The Future of Music from the Cube Posts

[liz_marcs]

Well, whaddya know. My long search for an embeddable music player that will allow you to create playlists and will also be accepted by LJ has finally paid off.

Truth to tell, I'm kind of relieved about this. There have been several emails over the past two months which have made me increasingly wary about offering MP3s for download (the most recent was a most interesting email regarding my post on Marshall Crenshaw — and no, it was not anyone associated with the artist). It appears my Music from the Cube posts have popped up on too many people's radar outside of LJ-land and off my FList.

While no one has threatened legal action (yet), I suspect the day is coming when someone will.

As a result, I have to start considering a limited set of options (in order of preference):

• Start friends-locking my Music from the Cube posts
  
• Create a friends-only community where I Am Queen providing all the posts and the downloads
  
• Stop the Music from the Cube posts altogether
  

Using Imeem to embed a playlist helps me avoid making any of those choices. Number one: There's no chance in hell I'll get dinged for violating any laws since it's streaming media that I (in theory) own. Two: I'll be able to (in theory) provide the entire CD for your listening pleasure.

Now, I'll still offer MP3s for download for mixes and soundtracks, so there's no plans to change that at all. I think if worst comes to worst, I can argue fair use in that case (Can someone familiar with the DMCA let me know if that's the case?). However, if I've got all these Music from the Cube posts with live downloads on top of a various mixes that expire after 30 to 60 days...ummmm...that's gonna be hard to explain away.

Anyway, I'm throwing up a test embedded paylist. Let me know what y'all think:

Comments

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Offering music for streaming purposes doesn't seem to be an actual problem (at least from what I can see) because, in theory, they actual tracks are still in your "ownership." At least I think that's how it works. It's when you start passing the tracks around with no strings attached that there's a problem.

It's actually rather stupid in a lot of ways, especially if all you're doing is offering a limited number tracks. There's no consideration made for "fair use" (I would argue offering samples as part of an overall CD review should be considered "fair use").

In any case, I'm actually torn. I don't want to switch to a streaming option, since all things being equal, I prefer the downloading option (I believe that Savefile is 60 days). I may not switch over to streaming right away and may hold tough for a little while longer on the downloads.

However, I've gotten some emails from people who aren't on LJ who've found The Music from the Cube posts who are not on LJ and are not affiliated with LJ in any way. None of the emails are threatening in any way, by the way. But it makes me nervous, especially since one recent email pointed me to an artists' official board where my review of that artists' work was being discussed.

It's a little nerve wracking, and a good hard reminder that (yet again) that there's a few more people than I think accessing my public posts.

[jgracio.livejournal.com]

Well, as long as you don't profit from it, it might be okay, but like I've said, I wouldn't be making many assumptions, since copyright laws aren't exactly written with the consumer in mind.

The downloads, quite frankly, I wouldn't do them like you do, not unless the music's in the public domain, or you have permission to make the music available. It's all very complicated, since you're not making the music available, but rather some company is (whoever's behind YouSendIt, etc.), and who knows where the servers are, etc., etc.

I dunno. Lawyers are scary. :)

Anyhow, I think that if you added a counter to your site, you'd be surprised at the number of hits you get. :)

P.S.

Have you seen the Buffy comic?

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Nope. But I've heard the wanking. Y HALLO THAR SHIPPER WARZ! Man, even the mild threat of Xander/Buffy has some people foaming at the mouth.

It makes my head hurt.

[rileysaplank.livejournal.com]

Bearing in mind that my legal knowledge is ten years old now I know that within the UK when I did study law the wording mentioned "two or more, paying or non-paying, people" under copyright. How you interpret the "two or more" would be the crux here.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

Just trying to figure out DCMA makes my head hurt, no matter what. It pretty much goes without saying that I know filesharing of copyrighted material is illegal in the U.S., and The Music from the Cube posts were most certainly in a bad position from that point of view.

Streaming the files is safer, legally speaking.

Like I said, all things being equal, I'd rather do downloads because there's minimal administration on my part to do that that. Using streaming actually requires a little bit more work.