Idea: CopyCarrot

I've had an idea stewing in my mind gravy for a while now that I think could be a pretty cool solution to the whole music industry fail whale thing.

I call it CopyCarrot. As in, the industry has tried the stick, now they should try the carrot. The basic idea is that you embed info in every bit of digital music (MP3 files, CDs, etc.) that contains a standardized link to the artist's PayPal account, or whatever they prefer--it shouldn't be tied to any specific payment gateway, and allows you the music fan to pay them whatever you wish for that song or album or whatever. There's no obligation, there's no digital rights management (read: restriction), just a link that allows peoples' music players to tell them, "Hey, [artist] made this. Care to throw a little money their way? (Yes / No / Stop Asking)."

It would then be tied into your iTunes / Amazon / PayPal / whatever account so that kicking the artist a buck or two would be extremely fast and easy. Obviously consumers would be able to choose if they wanted that tied together or not, it would be up to them and the software / music player they were using.

Of course many people wouldn't pay, and some people would even strip that info out of the songs they passed around the 'Net just like they do with any sort of DRM that the industry tries to add now. But I bet 2 really important things would happen:

1. Enough people would pay enough money for the music they loved that it would make life noticeably easier for artists, and it would do it with no middle man. And really, making it just a little easier for the artists would go a long way.
2. Most people would leave the info in there because it wouldn't restrict their ability to listen to the songs, and it wouldn't even nag them if they told their music player to stop pestering them about paying for their music. In general, people think artists should be compensated, and they respect systems that leave them in control of that decision. It's only when the recording industry middlemen try to impose a bunch of restrictions on how, when, and where they listen to music they have paid for that consumers try to circumvent those restrictions. CopyCarrot imposes no restrictions; it only adds information.

Software that reads this info could be configured to ask people to pay every time they start playing something new, or every X months, or every time they play a song Y+ times, or never. It could also show them what they've paid for, and what they haven't, and nifty graphs showing how much they've paid which artists, per track, per album, etc. Or how much their entire collection is worth vs. how much they've paid. But the point is, it doesn't treat fans as criminals. It recognizes that sharing music is not only a social good (it's not stealing when no one has lost anything, and great art should be shared), but also that spreading the art around helps the artist when it contains a handy link to pay them for their amazing work.

And then obviously you could start doing the same thing with movies, books, images, software, and any other kind of digital media. Artists could also offer promos to encourage people. Like, "Pay me $25 or more for my album today, and I'll get you into my next show in your town for free!" They could also embed other info like their Twitter account or their Last.fm page and then music players could link you straight to those things. It would be a direct artist-to-fan-to-artist circle of love that made everyone happy and gave fans great music and artists money in their pocket to eat food so they can make more great music. Awesome.

And then lastly, and this would be the coolest part of all, it would setup a dynamic where it was in the artists' best interests to encourage their fans to send their music far and wide, to as many people as possible, via whatever systems they prefer. The more people get those MP3's, the bigger the pie from which X% of them will pay the artist an average of $Y per track.

I think this would be pretty great. One of those things I'd like to leave my day job for awhile to go work on. But what say you, dear readers of my bloggity blog?

I <3 TDO

http://thedenveromelette.wordpress.com/ ZOMG, how much do I love this blog? Can we hang out sometime? There will be booze...

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Wow, long time no blog. Not. OK.

I'm hanging out at Kilgore Books and Comics today. It's a great place if you like to read things and happen to find yourself in downtown Denver. Also the banter between owners Luke J. and Dan S. is priceless. You'll be humming the odd couple theme all the way home.

I found a new Denver blog that so far I totally <3. It's called The Denver Omelette (you see what they did there?) and you can find it here: http://thedenveromelette.wordpress.com/. I mean, the top post right now is titled, "DO NOT Jack in my Box." Yes.

Something I've been thinking about a lot lately: What's the best way to be an informed citizen of our great democracy? Is it to absorb news from any and all sources coming from any and all points on the political spectrum? Or is it to focus on the objective sources (do these even exist)? Most people would say you shouldn't just pay attention to things that you agree with. It's immature, prevents you from accurately weighing all sides of a debate, yadda yadda yadda.

