Lightning & Thunderstorm Video
There was some decent looking lightning in a storm we had here in Phoenix a few days ago, so I made a little video clip of it:
Zidane Headbutt Meets Splinter Cell
I just randomly came across this footage from Splinter Cell: Double Agent, an unreleased video game:
It shows the protagonist emulating the Zidane headbutt as an in-game weapon, and is mildly amusing. Since 140,249 people have already seen it, it’s got to be good publicity for Ubisoft. If you’re looking for more Zidane mashups and animations, check out this gallery.
Leveraging the Sharing Culture
It is inevitable that piracy occur. My age group, the college student or young professional, almost exclusively acquires media through illegitimate channels. It doesn’t make sense to pay for what we can get for free, especially when downloading requires less effort and gives more immediate gratification. A trip to the record store: 30 minutes of your time gone. A download of a new album: 5 minutes of computer time gone. So, the clear choice is casual music piracy, a fact of modern American youth culture that the RIAA has yet to properly address.
- The problem: not selling records.
- The solution: not selling records.
As piracy leads to the commodization of popular music, revenue cannot be generated from sale of albums. Rather, popular music will be created for relicensing and branding. Commercial deals, inclusion in movie soundtracks, elevator music, radio royalties will be the primary source of income for records. Eventually there will be a “song” or “band” of Coca Cola company, ties between musicians, labels, and other corporations that deliver content to the public. It is these ties, not the content itself, which can be negotiated for money.
Conversely, selective cooperation with music piracy could lead to labels and artists reaping greater profits. As the revenue a song or album brings in becomes tied to its popularity, leaking a hot single before an album release becomes smart. Take, for example, the widely-released new single from Justin Timberlake, Sexy Back. It was released on MySpace, leaked to the torrent sites, and played all over the radio. While releasing singles before albums is not a new strategy, letting the internet believe they’ve stolen something hot, secret, and new will improve its appearance with the masses.
A song sampled in stolen solitude seems a lot better than something the industry is force feeding its market.
