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

[moooleeesssaaa.livejournal.com]

it seems silly to limit the whole downloading thing. to tell the truth i have increased my cd buying since joining lj communities because i like what i hear & go out & buy it. i never thought i would buy the snakes on a plane soundtrack but i got to download the whole thing & try it out & i'm going to pick it up today.
i think its a mistake for artists / record companies to be so restrictive because i consider it all to be free publicity. there may be some who are downloading & not buying but generally speaking they are not buying because they don't have the money / wouldn't have bought it in the first place / would borrow a copy from a friend
also i think your posts shouldn't be dangerous as you don't have the whole cd up & especially since you have links to get the music legally. but anywho this embedded player thingy works nicely. you always have such lovely programs to check out. it makes my techie geek happy (btw the collecterz software is wonderful & i am happily scanning & cataloging everything in sight)

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

I'm not overly fond of the source site for the streaming media widget, but since I don't plan to use it for more than storage of files, I'm not overly concerned about it.

As for filesharing, there's a reason why most of the those comms on LJ are locked down to "friends-only." I'm not entirely comfortable with the legal environment for something like Music from the Cube, especially now that I know links to those posts have a habit of getting around the Web.

While streaming is not my first choice for something like this, it's certainly a safer choice.

Glad you like Collecterz. Now that is a very handy program to have. :-)