DISQUS

Rex Sorgatz (of fimoculous.com fame) destroys most of the column in the comments at Gawker, so much so that I didn't feel there was anything to add.

The royalty question is a good one, I think, but I can't see the FCC pinning this one down as easily as they can force webcasters to pay license fees. There, the business determines the music inventory, in the case of MySpace and Bebo, the users determine the inventory.

So, if I'm a popular artist and Bebo/MySpace must pay me royalties for each "spin" I'm in complete control here. It would behoove me to put a lot of my work on their sites, because for each stream, I'd get a fee from the distributor (the site where I put my music).

If you're a start up with no set monetization strategy, you're looking at a very high overhead right from the get-go.

Ultimately it comes down to pure value exchange. More artists get distribution/promotion with almost no barriers to entry. I think Carr and Bragg ignore this element in their discussions.

Bragg is way off base here regarding work. I agree with you on that. The Marxist philosophy on workers doesn't really apply here because the workers choose to use the service for free. They agree to the terms. They choose to externalize the cost of creation for Bebo. In exchange they get a distribution pipe. It's not much different than the terrestrial radio models.

However, I have a few points to correct.

Payola is the other way around: Radio stations can't accept money from artists or labels in exchange for playing their music.

ASCAP/BMI/SESAC do monitor radio stations and collect royalty fees from broadcasters. However the money that makes it's way back to artists is negligible. Radio is largely seen by the industry as a promotional tool for CD sales and concert promotion.

Nice tip. I didn't know about that and I'm obsessive about greasemonkey scripts.

Thanks, Shawn!

I miss the days when Barkley and Jordan would just do televised charity golf tournaments and then Barkley would usually destroy Jordan. But then on the courts Jordan clearly dominated.

This "Governor" stuff... ugh. Also I really hate CNN for running this trite. I'm mean I agree with Charles on everything, but he's a basketball color commentator not a pundit...you know?

On The Road is one of my faves. I thought about the Russian masters, but I have always had great difficulty getting into Dostoevesky, etc. Tolstoy's short stories are amazing though.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I've run into that problem too. Seems random for me. I just try a second time later on and it usually works.

I think half the problem with newspaper.com CMS, especially homebrewed CMS is that the people in charge of the sites treat the Web as a newspaper.

What I mean is that I think a lot of editors out there are looking for special projects that require their own back-ends and over the years these special projects end up bloating the CMS.

The beauty of most blog content management systems is that they treat content as part of a stream. The display mechanism doesn't change much simply because the content is different.

Simplicity is important.