Online Music Links

Hardly more than a year has passed since the biggest U.S. record labels started agreeing to measures that were intended to end the industry’s long history of employing bribes and other shady practices to influence the selection of songs played on the radio.

Jon Johansen became a geek hero by breaking the DVD code. Now he’s liberating iTunes – whether Apple likes it or not.

In mid-October 2001, I received an invitation to one of Steve Jobs’ carefully choreographed, exquisitely casual shows. It was to be held at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, on October 23. The most interesting thing about the invitation was the teasing addendum: "Hint: It’s not a Mac." Usually, I would have hopped on a plane to see the latest wrinkle in the consistently fascinating saga of Jobs. His return to Apple was a great business story in itself, but what was novel about his whole career was its unapologetic and unprecedented grafting of 1960s values – everything from rock and roll to cracker-barrel Buddhism – into the corporate world. Jobs was a great salesman, a guy who out-suited the suits when it came to mastering the pulleys and levers of global high tech product development and manufacturing, a chief executive of two companies traded on the Nasdaq (Apple and Pixar Entertainment). But I’d also seen him stroll into his boardroom wearing scissor-cut shorts almost up to his balls and a pair of flip-flops. All of this – the austere authority of a Zen poet, the playfulness of Mick Jagger, and the showmanship of David Copperfield – would be on display at this event. And if history was any guide, the product he unveiled would be worth writing about.

Once you’ve established your myspace site, selected a terrific photo or graphic that accurately signals your primary artistic sensibility to casual surfers, and your band name or label name signal the same (hopefully), a few practical strategies can be employed to help you maximize your marketing efforts. These basics are worth mentioning because I see so many artists overlook them that I cannot assume that you know to address them. We’ll start with your music player, as your music is, of course, key to your marketing efforts.

YouTube’s new technology protects against piracy by automatically dropping suspect material. But will it cause the Internet video site to lose its edge?

Be ready to ride the big dipper of the mixed metaphor. Be ready to dip your hands in the lucky bag of life, gather the storm clouds of fantasy and anoint your own genius. Because it is only by following the clear and concise instructions contained in this book that you can realise your childish fantasies of having a Number One hit single in the official U.K. Top 40 thus guaranteeing you a place forever in the sacred annals of Pop History.

Singer/songwriter Jeff Tweedy is part of the growing group of artists that understands that there’s more to music than selling pieces of plastic, and suing your fans.

The utopian dream of ubiquitous media access is on the verge of becoming a reality. Consumers can watch TV on their iPods, download sports highlights to their cell phones, and take vast libraries of music with them wherever they go. You would think that all of these new digital distribution systems would be a boon for consumers, but that isn’t necessarily the case.

Admittedly, this is well off our usual fare, but please indulge me in a public service message on behalf of music fans across the Internets—five mistakes that band and label sites make (and a few tips on how to fix them).

Forrest J. Ackerman and Frank Coe "Music For Robots" (Science Fiction Records, MFR-1001A, 1964)

A bespoke search engine that can be included on people’s websites or blogs is the latest offering from Google.

The code that prevents music downloaded from Apple’s iTunes store being played on any portable player other than an iPod has been "cracked".