only child actors from my generation to make it out alive...

This interview is beautifully shot in black and white, creatively edited, and they ask her "What are your 5 favorite non-musical sounds".

THAT'S SOMETHING I WOULD ASK!

WGA Strike: A Love Story

Sent in from my friend A.

Biggelow keeps stealing the remote...

He hasn't used it for a chew toy yet, but shouldn't he know that bad things happen to those that get in between a man and his remote?




*sigh*
He can be such a little jerk...

***UPDATE***

He KEEPS doing it!
Caught two more times...

T-Amp over at Think Geek

Think Geek has the scoop on the T-Amp, a tiny inexpensive amp, that apparently out classes amps that are many times more expensive.

To put it short and sweet... The T-Amp line of amplifiers from Sonic Impact are revered by audiophiles everywhere for their amazing sound and incredible price. These amps have better sound than others that cost 10 times as much.

The key to the T-Amp is - amazingly enough - Class T amplification. Class T amplifiers offer both the audio fidelity of Class AB (which you'd likely find in your home stereo reciever) and the power efficiency of Class D amplifiers (often used to provide the punch for subwoofer amps).

Think Geek Preview

Product Page @ Sonic Impact

Warburton talks to Kotaku - has funny voice - is big guy

Reading through Kotaku's interview with Patrick "Puddy-The-Tick-Brock-Sampson" Warburton, I just can't shake his voice. It's just plain funny.

Anywho, if you haven't figured it out, Warburton is a pretty accomplished voice actor, and while the interview is pretty interesting, I found this bit to be the most telling:

"Videogames are fun to do," said Warburton. "I don't really see how you could make a living off of it. These games can make jillions of dollars, but the piece of the action that actors get is really miniscule compared to what these things do. But any paycheck is better than a kick in the pants. It's fun to work on them and be part of them."

This guy is most certainly making bigger deals than scale, and even HE thinks video game voice actors are underpaid. It really is time for videogames to start paying out residuals.

READ THE WHOLE INTERVIEW HERE @ KOTAKU

P.S.

Jerry: So, Puddy, this is a pretty good move for you, huh? No more "grease monkey".
David Puddy: I don't much care for that term.
Jerry: Oh. Sorry, I didn't know...
David Puddy: No, I don't know too many monkeys who could take apart a fuel injector.
Jerry: I saw one once that could do sign language.
David Puddy: Yeah, I saw that one. Uh... Koko.
Jerry: Yeah, Koko.
David Puddy: Right, Koko. That chimp's alright. High-five.

HIGH-FIVE!

I kid you not: What to do when your computer randomly plays Fur Elise

Wow!This is a REAL Microsoft support page. Some one has HAD this problem...

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Adam Sessler on Mass Effect - Has a lot to say about the voice acting...

We all know how I feel about voice acting in games. All to often it's overlooked for fancier graphics, or it feels like it was tacked on at the last minute, or it's just plain bad. It's made even more disappointing by the fact that it doesn't have to be that way.
While I think most gamers value innovative game play over story telling, games like Portal, Oblivion, and Half Life 2 show us that it's the subtleties of good performance that really add to the immersive effect of gaming. In essence good performance helps build that fourth wall around the player, helps create that suspension of disbelief, made all the trickier by the fact that gaming is interactive.

The player controls the action, but also has to lose themselves in the game at the same time.

What's been most frustrating for me, is that all to often you'll hear about games with bad voice acting, but you rarely hear anyone really talk about voice acting positively. In a review you might see some blurb at the end of a review "Oh, uhhhh, I've got 100 words to go, so, uhhh, the voice acting didn't suck...yeah". I mean, this year Spike didn't even include a "Voice Acting" category in their awards show line up!

That's why it's so refreshing to hear Adam Sessler talk about how refreshing good voice acting is.

The Easiest Work Space Upgrade YOU Might Be Overlooking - Computer Monitors

So, I'm a big fan of dual screens. In fact, I get a little claustrophobic when I have to use just one monitor.
Up until recently I had two different types of screens, one 19"LCD (flat panel) and one 19"CRT (bigboxybulky). Well, the CRT finally started dying, so I replaced it with a 22" LCD I found on sale. The extra space has been fantastic!

So why am I so excited? We're just talking about 3" right?

Well, not really. The amount of information you can see on screen is actually governed by your monitor's resolution. Each image you see, be it on a computer, cell phone, or TV, is made up of a series of dots or pixels. The greater the number of pixels per inch, the smoother the image will be, and the more information you can fit on the screen.
My 19" monitors had a native resolution 1280x1024 or 1,280 dots across and 1,024 dots down. The actual dimensions of my monitor are 14" x 11.5", or 161 square inches. When you divide the resolution by the surface area, you get the dots per square inch. This is sometimes know as pixel density. For every square inch on my 19" monitor there are over 8,100 pixels (fun fact: your standard 19" computer monitor is almost FOUR times the resolution of standard definition TV).

So, moving up to a 22" monitor SOUNDS like I get an extra 3 inches, or a 15% increase in screen size, but lets do the math.
Resolution of 19" = 1280x1024 --> 1,310,720 pixels
Resolution of 22" = 1680x1050 --> 1,764,000 pixels

This actually means that I've increased my resolution by 34%, or I've achieved a 34% increase in screen "size". That's pretty good for one little upgrade. I can now see a lot more audio on my screen at any given time, and with two monitors (one 19, one 22) I can see a tremendous amount of information at any given time. It really changes the way you use your computer.

Monitor's also tend to share resolutions over multiple sizes. Hmmmm, what does that really mean? Well, a monitor's resolution is not dependent on it's physical size.
Generally:
15" = 1024x768
17" - 19" = 1280x1024
20" - 22" (wide) = 1680x1050
23" - 28" (wide) = 1920x1200
30"+ (wide) = 2560x1600 (!)

By comparison "HDTV" (if it's "full" HD) is called 1080p, but it's really a resolution of 1920x1080. As you can see above, computer monitors are already a higher resolution at a smaller size. The expectation with a 42" TV is that you'll sit far away from it, and that you'll sit closer to a 24" computer monitor. However, upgrading to a monitor over 22" might mean having to upgrade your computer's video card, or installing new graphics drivers.

Here are a couple examples of what two different resolutions will look like (click the pics to see them full size).

Desktop @ 800x600

Desktop @ 1280x1024

Sound Forge @ 800x600

Sound Forge @ 1280x1024

Sound Forge and Vegas on dual screens (19 and 22)


Nice!