Can You Hear Me Now?

First off, let me get the happy new year out of the way. Happy new year! There we go. The holidays have been jam packed for me, and even though I've not been at work much, I've been pretty busy just running around, or with company over. For the few days that I had neither of those going on, I just sat around and rested. The break was not nearly long enough, but it was certainly a lot of fun. I hope that everyone else had a safe, and fun Christmas and New Year.

As for the topic of my post, I'm fairly certain that people are going deaf. Not only are they becoming hard of hearing, but it is their own doing that is causing it. A lot of people that I know have a hard time hearing things that are softer. They always seem to not hear the same things that I can. I don't think that I necessarily have better hearing that I should, but that they have worse. The primary cause of this, is often what they are having to turn up: music and television. They spend a lifetime of listening to loud music, and blaring TV sets, and as they get older they just turn them up even more, perpetuating it.

One of the biggest problems I have with bars is the noise. They are usually quite loud, and I have no desire to sit there and have my ears assaulted. If I'm out at a bar, I'm going to want to talk without having to shout. Most of the places I go have a fairly low level of noise, usually. There are people talking and rustling around, but they don't blast music, or turn the TVs up past a sane level. Last night, however, that was not the case. One of my usual places, a place I visit pretty much weekly, was overrun with crazy OU and WV fans. Instead of being able to watch my Mavericks and Stars in peace, I was subject to a barrage of cheering and a speaker system blasting the TV broadcast loud enough that I'm sure the apartments down the street could hear it clearly. Of course, I'm sure that the only reason they needed to achieve such a volume was to compensate for their loss of hearing. Had these fans grown up appreciating sound in moderation, there would be no need to turn the dumb thing up so loud.

I know what you are thinking at this point: "Jeremy, if you're just going to complain about this, why don't you just not go to the bars in the first place?" That's simple, I have a good time going out with friends. Also, I just like to complain. Really, though, do yourself and your hearing a favor. Turn the volume down a bit, and start enjoying your tunes and your shows at a more reasonable level.

This post was brought to you by the crotchety old-man Jeremy.

He Said, She Said

As many of you have probably noticed by now, all of internet radio did not disappear on July 15. There was a rough agreement reached that would allow the majority of net radio stations to continue broadcasting. However, the broadcasters are now claiming that SoundExchange really wanted them to implement DRM, and now they're using the new fees as leverage to make it happen. SoundExchange says that the broadcasters aren't telling the whole truth, but they won't actually address anything that DiMA (Digital Media Association, the broadcasters basically) is saying. On the flip side, DiMA hasn't actually come right out and said anything specific about what is being requested. Essentially, we have two groups that are just bickering about what is happening. As a consumer, I'm obligated to side with DiMA, but I really wish everyone would just be more open about what is going on. I can easily see there being truth to what DiMA is saying, given history. Why SoundExchange won't just come out and address things makes me wonder, though. I mean, everyone already hates them, is there really any risk in them telling us more?

Looks Like Things Are Getting Better

So I posted a while ago about the good news regarding net radio. I've since seen this post on Pandora's site that seems to confirm it. It points to a post by Ken Dardis that does a good job summing up what's going on. The gist is that stations that have been paying royalties, and really do want to continue to pay something that is fair will be able to continue to do so, for the time being. This is great for sites like Pandora that are legit and trying to do what's best for everybody involved. Ken says he's keeping the champagne on ice for now, and I think he's right, but this definitely goes to show that there is hope.

Good News Everybody

I guess that I might have spoke too soon yesterday when I said it look really bad for net radio. In an announcement that I assume was made lat yesterday/last night, SoundExchange said that they would not enforce the increased fees on Monday, as they originally were going to do. While this is no save for everyone, it is definitely a good thing to hear, if for no other reason that it giving people more time to try to fight the new fees. I haven’t had time to look into this a lot today, so I’m not sure if there was a reason given for why SoundExchange did this, but I’ll be sure to post once I find out.

Goodbye Net Radio, We Hardly Knew Ye

Today was a sad day for those of us that actually care about music. The Court of Appeals denied a motion that would push back the the new royalty payments for online broadcasters. I know that I sound like a broken record, but I do not see how anyone in their right mind can think that this is a good idea. Exactly what part of this is going to beneficial to anyone? It isn't even like it is something that will benefit the music industry. All they are going to do is kill off a revenue stream. Internet radio is far, far from piracy, but I have to wonder if that is how they see it. In all honesty, the only difference I can see between net radio and terrestrial radio is that with the net I am able to listen to a wider variety of music. Apparently, that's a bad thing. I'm still hoping for some kind of 11th hour save here, but I'm really thinking it isn't likely. And I understand that this isn't going to wipe out every single net radio station overnight (for instance, Pandora has already said they could pay the bill, but don't know if their business plan is actually viable afterwards), but it will be killing off a lot of the smaller stations. The kicker to all this is that the ones being punished are the ones that are trying to be legit in their broadcasting. If you're just sending out a rogue signal, you couldn't care less about this. Once again, the entertainment industry demonstrates their complete lack of intelligence.

Musical Choices of Morons

In the ongoing aftermath of Danah Boyd's paper about MySpace and Facebook users, Mashable looks at some interesting data from the two. They've taken the top music picks from the two sites and compared them. In a disclaimer, they say that they only have access to the Maryland stats on Facebook, not the entire site. Their intent was to be fairly unbiased, and just to report what they found. I don't find their results too surprising. The music preferences on Facebook are what might be considered "classier," in that there aren't rappers in there with songs about shooting people and humping like rabbits. That might not be the best term, but you get what I mean. Taken in a purely stereotypical view, the contrasting musical choices play along quite well with her paper, and with my opinion of MySpace users.