things twice

Wired News: Lyrics Dustup Ends in Apology

Kinda interesting, this one… Especially the last couple of paragraphs.

Beginning in January, the Music Publishers Association, of which Warner Chappell is a member, will begin pursuing a campaign against 5 to 6 such companies, according to MPA CEO Lauren Keiser.

“Lost revenue for rights holders is in the millions,” said Keiser, “We’re not going after fan clubs, but websites that make money.”
True, I do have that “small donations welcome” link hidden away at the bottom of some frame, but I guess that doesn’t really count — I’m a small potatoe here (sob! my ego is hurting!).
Anyway, for various reasons, I will not make any drastic changes quite yet, but stay tuned.

Thanks to …

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Young ‘prefer illegal song swaps’
So, the question of file sharing and illegal music sites is coming up again. One consequence is that dylanchords is temporarily down. “Sam Spade” first posted a note in a different thread, about the record industry being intent on stopping sites like this one. Fair enough, perhaps. I took a consequence of that. An overreaction, perhaps, but that was my decision.
The post also contained a link to a report about a study that Jupiter Research has undertaken, about the music habits of young people. One conclusion is that illegal file sharing networks are used three times as much as the legal ones.
I don’t know what to say …

The Airwaves, They Are A-Changin’
Amazing how we think the same about things, Dylan and me :-) It’s only a month or so since I wrote:
Why doesn’t he give us something he’s interested in? He obviously loves old music, the kind of songs he rips off and records with new lyric collages, the kind of stuff he sings when he’s all by himself. That’s what he does amazingly well, so why not do it more? How about ditching the war-horses — they’re as tired as him — and playing a show once in a while, with Doc Boggs, Gene Austin, Johnny and Jack, Charles Aznavour, stuff we know he loves?
And now he’s going to do exactly that, on …

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Song sites face legal crackdown

Before you act: there’s no point in writing comments like: Where’s the zip file? I want the zip file. Can you please send me the zip file?

well well… What can I say? Several people have sent me links to this and other similar news reports, concerned about what is going to happen to dylanchords.
I understand the concern — I share it, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.
On the one hand: I don’t want to go to jail, and I can’t afford a 500,000$ lawsuit. Those are two good reasons to shut down the site right now.
On the other, I keep telling myself that I don’t have …

My previous post caused more reactions than any post on this blog so far, and I should probably not be surprised. At first I intended to comment on the things that were said in the thread, but it has been growing too long. Here’s an opportunity to continue in a new thread, where comments won’t be lost at #59. :-)

Things I was not intending to do:

To disrespect Dylan’s integrity.
To take away the enjoyment of anyone who goes to a show and enjoys it.
To claim that Dylan is too old to be good.
To profit economically from his work.
To say that anyone who like what they hear are stupid and ignorant.
To say that all Dylan does now is to …

Before you comment on this post, please read the follow-up post “Genius, Guitars, and Goodbyes” — what you wanted to say may already be said there.

So, I broke the promise-to-self, to let Dylan tour on his own, without my help. I decided, after the last Scandinavian tour, that this was it; the shows were decent enough, but nothing more. I hyped myself up to enjoying them, liking them even, perhaps loving them, and moments like Desolation Row in Karlstad (best D-Row ever? Best D-Row ever!) made it a whole lot easier, but I also knew that I wouldn’t follow another tour again. Enough singsong, enough mumbles, no more days at the office for me. NeverEndingTour-Dylan never got better …

Upon general request, here’s my guide to proper use of MS Word:

Never ever use direct formatting.
That means: never ever click on any of the buttons in the formatting toolbar
. . . which means that you might as well disable that toolbar altogether (right-click in the toolbar area and uncheck “Formatting”)
You are allowed to keep it there for two reasons:

To control what is going on in the document, and
…

What it’s about

Did you ever consider the political implications of the ascii standard? No? Thought so.
Someone who did is Robert Bringhurst. And these are not the only implications of typography that he has considered. The title of his book The Elements of Typographical Style may not be sexy, not the kind of thing you would read on the bus or in bed, but, holy shit, it is! If one happens to be a typography freak, this is just heaven, but I suspect that even people who use Times New Roman and Arial (or who don’t know which fonts they’re using, which probably means that they use Times New Roman and Arial), might find …