I was reading up on this new copyright law before parliament in Canada that may be putting a tax on MP3 players to go in a fund for musicians (Bill C-32). They had a similar tax put on blank tapes 25 years ago & CD-Rs about 15 years ago. The arguments against it are interesting. Argument one is that it’s a quick fix that’s too little too late (which while fundamentally true, it is still better than nothing). Argument two is that it taxes Canadian citizens while the fees should go to ISPs (in the USA part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act frees ISPs from this responsibility (though it is worth noting that part of why involved tech people lying in front of the congress about their ability to recognize different types of data transfers)) & the websites who make money off of piracy. While clearly there is a truth that people who make money off of distributing other people’s content without consent or compensation are worse than individuals who get the content, eventually the individuals who download are intentionally getting something for (at least relatively) nothing & should bear some financial responsibility as well. Because getting ISPs to pay fees will eventually just be passed on to consumers anyway & I think the idea of getting money from sites like Pirate Bay has already been proven to be impossible. But one thing I think is interesting is while I think it’s safe to say most of the downloaded content isn’t Canadian, presumably all the funds raised would go to support Canadian artists. The other interesting thing is I didn’t realize how much more reasonable copyrights are in Canada than the USA. Copyright is 50 years from creation instead of life plus 75 years. I wonder what this will mean for an artist like Neil Young who is starting to have a catalog that is 50 years old when presumably a portion of the copyright is associated with an international corporation.
I got pitched from a company today about developing a Silber phone app (which I might do one day, but not at this company’s rates). They had this in their pitch “While Android continues to gain momentum & market share by being available on more devices & carriers than the iOS devices, Apple continues to dominate with over 70% of the app marketplace (& 99.4% of the paid app market).” 99.4% of the paid app market with only 17% of the smartphone market? Maybe their numbers are old as Android passed iPhones in market share now (Blackberries have never not been the number one smartphone). But it’s an interesting idea that the people willing to spend the amount more money associated with an iPhone & its contract (& low functionality as a phone) may also be more likely to buy things using them than other smartphone people.
Started working on a Thorn1 MySpace promotion campaign. I know that it’s probably not worth the amount of time it will take me to do it, but since I already have a system down to do it, I feel like I may as well go ahead & get it under way. The days of generating 1000 actual listeners of music over a week via MySpace may have come & gone, but I feel like the days of gaining 100 fans may still be there.
Today’s installment of Silber comics is Just A Man #1.
Spent some time making a pretty ridiculous video for Small Life Form. But my computer said it’ll take about an hour to do the rendering. So hopefully I’ll finish it & get it up for you tomorrow.
I might have a new distro that I’ll be working with. We’ll see how it works out. Anytime a possibility of making a few hundred extra dollars for the artists on the label comes, I’m happy about it.
Finished a draft for the second issue of Vigilant. I’d hoped to get it done & laid out in the computer & sent to PB Kain today, but I haven’t had a chance yet.
Getting some more things set with Azalia Snail. Getting pretty excited about it.
I spent a couple hours working on finding some new reviewer contacts. Mainly bloggers. You know, I don’t mind bloggers who do reviews with download links so much, but these blogs that are just download links to albums without reviews should really stop. It’s not cool guys.
I got some orders out today. So a lot done. Hopefully I’m on an upswing for being motivated.
GoddakkAttack 
if you ever took a look at he android app market and then compared to the iphone one. this could answer that question of marketshare.
I probably wouldn’t understand it anyway because I don’t really play video games & I don’t feel a great need to have a phone that makes light saber noises when I swing it around. I don’t know. I might pay $1 for a set of vocal exercises, but I guess in reality that would just be buying an MP3? I don’t really know how technology works.
well i think that’s the problem..most android apps are basically hey let’s play pacman whereas there are a bunch more actual useful apps for the iphone. also your not being aware that the smartphone isn’t just for playing games may be part of your not understanding the appeal but i do think that most people that have them aren’t using them for much more than that anyways so there you go.
The term of copyright in Canada is NOT 50 years from creation. Rather, it is 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the author dies (see section 6 of the Canadian Copyright Act). This is essentially life plus 50 years. So Neil Young need not worry.
Thanks Leanne. I must’ve been looking at one of the older laws in the copyright history. Sometimes hard to keep them straight….