BasBasBas.com

“Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world”

Oh, the irony. If only words could sum up what I think about this. Someone is frantically rolling in his grave right now…

Found @ EHPO.

Had a good chat over dinner tonight, with Len. It was basically about ‘more perfect systems’ for this world and how they could be put in place. My personal vision is a very interconnected world of interdependent communities that are grouped around certain core beliefs. People would live more within a tribe-like group of around 200 people as a close community, instead of the many communities we live and participate in right now (work, free time, neighbourhood, etc.). This doesn’t mean that you don’t interact with people outside your tribe, but I’m getting into specifics…

A thing I have always struggled with, when it comes to utopic ideas, is how do you get there if you take the current society as a starting point? The last time I thought about this question is quite a while ago and I have since gotten more tech-oriented and I believe technology within the next few decades will radically alter global human culture. So probably this ‘more perfect system’ would come into place by being enabled by technology.

What if at some point we decide that it’s too risky to use our real bodies to interact with the world, such as suggested in the film Surrogates. There are already people who are trying to call a halt to handshaking, because it’s just too risky. Imagine if in the next few decades there are more and more viruses like SARS, bird flu, swine flu, etc. coming up, constantly threatening mankind’s health. Imagine if technology keeps growing exponentially… If we could put our bodies in safe suspension and create an avatar that interacts with a world that’s just as real as the current one, but organized in a more perfect way… I thought: “that would be great! Because we would know that the virtual world that our avatar lives in is not real, so we would be more relaxed about our (virtual) life circumstances”.

And then I thought… “but what if the reality our avatar lives in does become vital to us… what if we identify so much with that reality, that we forget about the actual reality where our consciousness lies”… And then it struck me: “what if this happened before?”

Who’s to say it didn’t.

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” – Albert Einstein

“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering.” – Gautama Buddha

Last week I read about Die Antwoord on the Birthday Party Berlin blog. The first time I watched their video, I was immediately convinced I had witnessed something I needed to share, to spread. Apparently I wasn’t the only one… One week later and the blogosphere is blowing up with posts about Die Antwoord.

In one day, they have doubled their Facebook fans from 5.000 to 10.000 and it seems like they’re still picking up steam, with blogs like Boing Boing, Dlisted and Mad Decent writing about them. Why is that? It is very simple. Die Antwoord is unique. They offer something fresh, in a remarkable way… In the digital age, where we can share all the music we want, being remarkable is THE most important characteristic for a band, group, musician, producer, etc. You have to be worth talking about.

So what did they do? Not much. They created a unique concept (or maybe this is just an extension of their personalities), uploaded their songs to YouTube, do a lot of performing and try to get people to spread the word. That’s probably why they give away music at live shows: “First 100 zeflings thru the door get a free hand-drawn full-length $O$ album (16 tracks) burned by die fokken rap-rave meesters NINJA en YO-LANDI.”

That’s it! Do something remarkable, connect with the fans and give them a reason to buy. Their album is due soon on Magnetron Music and I expect it to sell quite well for a debut, but of course it will be downloaded for free much more often… The “reason to buy” for now is going to be their live performances until they’ve built a considerable fanbase and they can start applying freemium on a bigger scale.

So who else are doing this? In The Netherlands we have an act which is quite similar, which also generated a lot of buzz when they first came to the scene; De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig. They’re actually label mates of Die Antwoord, just like a bunch of other great acts.

Another act that the music industry can learn from in my eyes, is MENEO, although MENEO is a bit less reachable for fans. Same goes for belladonnakillz.

Anyway, to conclude this post… I suggest you head over to the website of Die Antwoord and listen to their album. You can stream it in its entirety on there.

ONE TO WATCH!

Just a quickie.

Today an article at the BBC reported the ‘music industry’ claiming that piracy is destroying local music. Of course not the entire music industry believes this, just IFPI which represents only a fraction of all those working in the music industries (yes, there are multiple music industries).

The article states:

The sales of albums by local artists there have fallen by 65% in five years.

Federation chairman John Kennedy said the situation in Spain is now “almost irreversible”.

“Spain runs the risk of turning into a cultural desert,” commented Rob Wells, Senior Vice President, Digital, at Universal Music Group.

