Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet

Consumerist tells how a customer turns into a pirate when faced by DRM hurdles:

I called Rhino customer support and after an 8 minute wait spoke with a representative. She informed me that the files were indeed copy protected so that I could only play them on specific music players, most notably not iTunes.

"You don't understand," I said, "These files were not copied or pirated, I actually purchased them."

"Well" she responded, "You didn't actually purchase the files, you really purchased a license to listen to the music, and the license is very specific about how they can be played or listened to."

Now I was baffled. "Records never came with any such restrictions," I said.

She replied, "Well they were supposed to, but we weren't able to enforce those licenses back then, and now we can"

The Register's Steve Gordon suggests artists can make money out of MySpace - but only if they Do It Yourself:

Tain only needs to sell 1,200 full albums at $12 a download (or 1,500 at $9.99) to recoup his production costs. Additional sales represent pure profit. The labels have been widely vilified for giving us generic boy bands and teenage girls who can hardly sing. For her part, Tina Tequlia does not exactly look to be the next Miles Davis. So perhaps the internet, similar to the majors, will service the lowest common denominator, at least in terms of artists who achieve commercial success.

Magnaphone catches up with Lydia Lunch:

I have never been one to work with a safety net and if you are going to go out and spontaneously combust in front of the audience you will either come up with the best fucking thing anyone has ever heard or the worst fucking piece of shit anyone including yourself has ever been subject to. To me its another notch in my fearlessness and it opened the door for me to do much more illustrated word in a very spontaneous way.

Mike Scott tells Guardian Film & Music why you can't be an expert in your own life on Wikipedia:

Then a box appeared telling me someone else was editing the material simultaneously. I checked my changes and found, to my dismay, they were being unedited as I sat there. Some goblin of the web, some fiend, was undoing my correcting of my own story.

Lisa Gerrard talks to the Courier & Mail about the Dead Can Dance reunion:

A lot of people cried. There were more people crying that weren't. I felt it was because, if you think of a tomato with really, really thin skin and it's ready to burst, that's how I felt that people were feeling -- that they'd had enough and that they feel powerless to protect those other individuals that are further afield, that safety is compromised so that we can live a certain lifestyle."