JollyBOX blog - art

Is the CD doomed?

nospam@example.com (Thomas Jollans) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:14:00 +0000

Questioning the future of something that is to be found all around us in everyday life needs some explaining. I think there's a good chance that we will, this decade, see a serious drop is CD sales and use. CDs are still common, and they're good at what they do, but they're no longer the best—they've been beaten in every way.

They call us the iPod generation, or, if they don't, they might as well. That's how we relate to music: everyone has some manner of MP3 player, everyone has an internet connection, everyone has a computer, and those tend to have large hard disks: When we listen to music, most of us listen to MP3s, not to CDs, and more and more people are discovering that it's possible to legally download them—on the one hand, there are those that have been pirating music for years, and on the other hand, there are those that used to buy CDs, and then started ripping them. With every iPod owner being an iTunes user and Amazon providing MP3 downloads alongside physical media, it'd be hard not to notice that the way music is being distributed is changing.

CD stands for “compact disc”. True, at 12 centimetres across, it really isn't a large medium, but, to put that into perspective, nowadays, you can store the MP3 equivalent of over a hundred of them on a chip smaller than a dime with normal consumer equipment. CDs aren't even that useful any more: the MP3 player and PC having become the tools of choice when it comes to listening to music, a new CD usually ends up being ripped, possibly passed around to friends, and then shelved with the other dust magnets.

True, CDs offer really high-quality sound that an MP3 can't. But, let's be honest: have you ever noticed the difference between a CD and a good rip or commercial download? I'll give you that your typical Napster file might not be that great, but most of us have no chance of telling compressed audio files from compact discs by listening. The true audiophile might prefer a CD over an MP3, but then, more often that not, we see audiophiles declaring that vinyl sounds better than CDs. I also think it's possible that, soon, some online music stores will be offering CD quality files for those that will satisfy those that once shunned MP3s in favour of shiny round 12cm plates.

Vinyl records have been having quite a renaissance in the last few years, and I think it's fair to say that this is part of essentially the same movement away from CDs—in a way, gramophone record beat CDs and don't so much as glance at the unworthy MP3. There is one thing that digitally distributed music does not have, cannot have: a physical form. We just like being able to touch things. Being able to physically and separately handle, display and admire a record appeals so much more to our collectors' instincts than simply fondling a tiny box that blasts photons at us from minute pixels. I find it adds a whole dimension of value to the music that it just doesn't have when I tell amaroK, winamp or rockbox to open a certain file. One could say a physical record honours the music and the artist a lot more.

In that area, however, it is not the CD that trumps, it is the gramophone record. Vinyl records are larger, there's more to look at, more to touch, not just that flimsy little booklet. You actually see it while the music is playing, and anyone can understand the basics of how it works: a lot more down-to-earth, appealing so much more to our senses, gramophone record are a lot more “real” than those tiny, silly CDs. I think that we are going to see, and seeing right now, a development away from them in two directions: the “mass market”, that gigantic group that runs around with iPod & Co., donning earbuds in the tube and connecting their trusty companion to their home and car stereos, will pay for more and more downloads, while that niche of audiophiles, music enthusiasts and collectors will develop their, or should I say our, preference for “the classic”, vinyl.

A great example of this development is the La Roux single Quicksand: in December of 2008, it was released as a digital download and as a 12 inch vinyl EP, not as a CD. (There has since been a re-release on CD—a year later)

What about you? How do you buy music?

What's a geek ?

nospam@example.com (Thomas Jollans) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:20:00 +0000

I am a geek, and this is my week.

I considered entering the Global Geek Week video contest, but, in the end, I came to the conclusion that I'm not that good at vlogging, the prize would probably be relatively useless to anyone living outside the US (like me), and that a nice lengthy blog post would do just as good a job at conveying the thoughts I would have presented in the video.

So, the obvious question is, what is a geek or nerd ? I think it is fair to consider these terms synonymous: some people see differences in the nuance of the terms, and the origins are, obviously, distinct, but nowadays, they mean essentially the same things. Originally, geek is an insult applied by non-geek teenagers to peers who are actually intelligent, know how to read, and get better grades at school. The term is most popularly applied to boys with no social life worth mentioning since these are that tiny bit more alien and scary to the kids that hang around at train stations and smoke all day. Nowadays, the term is most commonly associated with the type that spends all day in front of the computer.