I call bullshit. If some right-wing pundit tells me that the sky is orange because the Flying Spaghetti Monster he worships says it is in the Scroll of Pasta, I don't feel super compelled to listen to that argument or give it any weight in my consideration of the contentious and profound issue of what color the sky is. Add to that the fact that the mainstream media will then spend hours debating whether or not the sky is orange in an attempt to appear balanced on the issue, and I don't really feel like I need to pay attention to them either. Then someone like Rachel Maddow will have a scientist on her show to explain why the sky is blue. Is it just me, or is real news only on the left these days? It's like Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias." Don't get me wrong, there are annoying shouty people on the left too (Olberman and O'Reilly are twin demon man-babies sent here by Papa Satan to make sure we have enough assholes to go around). But if you want intelligent discussion by experts on issues that actually matter, nothing comes closer right now than the Rachel Maddows, Amy Goodmans, and Jon Stewarts of the world. Oh shit that last one hosts a fake news program. That says more about how shitty most of the "real media" is than anything else.

Anyway, your thoughts, dear readers?

Refreshingly deep analysis of Israeli / Palestinian conflict

This article, in the American Conservative of all places, is a refreshingly deep and sober analysis of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict. I'm not saying you should take everything it says on face value, but it does go into much more detail than any other coverage I've seen recently, and is written by a fairly reputable source (political science professor at the University of Chicago).

The other interesting thing is the conservative angle here, which is something along the lines of, "Conservatives like Israel. Israel's current strategy is not only bad for Palestinians, but also for its own long-term survival. So Israel should change course." This ends up being a fairly nuanced analysis as a result. It also avoids the conservative tendency to ignore the humanitarian tragedy component.

I tend to give well-written, non-conspiracy-nut pieces like this the benefit of the doubt until the mainstream and/or conventional wisdom crowd can answer with an equally deep, nuanced rebuttal that treats all parties involved as real, contemporary people with real, contemporary problems (as opposed to the "Muslins have always and will always be terrists!" line of thinking).

Goodbye George, we'll miss you

This is great. Choice quote: "Not every ejaculation deserves a name."

Bed Stuy, I love you but you're bringing me down

Only the first part of that really applies, but I had to finish the LCD Soundsystem reference. :)

Exhibit A: Bergemann in her birthday girl hat

Phew, back in Denver after a whirlwind tour of the Right Coast. Meetings in Boston followed by hanging w/ the C-Berg in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York. Big ups to Bergemann for showin' a guy a great time, and not even making him sleep in the streets at the end of the day!

Highlights:

1. Getting a citation for drinking beer on Crystal's stoop the first day I get there. Bad. Ass.
2. All the food! We had Mexican, Japanese, Indian, Polish, Cuban, Italian (OK, it was pizza, but it came free with the beer at the Crocodile Lounge, so shut up), Chinese, and cookie dough. Mmm... cookie dough.
3. New York. What a spectacular place. There's 25 things that are unique and great hidden on every city block. Gotta find 'em all!
4. People. Not only did John Harris come down and hang with us a bit (always a good time), but I also got to meet lots of Crystal's New York friends and one of Dan's high school friends. Good peeps to a (wo)man. As if that wasn't enough, Drew and John came down on Friday and made us drink an unintelligent amount. It's our ranch, and it's our home.
5. Crystal. One of the nicest, most fun, most willing to eat cookie dough in raw form girls I know. You rock, Bergemann.

Lowlights:

1. Getting a citation for drinking beer on Crystal's stoop. Which means it's now more problematic to drink beers on Crystal's stoop, which would be the worst tragedy ever to befall New York if 9/11 hadn't, you know, mainly happened there.
2. Not still being there.

Here's to August, a.k.a. the Triumphant Return.

New Orleans

Last week I was in New Orleans for a conference. It was my first time there and I have to say, I was impressed. I'd heard a lot about how great it was, some from people I trust and some from people I don't. Either way, the potential for overhype was great and I was ready for a let down.

Nope. It's sweet.

Remember right after Hurricane Katrina hit and lots of people were saying things like, "They should just pack up and move New Orleans. It's ridiculous to rebuild it." No one who's ever been there would say that. I don't care if we have to build a glass dome over it because global warming makes killer hurricanes run rampant. New Orleans is a national treasure.

Seriously, it's like a white liberal paradise. Culture! Non-threatening minorities! Food! Music! Corner shops, bars, and restaurants where you can find all four! I wanna go back.