A cultural desert? Really? How about including statistics on live music? There is a very vibrant scene of young, creative musicians in cities like Barcelona and it appears to be thriving. I’m sure there are numbers that suggest the same. Such a ‘desert’ is more likely to be created by ‘music monopolies’, where big companies flood the market with non-local musicians by employing huge marketing budgets. Local artists would struggle to compete with that. If anything, big labels like UMG are causing a cultural desert, but is it really about the richness of culture or the richness of the labels?

When I read the following bit in the article, I had to count to 10…

He described the loss of the recent court case against BitTorrent website Oink as “a terrible disappointment” and an indication that current laws in the UK are “out of touch with where life is”.

Out of touch with where life is??? It is 2010. Music distribution is nearly costless, yet ‘you’ demand unreasonable prices for a copy of a song. Yes, there are production prices (but live revenue and sponsoring can help with that), and yes there is a marketing budget which needs to be earned back, but perhaps the world is better off without the marketing. You cannot finance one thing, by making money from something unsustainable – that’s bad business.

“The news from the commercial viewpoint is reasonably good but it’s not happening fast enough,” said Mr Wells.

So by stifling innovation through draconian laws, this process is going to be accelerated?

“The music industry finally believes it is making progress in the battle against web piracy with governments taking action and legal music services beginning to prove viable,” said BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones.

“But the industry is still furious about what it sees as negligence by some governments notably Spain – and is warning that there is a growing threat to local artists posed by piracy.”

Prove that there’s a threat. Record sales mean nothing at all.

There ARE ways for artists to make money and not to depend on selling records… The only side in this that really depends on selling records are the record companies. And guess who are the loudest party in this struggle? Exactly. Record companies have to reshape themselves totally and governments have to prevent these companies from ‘micro-managing’ the lives of consumers.

I’m sure some people will read this and feel angry. Please leave a comment and let’s discuss the future. I am 100% confident there is more than enough money to be made in the music industries, both local and global. Hey, my livelihood depends on it.

If you have numbers to share, for instance on live revenue in Spain, please do!! Help me make my point (or disprove it, if you want).

Here’s the article at BBC, there’s more to it, go check it out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8471290.stm

As the regular readers of my blog probably know, I’m writing my graduation thesis about the future of music distribution. Due to some setbacks and unforseen circumstances, this thesis has suffered some delays. However, using the knowledge and insight I gained in the past month, while studying my thesis’ topic, I have compiled a paper called the Best Practices of the Online Promotion of New Musical Content.

It looks at artists like Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, Mos Def, and Groove Armada, and analyzes what they’ve been doing right and wrong and why they’ve been doing it in the first place.

So while you wait for the thesis and the launch of FutureOfMusicDistribution.com, how about going through this 20 page paper?

To download and read the whole paper, just use this link:

http://www.basbasbas.com/online_promotion_of_new_musical_content-Bas_Grasmayer.pdf

And feel free to redistribute it, it’s licensed under a Creative Commons license!

Love,
Bas

Alright, lesson learned. If you’re going to start barefoot running, start slow. REALLY slow.

If you’re following this blog, I bought them. Not just that, I even started a site dedicated to barefoot lifestyle. I’ve become convinced that going barefoot is a very interesting experiment (plus it feels great) and that it’s an upcoming trend. Why? Well, I ended up buying the Vibram Five Fingers. When I first saw them, I ridiculed them, more or less like everybody else. However, I bought these shoes for a great reason and my reasons make sense (you can read about this on my Squidoo lens). The product itself catches the attention of people, just before they start ridiculing it. I’m quite evangelical about my choice though (as with all my choices), so once I have their attention, I explain WHY I bought it, creating interest. Suddenly I find people quite open about  the shoes and suddenly not ridiculing them anymore. As a matter of fact, they’ll start asking questions instead.

That’s the positive side of the experience. The other is a lesson. If you’re going to start barefoot running (or using minimalistic, barefoot simulating shoes, like the Vibram five fingers), then START SLOW. Imagine how slow you should start. Then HALF that. I normally do a 2 kilometer lap every two days or so. Just a 10 minute run, because I enjoy it. So when I went to try out the shoes, I loved the new way in which I was running. I ran about half and walked the other half, but I overdid it. Next day: terrible muscle ache. Day after that: STILL terrible muscle ache.