Most of the kids insulted as geeks are actually, or at least potentially, geeks in the way that I'd use the word, which is, I believe, a way that most geeks, at least computer geeks, on the internet would agree to. Geeks are intelligent people that think for themselves and get excited about using their own intellect at the risk of venturing outside the social norm. Geeks are not only intelligent. They actually enjoy it.

As per this definition, quite a lot of people deserve the label “geek.” Let's start with the usual suspects:

Continue reading "What's a geek ?"

Death of an Easter Egg

nospam@example.com (Thomas Jollans) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:46:14 +0000

As you probably know, Michael Jackson passed away recently. This has been a great shock for all of us. Well, a lot of us, anyway.

When you think about it, that is slighly peculiar. The death has slapped even my generation, grown in the 90s, living in the 00s, hard in the face. This is not because we greatly admired the man. This is not because we love the music he made. Even though my generation also knows that he created great music, his days as king are not something we remember or can relate to — he had a much greater value: he had become a kind of constant. His superhuman appearance, like a conservational shell, and constantly in the news in some dodgy way. His days as “King of Pop” long gone, he still remained as a kind of media ghost. And since Harry Potter, we all know that ghosts can't die.

To most of us, Michael Jackson was a kind of odd fact of life in the universe. An ever-resting quirk, an easter egg in the great game of life. That someone like that could die is just overwhelming.

Requiescat in pace

What would copyright designed by artists look like ?

nospam@example.com (Thomas Jollans) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:15:00 +0000

Copyright as we know it originated in the English printing industry of the 16^th century. Since then, British writers have monopoly copy-rights they can sell to printers, who are, as we all know, the only people capable of reproducing books. This applied to printed music, and today, it also applies to recorded music and all other expressions of creativity that can be bound to tangible media. This is a nice, working system as long as printers (record companies) are the only ones capable of reproducing a work, and pay the artist adequately for the multiplication, which they fully control.

It should be obvious to anyone with the technology to access this blog that record companies (and publishing companies...) are no longer the only people capable of copying music (or printed works). Since copyright law and copyright contracts are still stuck in the Cold War era, which is exactly where the record companies want them, this is kind of a problem.

All this is no new argument, and some people are fighting against the situation: Some independent artists are going the way of the GNU, but they are few. Some have founded Pirate Parties, but most of them aren't artists, and they are realistically almost irrelevant. Now, there might be a new player around: On Saturday, October 4, British musicians united to create the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC).

I'm not sure what to think of this. While the Süddeutsche Zeitung jokes about it being a union of super-rich non-working-class pop stars that want more money (like all unions) on the front page of today's paper, I'm sceptical mostly because I don't know what they'll actually do, and what will effectively happen.

Their charter is directed at artist-company deals: they don't want to sell their rights. I fully agree with this; I actually don't think artists should be able the legal construction that is copyright completely: IF there is copyright at all, the originator should always have it. This, along with the demands for transparency, is important, and the most prominent part of the campaign, but I think another part is a lot more important:

Copyright owners to be obliged to follow a ‘use it or lose it’ approach to the copyrights they control. Despite new technology, many copyright owners fail to release recordings to the public. As a result many artists lose out and fans can only access such material illegally. A ‘use it or lose it’ contractual provision should automatically apply so that an artists’ work is always available for legal purchase by the public, digitally and physically.

While the solution they half-propose might not change a lot (we might see some day), the train of thought is an important one (see Lessig, Free Culture, ch. 5 Piracy) Might this get the ball rolling ?

Literature Tip

In his book, Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity, (Penguin, ISBN 0-14-303465-0, also online) Lawrence Lessig presents a brilliant argument about creativity, copyright, media syndicates, and how they do, don't and/or should fit into the Internet Era. While it is a philosophical-political text written by a law professor, the book remains close to reality and it worth a pleasant read for anyone blessed with common sense.

A video with an improbable plot

nospam@example.com (Thomas Jollans) — Mon, 26 May 2008 14:31:03 +0000

I told you you'd be seeing a video soon

Anyway, I got 64 studio working, though I installed via Debian 4.0 instead of with the DVD because my DVD writer is somehow not fully functional. Cinelerra works fine there and voilà, this is the masterpiece I put together:

YouTube link

Feel free to discuss, preferably over on YouTube.