Three Way

Not long ago in a bar not very far away, a funny thing happened. You see, I was chillaxing with a couple of charming ladies whom I think are approximately 14x cooler than me. So far so good, right? Well, one of them, let's call her "Elana," was intrigued that I had one of these "blog" things. After I explained things a bit, her keen intellect grasped the opportunity before her. Before I knew it, she had offered to triple my revenue by joining forces and guest blogging on the Toaster. The other girl, we'll call her "Meshawn," agreed to be in on the action. Meanwhile I'm multiplying zero times three in my head.

So, ladies, I've sent you your invitations. Let's see what you've got. Elana & Meshawn, time to pony up. I think my entire fanbase would agree that the world is awaiting your debuts in the blogosphere with baited breath.

Simpsons Movie

OK, so the Simpsons movie was really good. I already want to see it again. The reason it was so good is that they didn't worry about the hype. It's a longer episode of the Simpsons with slightly deeper characters and somewhat cooler animation. Both things are subtle, though. I think this was exactly the right way to do it.

Anything with as much hype-potential as THE SIMPSONS MOVIE could easily have been a huge disaster. I knew I had nothing to fear from the opening scene, however. From the 20th Century Fox logo (w/ Ralph singing along to the fanfare inside the zero), they panned up to the moon w/ very melodramatic music in an obvious nod to the potential bad directions they could have taken this movie ("Hey, I know! Let's have The Simpsons... ON THE MOON!!"). Lo and behold, it's an Itchy and Scratchy episode. Brill.

OK, no more spoilers. If you haven't seen it, go. If you have, comment below. And agree w/ me or pay the price. This my house, bitch.

The speech I want the Democratic nominee to give

It's frustrating to be a Democratic (or a Democratic sympathizer) these days. They tend to be spineless, wishy-washy, poll-slaves that don't end up accomplishing much. All too often, the best thing they have going for them is that they aren't Republicans.

Part of that is a messaging problem. Most Democrats don't know what it means to be a Democrat, or they can't articulate it well. And the party itself doesn't offer much help. You can't act on principles you don't have and can't talk about.

That's why it was very refreshing, even inspiring, to read this speech written by John F. Kennedy's former speech writer Theodore C. Sorensen. If the Democratic nominee for President says something like this in Denver a little over a year from now, it will be a good day. Not to be a Democrat, but to be an American. And it's been a long time since that felt good.

Ugh! Cinco de Mustache!

OK so it's been like 1 million years since Cinco de Mustache and I just got my pictures up on Flickr. I know, I'm the blurst photographer ever. Whatevz.

For those not in the know, Cinco de Mustache is that day every May 5 when mustachioed men and women gather to celebrate the upper lip and the hair that grows there. It's a long and storied tradition, dating back to various mustache-inspired military victories of the Mexican army over some Frenchies. w00t.

To see all the photo documentation, go to my Flickr page.

Here are some choice samples:

Super Blog Friends!

I just want to say how excited I am about our little blog network we have going on. Myself, Dan, Drew, and Crystal pretty much rotate among each others' blogs leaving snarky comments. We rule.

I'm learning to like Wilco's new album. It's different from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself. But at first it seemed less... unique? Anyway, I have to listen to an album in at least three different contexts before I can decide whether I like it or not:

1. On my iPod while walking down the street, preferably with lots of other people around.
2. On my home stereo with the sweet, sweet sub. Mmmm... bass.
3. At some sort of hanging-out (KGB would say "ch-hanging ar-round") type event.

I've got 1 & 2 down. Anyone wanna have a Wilco party?

Choice quote from Dan on the subject, "I think, all kidding aside, I would probably have sex with Jeff Tweedy in a heartbeat."

Bitch.

I have to give a "shout out" to my friend Mari Q. Schimmer for leaving copies of Bitch magazine around the house. I had a good Saturday afternoon buzz on today (don't you love those?) so I picked one up and started reading.

Instantly I was back in college, the sole male member of the Calvin Feminists club (I'm not fishing for non-jerk cred here--rest assured I'm a grade A asshole when push comes to shove).

All kidding aside, I do <3 feminism. It's one of those things that should be the new default. So that we start talking about anti-feminists rather than feminists. Like, "Whoah! That asscopter is a total anti-feminist!" As though we were talking about an anti-semite or a homophobe. Anyway, yay feminism. And Bitch.