A Deeper Bond: A ‘Mad Men’ Insight On Revaluing Music — ReValue Music takes a cue from the scene from the first season of AMC’s Mad Men to ask how artists can help change the perceived value of music. “It is largely up to you, as the independent artist, to establish the way your audience determines the value of your work. Music is not a download. It is not a gadget or a widget. It is not a temporary utility that will only serve a limited purpose and then be disposed of. As an artist, you are not selling your latest track or album; you are selling something amazing, almost magical. You are selling a transcendent tapestry of sound that somehow facilitates the deepest of connections to one’s self and to others.”
Let the vinyl spin: my journey into record collecting — Along those same lines, Cameron Schaefer, of Vinyl + Cocktails, discusses how “dying of musical thirst in an ocean of MP3s,” led him to embrace reconnecting with music in the analog medium. Not that everyone need become vinyl purists, but well worth the read.
Lessons in Stealing Like an Artist — The Copyright Alliance’s Sandra Aistars points to a recent NY Times piece on fair use and creativity, highlighting poet Austin Kleon’s book Steal Like an Artist. Says Aistars, “The key according to Kleon, however, is not to copy or to imitate, but to transform what you steal so that you make it your own, and then send it back out into the world for others to embrace and react to.”
How Much do Google and Facebook Profit From Your Data? — Ars Technica reports on PrivacyFix, a new add-on for Firefox and Chrome, that calculates how much value your browsing behavior benefits the two tech giants. I haven’t personally tried it yet, but it sounds helpful, especially since it also lets you know which websites are tracking your behavior and feeding it back to the sites. PrivacyFix also apparently offers tips and techniques to help you adjust your privacy settings on Google and Facebook.
YouTube to serve niche tastes by adding channels — Google is spending $200 million this year promoting original programming on YouTube (as well as an undisclosed amount for production). Cat videos don’t pay the bills.
Sherman helps RIAA lighten up — An entertaining profile of RIAA CEO Cary Sherman over at Variety.
A Lesson from Steve — Chris Castle offers a few words to mark the one year anniversary of Jobs’ passing. “Not surprisingly, Steve’s choice to embrace the copyright of others has led to enormous financial reward for his company and his employees. He took an already great company and made it greater–ultimate vindication for the ‘Newton,’ if you ask me–and he also put a lot of money into the hands of artists.”
WhoSampled Wins EMI Innovation Challenge — WhoSampled, an incredibly comprehensive database of songs that have been sampled and songs that have used samples, beat out other music apps to win EMI’s Innovation Challenge in London earlier this week.