Wow….I took the big step this week of getting my music onto iTunes as podcasts!  I think that is pretty cool.  It is listed as the Musing Mana Song Project. At this point, these are the free versions….eventually, per my original master plan, when I have album-ready music available, I will be creating albums and release those for sale for real money on iTunes as well. For now, if you have iTunes installed, go to iTunes and search for my name under podcasts and you will find me….at least I have found myself.  I found myself and never even had to leave home to do it…how cool and efficient is that?

One of the reasons I chose iTunes is regarding Digital Rights Management on digital media:  iTunes is DRM Free.  I don’t want restriction on my work and I can’t imagine why anyone else would want to put DRM on my songs.  I know any time that I have gotten music that is DRM protected, the main thing it makes me feel is annoyed!  Oh, I also suppose since I am a Mac-ite in training (see It’s Gonna Be A Mac), I felt moved to do some other Apple-ish activities.

Anyway, here is a good post from a few years ago by Cory Doctorow on Digital Rights Management on digital media basically saying that DRM is a really stupid idea and that people shouldn’t be complacent and allow it to gain a foothold.

So far, from my little vantage point it appears to me that the forces of IP freedom are winning the battle against DRM. Cory wants DRM dead and I don’t blame him.

>>The core of folk music is anonymity and the public domain.<<

And further:

>>I would add that the music needs to be part of a community, although the community can now be a worldwide-web community as easily as a geographically-based community. True folk music will always be the mortal enemy of intellectual property rights: i.e. it can only thrive when people are free to build on the work of others. Pop music and country music (though maybe not jazz) all treat musicians and songwriters as islands whose creative “product” is inviolable. To make a living in folk music performers need to be constantly interacting with fans and other musicians in ways that labels and established pop musicians would find dangerous.<<

This is an awesome statement and it is exactly what the Creative Commons movement, founded by Lawrence Lessig, is all about. We need to lower barriers and increase creativity and interaction. The internet and especially Web 2.0 has provided a tremendous opportunity to independent artists and those in the folk music movement to interact with their fans and other musicians in a meaningful, fundamentally different way than has ever been possible. Big Brother is no longer in control. We have the means to restart the engines of creativity. Besides professor Lessig, another internet collaboration pioneer and favorite of mine is Jonathon Coulton.  And of course, if you are reading my site, you already know that I have also thrown my hat into the ring and established my own web site with the desire to expand the circle of collaboration and creativity even more.

Firefox 3 was released recently. You can download your copy here. I’ve just installed it, and so far it looks good. It has an updated user interface, more features, and it’s more secure.

Take a look!

Good ol’ KING5 has a news piece on this fantasy shredder’s dream. Rock on!

According to this new article, Online Music Habits Could Lead To Identity Theft, by Amy Clancy, http://www.kirotv.com/consumer/15530001/detail.html if you have a P2P program installed, even if you don’t have it running or open, your computer is still accessible by others if you have a live internet connection.

What do you think? Is this true, or is this fear mongering?

I’m not sure how big of a concern this really is assuming you opt out of sharing any files on a P2P network and use it strictly for download and have a basic firewall installed. But at any rate, this lends support for using other options such as downloading legitimately from indie artists such as me or from reputable DRM free sites.

I recently added the functionality of “Global Translator” to my web site. The plug-in is made available by David of Nothing to Hide. Thanks David!!

It is a Wordpress Plugin that can automatically translate the contents of this site into the following different languages:

English, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Greek, Dutch, Norwegian, Bulgarian, Czech, Croat, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Polish, Rumanian and Swedish..

To translate, you will see country flags on the left side of this page. Click the flag you want to translate the text into and the page is automatically translated.

Now, this is really cool! Did you hear this ITALY? I’d be happy to come play guitar in Rome, Venice, Naples or anywhere in between. I am waiting to hear from you.

The main thing I miss about vinyl is having something tangible to hold in my hands from my favorite group, plus the great album artwork that you could put on a large 33 rpm record sleeve. Take a look at this news story running on Seattle’s KING5 TV’s site.

Jim Croce:

Seth Godin also has some good points on his blot, 9 to be exact, in his article, “Write like a blogger”. Item # 4 is something I have been focusing on in my site…provide links. It’s okay if you leave. Because I know if I am a resource for have offering valuable things I know you’ll come back again.

4. It’s okay if you leave. Bloggers aren’t afraid to include links or distractions in their writing, because we know you’ll come back if what we had to say was interesting.”

I have also put a permanent link to this on the Free Stuff page.

Happy reading!

Look at my car!