Not much going on today. My usually Monday off was made even better because Lauren had it off as well. Sadly, I don’t get an additional day off since I get Mondays off normally. Oh well. So, everyone else got a three day weekend and I’m excited because for once I get a two day! Spending it with Lauren was also good because I usually don’t get to do that and I miss spending entire weekends with her.
In other news, my membership in the TCC is being voted on by members. If I don’t get in it’ll be a close vote. My boss got in yesterday and said that most of the other members voted “yes”, so that’s promising. I’ve been told that my “strategy” is slightly dated and that I should go for the flag more often. I say that’s ridiculous since I outscore all of them by a wide margin. I have screen caps to prove it. Oh well. It’s not like I won’t play if I don’t get into their magic little club. Honestly, I just wanted an excuse to fire up Team Speak and yell at people instead of typing at them. I find that more therapeutic.
This just in. Chris has given his page a makeover and a backend change. He’s now running WordPress 1.2 and a nifty blue theme. Good for him.
I’ve got more links to share and whatnot but it’s dinner time and Lauren’s walking in with Mexican.
Later.
Hey Matt: A subject near and dear to your heart, price of CD’s, is the subject of an article in todays Wall Street Journal. It appears that the music producers and distributors are not the only bad guys – one company (General Music Group) has been trying to lower prices. They placed a maximum suggested retail price of $12.95 on all their CD’s but the retail stores will not honor that price and are using the discount to boost their profits!
Oh I believe it. By the time we actually get a CD in our hands we’re paying off like 12 different companies. The whole retail music system is so messed up I now consider it an ancient sinking ship. Any rats that want to save themself should jump off now. I haven’t bought a physical CD in about 6 month and between now and then I’ve bought one or two through iTunes just to try it. I paid $9 a CD, was able to burn it as many times as I wanted and could even arrange and remove tracks before I burnt’em if I didn’t like that particular track.
Retail is screwed.
Thanks for the info too, is there a link to look at? Or was this in the physical printed paper and not online?
Unfortunately, the WSJ online is a subscription service – I saw the article in the print edition. I did mis-quote, it is Universal Music Group that was trying to lower prices, not General Music Group.
i don’t know about the legality of it, it seems pretty safe to me based on all of the articles i’ve read..but check out allofmp3.com. 1¢ per megabyte, 10 bucks a gig, many different formats. i’ve spent 20 bucks thus far for over 25 full albums. it works with paypal, so you don’t have to give up your credit card number (directly at least). it’s certainly my iPod’s new best friend.
now, onto the legal…i’ve read some speculation that it’s connected to the russian mob…i’ve read that it isn’t really licensed (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/05/russian_mp3_site/), as they claim…but the best article is this one (http://smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/26/1082831475556.html) from the sydney morning herald. it features an interview with a lawyer who claims “the end user would seem to have a good basis to argue that he is an innocent infringer, which would mean he isn’t liable to damages, although he would still be liable to an order requiring him to destroy or deliver up any copies and an order requiring him to refrain from doing it again.”…even if their license IS bogus. not too bad at all.
interesting stuff. check it out. it was all the rage at oHouse for the last two weeks of the quarter. =)
allofmp3.com