Legal P2P
Well, kind of. From the AP via Slashdot, this article about the emergence of authorized P2P sites. PeerImpact is one that’s already in beta – it’s sort of the bastard child of the iTunes store and say, Limewire. You’re still buying songs and the money still goes to the store, and you’re still limited in how you use the songs you buy (cursed DRM!), but now you’re getting the files from other users in the network. It’s file sharing without the “sharing” part. File buying maybe, which doesn’t really sound as sexy. PeerImpact has the added wrinkle that you actually earn Chuck E. Cheese Bucks (or whatever) every time someone gets a song from you, and you can use these Chuck E. Cheese Bucks to buy music for yourself. Now everybody can be in marketing.
We’ll see if people go for it. I personally would guess that there’s not enough new stuff here to significantly divert people from other established online music stores. Who cares where the file comes from? You’re still just buying WMA files that won’t play on your iPod (whoops). But it does show that the RIAA understands that P2P is here to stay, and that it recognizes that there’s a financial benefit to allowing users to share content with each other. Turns out these RIAA people are actually quite reasonable when they’re not suing 13-year-olds and dog-food-eating grandmas with broken hips.
One More Score
Hey, that was fast. Here’s an mp3 of our live performance from Little Gray Books Lecture #31: How to Commit the Perfect Crime. Music by me, lyrics by me and Adam Stein. In a related story, I have decided that I can no longer stand to listen to live recordings of me singing or playing the guitar.
Did I mention the teddy bear was filled with diamonds?
Blottered!
The Little Gray Books show went fine, thanks for asking. I’m hoping to get an mp3 of the former-partners-in-crime love song duet that happened posted soon. There was some lovely schtick with a teddy bear stuffed with diamonds in the middle, long story. For those who like a good read and some photos to go along with it, check out the coverage here on the Blottered.
Congratulations Babydolls
Lili pointed out a terrible oversight on my part, which is that I failed to offer babydoll t-shirts in my collection of Jonathan Coulton themed merchandise. All you sexy downtown girls who were holding out because you didn’t want to look all frumpy in a regular woman’s shirt may now proceed to get it on, babydoll style.
Had a lovely rehearsal tonight with Adam Stein of The Petersons in preparation for the big show on Thursday. I was reminded that he is a clever man and a fine performer of funny things. Maybe you should go see these Petersons at Caroline’s on June 20th. They rock.
Also (OMG! So much news!), podcast seven is now posted. You may notice that these things are getting longer and longer as we spiral out of control. If you listen very closely, you will catch the cacauphonous 45-minute “Song of the Presidents” which I played with the Hungry March Band at the most recent Little Gray Books. Even now I am tensing up and holding my breath thinking about the poor quality of this recording, not to mention what is perhaps the worst acoustic guitar tone I have ever heard. I would like to point out that this performance was rehearsed only in theoretical discussions with one or two members, and that what you hear in this recording was really the first time we had all played together. That band is a fine collection of talented folks, which is the only reason it came off at all.
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