Label:Life

Craig Barrett, the chief executive officer of Intel Corp., has called for the adoption of a worldwide DRM (digital rights management) system that allows consumers the flexibility to manipulate the content they own in ways of their choosing and has criticized some existing or proposed systems for the restrictions they enforce. Barrett was speaking in Tokyo on Tuesday as part of a seminar to promote Intel’s vision of the future digital home.

At the heart of the company’s envisaged digital home is a set of standards that allow computer and consumer electronics devices to interconnect and communicate with each other. Such standards are being developed by the Digital Home Working Group, of which Intel is one of 17 founding members, and the group is expected to publish its first specification during the next quarter, he said. Devices based on the standard are expected to begin appearing in the second half of this year.[more @ www.infoworld.com]

An ageing rock group gave themselves a facelift by getting a group of teenagers to stand in for them on the video of their latest song, helping them score their first chart hit for some 15 years.

Convinced the music industry is prejudiced against wrinkly rockers, The Alarm gave themselves the pseudonym The Poppyfields and persuaded a group of fresh-faced youths to mime their part.

“They did it to show they wanted to be judged on music and not on their image and haircuts of 15 years ago,” said a spokesman for the band.

The single, 45RPM, went into the UK charts this week at number 28.

The Welsh band were previously best known for 1983 hit “68 guns” and said they pulled the stunt to show how much image affected sales in the music industry.[www.news.yahoo.com]

A record company’s attempt to silence a popular remix has raised voices of protest among almost 200 websites, which are posting DJ Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album online in defiance of the music industry’s copyright control.

Musicians and music fans will host The Grey Album, a remix of music from The Beatles’ White Album and rapper Jay-Z’s Black Album, on their Web pages Tuesday. Those who don’t want to host the music but support the cause will make their websites gray for the day. Six independent radio stations around the country will play the album Tuesday, said Holmes Wilson, co-founder of Downhill Battle, the group that organized the protest.

Danger Mouse caused a sensation when he released the album last month. But when EMI, which owns the rights to Beatles sound recordings, heard about the popular mix, lawyers for the label demanded that Danger Mouse stop selling his record. They claimed he had not asked permission or paid for the rights to use the music.

According to protesters, the Danger Mouse fiasco is a perfect example of how outdated copyright restrictions stifle creativity. The label’s tactics show that “making money is a higher priority in the music industry than making music,” said John Langton, a student and musician. [more @ www.wired.com]

US entertainment companies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have joined forces in their campaign against digital piracy with a plan to place stark warnings on DVDs, CDs and video games about the penalties for making unauthorised copies.

The new warning label, unveiled at a news conference on Thursday, will carry the FBI seal and read: “The unauthorised reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (130,000 pounds).”

“The theft of copyrighted material has grown substantially and has had a detrimental impact on the U.S. economy,” said FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Jana Monroe, who added that cyber-crime ranks as the FBI’s No. 3 priority right now behind terrorism and counter-intelligence.[more @ www.expressindia.com]

Detroit’s hometown rapper Eminem claims Apple Computer Inc. wrongly used one of his songs in a TV ad touting Apple’s iTunes internet store.

As a result, the publisher of Eminem’s music is suing MTV, Apple Computer, Viacom and the advertising agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day in U.S. District Court in Detroit, claiming copyright infringement.

The advertisement featured a 10-year-old singing Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.” The suit claims the commercial aired many times on MTV beginning in July 2003 and ran for at least three months. It also appeared on Apple’s Web site.

“Eminem has never nationally endorsed any commercial products and … even if he were interested in endorsing a product, any endorsement deal would require a significant amount of money, possibly in excess of $10 million,” said the 15-page lawsuit filed Friday.

The suit claims that Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs personally called Joel Martin, the manager of Ferndale-based Eight Mile Style music publishing firm, asking Martin and Eminem to “rethink their position” about using the song.

In response, the suit said Eminem ended discussions with Apple. [more @ www.detnews.com]

Chuck D, hip-hop artist and influential spokesman for the hip-hop community, challenged University of Alabama students to not accept commercialized ‘Americanism’ but to think with a global perspective.

Speaking on the topics of rap, race, reality and technology, rapper Chuck D challenged UA students to form educated opinions in a world of commercialized reality.

University Programs brought Chuck D, front man for the hip-hop group Public Enemy, to address the issue of diversity during African-American Heritage Month. Chuck D is best known for being one of the forefathers of the hip-hop revolution in the 1980s as well as an influential social and political activist. Most recently, he was awarded 2003’s Rock the Nation Award for assisting in bringing about political and social change.

