Cashing in on the growing popularity of mp3 blogs, and the lack of tools to take advantage of them, Winamp’s Media Monitor can be used in conjunction with the software’s built-in browser to access any mp3s linked to on a blog page, presented as a playlist or even downloaded to your library. Winamp also includes handy links to a dozen or so music blogs to get you started.

Winamp goes where iTunes doesn’t dare | last100

Chicago House Dj

I remember going over to my cousins house when I was young (1980’s) and browsing through his tape case. He had a bunch of cool music at the time and I would buy a handfull of cheep blank tapes from the drugstore for a few dollars. Then I would pick or let him recommend a bunch of them for me to copy. I would then go home with a bunch a new music to listen to untill I got bored with it and came to visit next time.

Note to companies making MP3 players and services: Include features that the consumer wants, discontinue features that we don’t want but benifit your bottom line sales.

Here we are now, entertain us

PS.

Napster worked better back in 1999!

Chicago House Dj

Do they get any crazier than this?

GOOD EARLY MORNING HUMANS OF THE PLANT EARTH !!! WHERE EVER YOU ARE :]
Well I have been busting ass all day and maybe I am trying 2 hard but I didn’t’ feel anything really POP at me except the new house music power mix I have been working on.. The original one from 2 days ago was somehow destroyed I don’t know how … weird computer error…

Keep it surreal

Digital rights management (DRM) has its benefits, but should not overly restrict users, according to musician and mobile entrepreneur Chuck D.

The rapper, who was a founding member of hip hop group Public Enemy and now runs a content service, told delegates at the Mobile Content World conference in London that he had always looked at technology as “something you can apply to a better world if you stay on top of it and don’t let it stay on top of you”.

He said he does “believe in some sort of DRM” but pointed out that MP3 was the most popular compression format because it does not limit how the customer can use the file once bought.

“You’ve got artists who are just starting out who are understanding that DRM is a way of life,” Chuck D said, adding that musicians “understand it doesn’t have to be the Pirates of Penzance as it was”, a reference to the free-for-all early days of Napster and similar P2P engines.

The issue of DRM has become increasingly contentious with the growth of new media distribution services. Some see it as a way to protect the intellectual property of content creators, while others see it as unnecessary infringement by distributors on the rights of the consumer.

Speaking to ZDNet UK after his presentation, Chuck D described the current situation with DRM as “just a lot of fucked-up shit”.

“It has to get to a point where it works for everyone — sometimes people can’t share or burn their own CD,” he said. He suggested that a solution may lie in a universal media format but said that development was “impossible right now”.

Asked for his opinion on FairUse4WM, the anti-DRM Windows Media crack that recently caused the suspension of Sky’s online movie service, Chuck D said he was “always going to tip [his] hat to the rebels”.

He also expressed scepticism about the purchase this year of MySpace by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, indicating that it may eventually make the portal less effective in promoting new artists.

“The problem with corporations is they come into any business with a gold-rush mentality of making a killing and there’s a difference between making a killing and making a living,” he said, warning that “people in the back of their minds think the free reign [of sites such as MySpace and YouTube] is going to be taken away and collapse because it’s too good to be true”.

Chuck D Mobile was launched earlier this year to offer a range of ringtones, videos and other hip-hop-related content for mobile phones. According to the rapper, he had “gotten wary of delivering my content to middlemen” and saw mobile technology as the most effective way to “expand an art form and genre” in urban areas around the world.

The venture is not Chuck D’s first into digital distribution” his Slamjamz online record label was launched in 1996 and continues to release albums, while his Rapstation.com web portal offers free MP3 downloads.

A global Anti-DRM Day has been scheduled for 3 October by DefectiveByDesign.org, a subset of the Free Software Foundation.

There is no reason to protest DRM. It works to the underground artists advantage to have fans distributing the content and creating a buzz.

The question is are you buying what their selling?

This is the new links page

Link

We’ve also been saying that DRM has a cost. It’s very expensive for companies like Yahoo! to implement. We’d much rather have our engineers building better personalization, recommendations, playlisting applications, community apps, etc, instead of complex provisioning systems which at the end of the day allow you to burn a CD and take the DRM back off, anyway! And on the consumer end there is certainly some discount built into that $0.99 download for the fact that you can burn a limited number of times, can’t play it on your Squeezebox, can’t DJ it with your DJ software, and can’t make a movie out of it with iMovie? I certainly hope so. Un-DRM’d content is implicitly more valuable to a consumer.

Now put that next to the fact that Emusic carries most everyone aside from the major labels (even big indies like V2 and TVT — White Stripes and Lil’ Jon are available via Emusic), and you see why we’re dying for the rights to offer MP3 downloads for sale to our users.

Which is why we’re so excited about these personalized Jessica Simpson tracks. Not only is it pretty cool to have a version of the song which speaks to me (I was shocked to see they had “Ian”, did they do that for me?), but it’s in MP3 format, which I have no problem paying a little more for (though $1.99 is a premium price because of the PERSONALIZATION, not the DRM, the right price for MP3s is somewhere between $0.99 and there, IMHO).

We hope you see the importance of this, too, and pick up a copy for yourself and/or a loved one, even if you don’t love JS and think that $1.99 is too much to spend on an MP3.

One of the more annoying things we’ve found when discussing how the entertainment industry needs to adapt and change and embrace new technologies in place of their old business model, is the repeated claim that it’s impossible to make money if the content is given away for free. Impossible is a pretty absolute statement — and all you need is one example to disprove it. However, as we’ve shown, there are many, many examples of entertainers who have learned how to make more money out of giving away their content — which seems to disprove the whole “impossible” bit. However, the industry folks don’t seem to know how to respond to that, so they just keep saying it’s impossible.

Witness this bizarre exchange between John Perry Barlow and the MPAA’s Dan Glickman debating the future of the entertainment industry. Barlow notes that he made an awful lot of money as a songwriter for the Grateful Dead, which encouraged its fans to make tapes of its shows for free. Glickman immediately responds by saying: “It is ridiculous to believe that you can give product away for free and be more successful. I mean it defies the laws of nature.” The problem, as always, is that Glickman has incorrectly defined his market — which is a scary thought if he’s supposed to be the leading spokesperson for that industry. He thinks they’re in the business of selling content. That’s not so. It’s too narrowly defined. The entertainment business is in the business of entertaining — and that can include many things that still involve giving content away for free for promotional value. We’ve discussed plenty of examples in the recording industry — and Barlow’s success helps prove that. In Glickman’s own movie industry the examples are even more obvious. They should be selling the experience of seeing a movie, not just the content. However, when Glickman says things like the idea that giving away things for free is against “the laws of human nature,” we wonder if this means he’s never received anything for free in his life. Does he turn down the free soda offered with the slice of pizza in the corner shop? Free dessert with dinner? Why that’s just crazy talk! Those restaurants must be run by anti-capitalist extremists. Their actions in giving away free food are against the laws of nature, and they must be on their way out of business.