Really, do yourself a favour and start slow! But not before doing yourself a bigger favour: go barefoot!

Due to the recent case against The Pirate Bay in The Netherlands, which could render The Pirate Bay inaccessible to Dutch internet subscribers, I decided to look at ways that I could access the site if it were to get banned. Not because I want to download copyrighted material from it, but because it’s one of the best ways to distribute my DJ sets to fans. If it were to get banned, the Dutch court would sever a great distribution channel that can be (and IS) used in legal ways too.

It’s not just this case that makes me wonder, but also the fact that Dutch ISPs are required to store the surfing history of their clients for 12 months. They are required to keep a whole list of information, which can be seen at the previous link. Since I don’t trust my backwards, Christian democrat government with my data, let alone the possibility of a right-wing extremist gaining access to it after the next parliamentary elections, I decided to look into proxies.

Then I realized something. Monitoring users and infringing on their privacy, but especially restricting a medium like the internet, turns users into hackers. For instance, a lot of kids are fascinated by hackers – not just because of the picture Hollywood paints of them, but also because they face a lot of restrictions on the internet. Filters on their computer or browsers at home, even worse filters at libraries or their schools, etc. So they figure out how to dodge these filters.

It’s no coincidence that in countries like Iran, or China, which have some of the most restricted internet connections in the world, there are very high amounts of hackers. This should be a warning to those trying to control the flow of information on the internet by banning sites: we, the Internet users, will become better at dodging your filters and will become even less trackable than we are now.

What this means to the content industries (movies, music) is that right now there’s a huge database of information on the use and downloading of music. If the ‘pirates’ weren’t so scared of the industries, they wouldn’t be so anonymous and the information would be even more useful for things like testing popularity of music, but also marketing music to the right people.

Another example are the recent calls in Germany to block right-wing extremist websites. The problem with this is that it will only drive this movement underground, making it harder to track them and to prevent hate crimes. They’re already getting more internet savvy. Instead of spending so much time discussing how they can censor such websites (which will NOT decrease the amount of people with right-wing extremist tendencies), maybe they should look at how they can profile different types of people that fall prey to extremist thoughts and think of ways to integrate them into society, instead of alienating them further and making them more extreme.

By blocking our access, we’re turned into hackers. We go underground. At that point, you lose your opportunity to monetize or to influence us via our favourite medium. You’re not disconnecting us from our favourite sites, you’re disconnecting yourself from us.

Image by LShave, shared under a Creative Commons license on Flickr.

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I’m an information junkie. I don’t think I can say that I love reading, but I adore absorbing information. Today I read a great review of ugly shoes, which led me to look into a Mexican tribe and into the achievements of an Ethiopian athlete hero.

It started with a review on CrunchGear. It’s basically about a type of shoe that wraps around every toe and why it’s so great for running. The article argued that we’re natural long distance runners and that before we had weapons, we’d chase animals for such lengths of time and distances that the animals would collapse after which we could kill them and eat them. This is no longer necessary for us in the west (both the running great distances to get food and the killing animals to use their meat for survival), but it doesn’t take away the fact that we have evolved as long distance runners.

Next I looked at a book called Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen which is in part about athletes that run ultramarathons, which are 40 miles instead of 40 kilometers. One of these athletes joins a tribe of Native Americans in Mexico who are known for their long-distance running abilities.

Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence.

So the author trained with them and he learned a great deal. The Tarahumara Indians run barefoot, which apparently means less injuries and better running. Why? Modern shoes apparently cushion our heels so that we start running on our heels, sending shocks up our ankles, knees, hips and spines. Man is not supposed to run this way naturally, but instead we’re supposed to use the balls of our feet. We’re endurance runners by nature.

