Jay Bentley (Bad Religion) expresses his view of file sharing

Jay Bentley of Bad Religion recently expressed his views on file sharing in an interview with thepunksite.com.

"How many catalogue records are you going to have to buy before you get fucking fed up? I had vinyl, I had CD, I had mini-disc, I had DATs, I had all this shit. They make me buy all this stuff and I’m paying three hundred and fifty dollars every time a new player comes out because now I can’t my music on anything but this. So that’s to blame as well. Eventually people just got tired of getting the shaft from all of these people and in the end the only one that really suffers is the artist. That’s a shame.

It’s a standoff of do you want to support the label and the band that you like? Even I’m starting to wonder if there’s a way where people will feel like they’re strictly supporting the artist. Even if it was something like having a little button on a MySpace page that says “if you like us, push the button and give us a dollar so that we can get gas to go to the next city because we want to go on tour.” There has to be some sort of incentive for people to A) want the band to come to them but also for the band to want to go out. When gas hit four dollars a gallon down in the States, in the newspaper it was actually a front page article about how indie bands can no longer tour because gas is too expensive. That’s pretty fucked.

So it’s not the bands’ fault, and it’s not even the fans’ fault. The fans are doing what’s expected because they should be doing what they want. The bands should be doing what they want but there should be a way for them to get together and say “we, as fans, like your band. We want to support your work."

Did iTunes Kill the Album?

British newspaper, The Telegraph, has posted an article that looks at the backlash from artist over iTunes selling singles and killing album sales as whole piece of art. You can check out the article here. Food for thought: if artist did not want people just buying one song off of an album, they should focus on putting more than one good song on an album.

Universal Music Group takes on Youtube, sort of

According to Billboard.com, Universal Music Group (UMG) plan to launch an online video portal similar to Youtube and Universal's parent company owned Hulu.com. The UMG site will focus on music videos and other music related video content. As of now, they say the plan to continue licensing music videos to Youtube and that this site is intended to host higher-quality premium content. You can check out the entire article here.

Myspace takes on Itunes with Ad-supported Music Store

Myspace has announced the details of their new music store. The Myspace music store will allow fans to stream millions of full songs for free using ad-support. The store will also sell digital downloads via Amazon.com's mp3 store.

Chris DeWolfe, the site’s co-founder explains:

"You’ll be able to see the top songs your friends are listening to. Eventually you’ll be able to buy tickets and merchandise and ringtones. When you look at things like iLike and Facebook, they don’t have the full songs, in most cases, and they don’t have official artist pages. People aren’t interested in music on Facebook in the way they are on MySpace, That’s one of the big keys here."

The site has struck deals with most of the major players in the recording industry.


*UPDATE* Myspace Music store has launched.

Best Buy Purchases Napster

Best Buy has reportedly purchased the online music store Napster for $121 million. This article explains why it was a waste of money.

A Cappella Against the Machine in St. Paul

After police stopped Rage Against the Machine from playing an impromptu set after Anti-Flag at a left wing rally in St. Paul, Rage addressed the crowd and played an a cappella tune. Check it out below:

Snow Patrol to Release iPhone Optimized Album

From Punknews.org:

Ireland's Snow Patrol has planned to release their new album as an iPod Touch/iPhone application. The application would allow users to access lyrics, photos, etc. while listening to the album, making use of both devices similar touch screen interfaces. Says Polydor Project manager Liz Goodwin:

“It will be an interactive element; a digital booklet that will take you into the videos and content. For fans it will be a real must-have, and the fact that they are the first band to do this gives us an additional angle for exposure.”

The new album is titled A Hundred Million Suns and is due out via Fiction/Polydor. More details are available here.

The University of Copyright Infringement

As the new school year rolls around, many students may be wondering what Universities are doing to appease the RIAA in the matter of file-sharing. This article explains just that.