Well it looks like Universal will be offering its entire catalog for free at a website called Spiral Frog by the end of the year. One catch though, you have to watch advertisements before downloading.

I like the concept. I think people will use this as it is legal (no guilty feeling) and safer (No viruses, etc.)

It does have DRM though, and won’t be compatible with the iPod. Quite pointless in my opinion, as it seems like almost everyone and their dog has one these days. Those people will just continue with iTunes Music Store or they will just download them illegally.

At least they are sort of embracing the internet.

Edited to add:

It looks like this is even worse than it sounds. The service is not just ad supported but ad enforced:

Spiral Frog will offer a desktop downloader for Windows Media Files (no iPods!) that can be listened to on one PC and two portable devices. Here’s the kicker - you must log in to the Spiral Frog service at least once per month, and see their ads, or your files will stop playing! The details aren’t fully set in stone, but it will be something like that. There will be links to third party sites of the record labels’ choosing if you’d like to buy your freedom to at least skip the ads.

Looks like they still can’t get anything right. Just ruining good ideas with more restrictions and less freedom.

Just some lyrics that I thought I would share from one of my favorite, and coincidently NDP supporting, band:

———-

Fun and Games
Barenaked Ladies
we sent in the army
they sounded alarms we
saw it coming from a mile away
we kept it off radar
because we had to say our
intentions were to save the day

why did you fail
to see

it was a gag
it was all for a laugh
and they were shocked and they were awed
and they were blown in half

fun and games
we’re just pulling legs
we knew this barrel of fun
would be a powderkeg

we kept it all long-range
and made a regime change
you’d have thought it would have been a gas
but when it got ugly
we sat around smugly
because you bought our little joke en masse
don’t look at me that way

it was a gag
it was all for a laugh
we knew your sons and daughters
would be blown in half

fun and games
we’re just pulling legs
we knew this barrel of fun
would be a powderkeg

put a smile on
we’re the ones that you selected
leave that dial son
because we just got re-elected
in a while our
bill of rights will be rejected

and all the blame will be deflected [this bit is vaudville style]
the forests will be unprotected
the nation’s poor will be neglected
creation myth is resurrected
a new salute is genuflected
a gallup poll will be respected
gallows pole will be erected
all this will go undetected

while you all slumbered
we sat and crunched numbers
of all the causalities we could afford
there’s no need to draft them
you could hear us laugh then
the poor and black all need the room and board
did I say that
out loud

it was a gag
it was all for a laugh
and now our very nation has been blown in half

fun and games
we’re just pulling legs
we knew this barrel of fun
would be a powderkeg

we knew this barrel of fun
would be a powderkeg

it’s a powderkeg

———-
The album, entitled Barenaked Ladies Are Men, with this song on it will be released early next year after they release Barenaked Ladies Are Me in the fall. You can download a live version here for only ninety-nine cents.

Edited to add: I am keeping an online database of the lyrics for the BNL album for myself as I can not find them anywhere else on the internet. If you are interested, they can be found here.

The Canadian Music Creators Coalition is a newly formed group that really represents Canadian music and artists. While the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) disagrees by saying they are working in the best interest of Canadian music. I choose to believe the people who actually create the music.The CRIA, by law, must represent the share holders of the record labels that are members of it, and most of these record labels are non-Canadian.

Here is an excerpt from Canadian Music Creators Coalition’s Website:

1. Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical
Artists do not want to sue music fans. The labels have been suing our fans against our will, and laws enabling these suits cannot be justified in our names. We oppose any copyright reforms that would make it easier for record companies to do this. The government should repeal provisions of the Copyright Act that allow labels to unfairly punish fans who share music for non-commercial purposes with statutory damages of $500 to $20,000 per song.

2. Digital Locks are Risky and Counterproductive
Artists do not support using digital locks to increase the labels’ control over the distribution, use and enjoyment of music or laws that prohibit circumvention of such technological measures. The government should not blindly implement decade-old treaties designed to give control to major labels and take choices away from artists and consumers. Laws should protect artists and consumers, not restrictive technologies. Consumers should be able to transfer the music they buy to other formats under a right of fair use, without having to pay twice.

3. Cultural Policy Should Support Actual Canadian Artists
The vast majority of new Canadian music is not promoted by major labels, which focus mostly on foreign artists. The government should use other policy tools to support actual Canadian artists and a thriving musical and cultural scene. The government should make a long-term commitment to grow support mechanisms like the Canada Music Fund and FACTOR, invest in music training and education, create limited tax shelters for copyright royalties, protect artists from inequalities in bargaining power and make collecting societies more transparent.

The CRIA is currently lobbying the government to change the copyright laws in Canada. The Canadian Music Creators Coalition agrees the copyright laws need to change. But who should be creating them, multinational record labels or Canadian artists themselves? The answer is quite clear, the Canadian artists.

Canadian culture is important. And it must be encouraged. But how can multinational record labels truly represent Canadian talent when most of their clientele is American? They can’t. With five Canadian record labels dropping out of the CRIA last month, the CRIA is becoming less and less Canadian. Canadians should be making the laws of Canada not corporate interests.

I say keep up the good work to all the artists involved in the Canadian Music Coalition and I hope to hear more from them in the not too distant future.

“Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.” ~ John Lennon

For your enjoyment:

This piece of mail accidentally got delivered to me, it was a neighbors.