So I explored if there were any famous athletes that are barefoot runners and one story in particular amazed me. It’s the story of Abebe Bikila, an Ethiopian athlete who was the first black African to win an Olympic gold medal and the first athlete to winning the Olympic marathon twice. The first time he was a bit late with picking out his shoes and the pair he had were uncomfortable, so he couldn’t run a marathon with them. He decided to run barefoot, since that’s how he had practiced in Ethiopia anyway and he ended up breaking the world record. Four years later, just before the Olympics, Bikila had a case of acute appendicitis and was operated on. He then started practicing again almost immediately and won the marathon a second time.

There’s surely something to be said for barefoot running. We are born as barefoot endurance runners, with tons of nerve endings in our foot to give us stimuli and instincts to help us interpret and act according to the stimuli. Now I want to start trying it out… I’m sure my neighbours must think I’m crazy running through their street on my bare feet, but not as crazy as if they’d see me in those shoes. I could always cycle a bit out of town of course.

Love running? What do you think? Ever seriously tried barefoot running? What are your experiences? Will you consider barefoot running?

By the way, in case you didn’t check out the link to the book I mentioned, you really should. Read the description and the interview with the author, it’s so fascinating. This will be the next book I buy!

This afternoon a Dutch court ruled in favour of Dutch copyright protectors, BREIN, in a case versus The Pirate Bay. Within ten days, The Pirate Bay must block access to all Dutch users. BREIN’s head honcho, Tim Kuik, is happy about the verdict, because The Pirate Bay (TPB), according to him, is simply illegal.

What does this verdict change though? Internet users can make TPB’s servers think they’re not in The Netherlands simply by using a proxy. The less tech-savvy users can simply use one of The Pirate Bay’s clones. Those that are getting paranoid can be relieved that people are constantly working on increasing the quality of filesharing and making it harder to track (see this article about HydraTorrent, which, by the way, has already copied all of TPB’s torrents). Now that The Pirate Bay is gone, will the market for music in The Netherlands suddenly be a little bit bigger? No, no, no. Only the lawyers are profiting from this.

So what does it achieve? It makes it easier for people to get websites banned if they disagree with the content. The Pirate Bay doesn’t host any copyrighted content, it links to it. It also hosts a lot of legal content, I personally use it to distribute my DJ sets, so thanks BREIN for killing one of my best distribution channels.

While living in Turkey I witnessed horrible web censorship. I couldn’t use YouTube, one of the most popular sites on the web, unless I used a proxy or some other workaround that simply kills the user friendliness. Why was YouTube banned? Because the Turkish government didn’t like the content of one of the movies on YouTube, because it was against the law in Turkey. When YouTube didn’t remove it, the government had ALL of YouTube blocked via the courts. For years! In an older post I already mentioned that the whole YouTube ban is pointless anyway. Research in Alexa.com’s traffic ranking system has shown that YouTube is the 10th most popular site in Turkey. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan surprised everyone when he stated that even he uses YouTube.

Not only was YouTube banned, at some point ALL of blogger/blogspot was banned, because some blogs contained copyrighted material. The website of atheist Richard Dawkins was blocked, because somebody found it to be offensive.

In Holland, blasphemy is also illegal, so is disturbance of the peace, or insulting people. These could all be precedents to take down websites now that that door has been opened. Tim Kuik is proud, but he’s only keeping lawyers paid and limiting the freedoms of the citizens of The Netherlands.

The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde wants to appeal, but they’re looking for a lawyer that can do the job for free, since they’re out of money. Besides that, they’re suing Tim Kuik for slander, because he accused them of hacking BREIN’s website, which was a hoax by the way, BREIN was never hacked.

Help us out. Spread the word. Understand that blocking sites like this does not help artists make more money, it only helps LAWYERS make more money. When they killed Napster, 10 things came in its place. There is no more stopping it. The business model needs to change. That’s the only way.

Besides that, don’t buy from artists that support this. I personally won’t buy anything anymore from any artist supporting or represented by BREIN. Especially artists shouldn’t align themselves with freedom-infringing practices like this. Art is about expression, not repression and free expression only happens in free environments.

Someone on Twitter just sent me a video of conservomonster Bill O’Reilly using his errr… ‘talent’ on Amsterdam. Completely ridiculous, yet so awesome. I’ll let the video speak for itself.

Don’t even mention us again, Billyboy.

Thanks @panciuc.