Month: April 2001

Defending and Sustaining Independent Media Centers: the FBI Visit (Not Raid) I’ve wanted to write about this for a week now, and have only been able to get it out today. Your feedback on this is invited and welcome. Send to paul@mediageek.org Last Saturday (4/21) report of an FBI raid on the Seattle Independent Media…

The Free Trade Area of the Americas: Look to Independent Media for the News If you’ve only been paying attention to the mainstream media you might have missed it. But if you’ve been keeping up with independent media–especially Indymedia Centers–you’ve probably heard about the Summit of Americas being held in Quebec City this weekend to…

Upcoming Indpendent Media Events: If you’re in the Champaign-Urbana, IL area (my home base) there are some interesting independent media-related events going on in the next couple of weeks. Sorry to be parochial for those of you not from ’round here… but them’s the breaks. Micro-Film Verite A public display of personal cinema in action.…

More on EMusic Buyout: Wired News reports that Universal Vivendi’s purchase of indie online music retailer EMusic is going through, however the independent artists and labels that licensed their music to Emusic aren’t necessarily happy with this major label deal. My favorite quotes come from Jeff Price, president of SpinArt records: “One of the things…

bloggin’ with a vengeance… Alexander Cockburn dedicates this week’s post to his and Jeffrey St. Clair’s political newsletter/webzine Counterpunch to observations on the sorry state of radio and glimmers of hope in the Pacifica struggle as he drives I-40. I’ve driven across the midwest and back to the East coast several times in the last…

And then… mp3 buyout… ZD Net reports that EMusic.com, a pioneer in selling mp3 music on the web–mostly indie-label stuff–is closing in on being bought out by a major label, reportedly Vivendi Universal. Apparently someone thinks there’s money in them dar mp3 hills. Either that, or it’s a buyout aimed at shutting up.

And yet, Napster usage surges, despite lawsuits and filtering. Still, don’t think Napster’s making any money. And, frankly, I like the filters, since I’m not interested in mainstream major label music the filters take out the spurious Metallica and Britney Spears hits from my searches. The Times reports that folks overseas use Napster more than…

The End of Peer-to-Peer? Today the Wall Street Journal declares that the “Peer-to-peer party comes to a halt.” The article argues that peer-to-peer networking strategies–which link together users’ computers on the net in a distributed manner, typically without a central server–are failing due to their inability to find funding or a profit model. Further dampening…

Broadcasters Extorting the Political Process The American Prospect this month features an article called “Cornering the Airwaves,” that details the rich bounty that television broadcasters reap from political campaigns through their ad dollars. Author Paul Taylor points out the election season price gouging that goes on, despite federal laws prohibiting such practices. The key to…

Ah, having a crappy whole-body cold does put a damper on my web site updates. But now I’m better, so I won’t whine and I’ll start blogging away again.