We explained that we were laughing at the idea of displaying a donkey turd. We thought it was funny to put a fake scroll wheel on a turd. It was more funny to put the turd in a display cabinet. The sales person apologized and said that he was sorry he couldn’t tell us much about the turd. Apparently his boss had been really embarrassed when the turds had turned up. She’d told all the sales people to forget about the turds and get on with selling the things that kept the store going. Like iPods.

We liked the turd so much that we bought three of them (the total stock of the store) and took them home with us. The store manger was so thankful that we’d taken the smelly turds out of her shop that she shed tears as we held our stinky shopping bag at arms length and left the shop.

The neighbors’ kids really loved the nanos that Sarah and I gave them.

On new year’s eve we partied with good friends and at sometime after midnight we remembered our funny plastic turds and showed them about. Everyone laughed like we’d done when we’d first seen them. Soon everyone realized that these things were trying to look like music players so we stacked the three of them up and (after stoking the iPod fed music system with some Jimmy Hendrix) torched the dirty little cheap plastic turds.

As they burnt on their own little bonfire we all danced around them like Jimmy – knowing that they were not going to the same place … and therefore could not offend him. At daybreak, with the iPod still pumping we looked at the filthy melted pile of cheap plastic and finally realized we’d done something magical… something important. We’d come-up with zune 2.0 way before microsoftcock!

The Zune tax is short-sighted of both Universal and Microsoft. It entrenches positions in the IP war, and the “rights holders” can only lose. Consumers will always win, because we have the money.

One day not too far from now, when the RIAA’s death-rattle ends, artists will revert to the medaieval model of earning a decent living from performances (be they actual performers or directors/producers/songwriters etc.). Instead of touring to try and persuade people to buy CDs, they will give away MP3s to try and persuade people to see them live.

CC

It TOTALLY makes sense! And it certainly is nothing to get upset about. Bobby’s track meet should not have a sound track anyway. The problem is people are just too saturated with media crap: reject the iLife style and GET A LIFE PEOPLE. Listen to the birds (the one’s with feathers not the band) while you jog and dump those iPods in the trash. Smash your TVs and your iPods.

I’d especially like the arms industry to pre-pay an anti-crime tax: for every gun legally sold the manufacturer should have to pay a 100% tax into a fund to compensate victims of gun crimes. Bush is totally anti-terror so MAYBE he will pass a law like that before he leaves office so as to prevent needless death and destruction BEFORE it happens.

You think having to pay for something you either don’t use or have already paid for is not a big deal? I think “fuck this.” I’m not going to pay for a music device if that money is going towards the major labels. I don’t want to listen to their music, and I don’t want to give them money to produce more of that music and to sue their consumers.

I only listen to artists who are:
1) on independent labels
2) selling their music on the internet
3) giving their music away

Besides, Microsoft knows that they won’t sell a lot of Zunes in the coming years. This whole thing has one aim, and one aim only: To force worse conditions on Apple. Now the labels can go to Apple and demand similar conditions, and since Apple sells a huge amount of iPods (compared to Microsoft’s non-existent amount of Zunes), this will hurt Apple.

So screw Microsoft and screw the majors. I’ll never buy into something like this, and I hope others won’t, either.

The whole music label system needs to updated… Period.
Artists must be paid for great music to be made in the new world economy of free.
It may have never been cheap to be an artist, but try having a thriving life filled with fun, friends, hanging out and doing simple things that don’t cost you a mint–All those great things that make making great art great art.

Right now everyone freeloading has given us a world of empty musical choices.

Say a person does buy a zune and pay the extra dollar or whatever to the universal. This dollar is paid based on the assumption that the user will be obtaining universal’s music; so does the user therefore have a right to obtain some universal music without paying for it (again)?

Along these kines, accusing anyone who has bought a zune of stealing universal’s music would be akin to double jeopardy, wouldn’t it?

Just my $0.02 ..or perhaps my $1.00

Ranjit

See my post on the subject here: http://www.math...com/archives/86

What if they stop signing artists tomorrow and everyone they have leaves at the end of their contract? Universal will still be getting money. Universal gets money without doing anything for it.

This is ghastly.

More than that, it’s dangerous. It’s saying that people who own an MP3 player are theives and must pay in advance for sins they may or may not commit.

Check the language in the NY Times article: Geffen is very sure that people who own iPods are stealing from him. He’s wrong in my case, and I don’t plan to pay more for suspicion of misconduct.