“I am excited that Chuck D is speaking on our campus because he always offers highly conscious political critique of race relations,” said Robert Young, professor of African American literature and culture.

The main theme running through Chuck D’s presentation was to challenge students to view themselves as adults who can form their own opinions and stand-up to the opinions that Chuck D said are pushed by media outlets and formed by large American corporations.

“The real-estate of the new millennium is your mind, and you are allowing the airwaves to program it,” said Chuck D. [more @ www.datelinealabama.com]

This week We’ve had so many good submissions that I can’t pick just one so we’ll have to treat you to four instead!

First up is ‘Blessed Love: Jamaican Producers 1960 -1969’, released yesterday on the ever prolific Trojan Records.

This is a great album for existing Reggae veterans and neophytes alike. Featuring the classic reggae works of six of Jamaica’s greatest record producers (Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd, Arthur ‘Duke’ Reid, Sonia Pottinger, Leslie Kong, Joe Gibbs and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry), it is pure quality, with every track showcasing the groundbreaking production skills and musicianship of Jamaica in the early days of Ska, Rocksteady and Reggae itself. Unfortunately, there’s no audio clip but I urge you to get hold of a copy.www.TrojanRecords.com

Next up is ‘NYC Deglam’ (de-glam?) by the Roughstars, the opening track on thier self titled album, released yesterday on Home Style Cooking.

Musical classification is difficult on this one as you will hear. Punk, Funk, Soul and Hip-Hop all meld in this fiercely funky record. It sounds like The Clash getting mashed with ESG and Timbaland round at George Clinton’s House. Honest. Very New York, very cool. We like alot. Check it out HERE.

Now to some underground Hip-Hop with real potential.’The Ryhme’ by Timid from his album ‘InTimidation’, released yesterday on 3rd Visional/Head Nod Music, is real ‘stream of consciousness’ Rap poetry type stuff. Real quality delivery and thought provoking lyrics abound. I hope this is an artist we’ll be hearing more of in wider circles soon. Have a listen HERE

Finally, also worth a mention is ‘Volume Freak’ by Funk D Void, released yesterday on Soma records. Melodic, danceable Techno (Detroit via Glasgow)is the name of the game here. The track builds slowly from abstract, initially confusing beginnings, to flow into a georgeous melodic arrangement that only the best Techno producers can master. Check it out HERE and visit www.somarecords.com.

After spending 10 minutes trying to play a promo ‘blank’ cd, the bin was my next thought.

Discarded and forgotten, the promo CD that came into the office from a prospective client caused 10 minutes of frustration and the realisation that a burning error must have been the cause of the problem. Two days later (and coincidentally after Label:Life’s rant on CD copy protection) it occurred to me that the CD was not in fact blank or corrupt – it just didn’t fucking work in my PC. Bastard. How could we promote someone’s CD if we couldn’t even play it?

After some initial investigating the copy protection turned out to be XCP copy protection. A newish system that I must say had me stumped for at least an hour. It actually corrupts the audio on the CD so that CD players with less tolerant ‘playback’ (i.e. CD-ROMS, DVD players, in car CD players) get stuck on the corrupted ‘bit’ instead of just skipping it and carrying on with the rest of the track. This along with various other methods, interestingly including altering slightly the protection on different batches of the ‘pressing’ run, so that if a CD is cracked once other batches of the same run can’t be cracked.

Errrrr. Actually as with all DRM, once you know what’s going on i.e. not much, it’s a piece of cake to get the audio from the CD and convert to MP3, just using standard tools available all over the web but we won’t go into that here. When will labels learn that the money they spend on these ‘complicated’ protection schemes could be better spent on artist development, reducing the cost to the punters or adding value to the releases themselves? If a punter buys a CD, it better work anywhere they want it to, or they might consider alternative ways of owning it…[MP – YR Media]

I don’t need a quiz to tell me I’m a cynic, I work very hard at it, but I found this little quiz from the BBC amusing nonetheless. Have a look HERE . Actually, don’t. It’s shite.

Nominations for this year’s Music Week Awards, the ‘behind the scenes’ music awards, which take place on March 4 at London’s Grosvenor Hotel, were announced yesterday.

Categories include Best Music Sales Force, Producer of the Year sponsored by Sanctuary Studios, Best PR Campaign and Best Distributor. For the full list and more information on the awards ceremony, go to www.musicweekawards.com