Posted on May 14th, 2008 by Colin
Hey guys. Muxtapes, guys. Pretty cool. I made a mix last night.
The mix is pretty much my attempt to combine my obsession in recent years with lo-fi 90’s sounds with my undying love for emotional indie music. Check it.
More importantly is how much making a muxtape has renewed my love and passion for of copyleft and fair use movements. See, muxtape only accepts mp3s. The reasoning for this is that mp4s (often shown as m4a files) used by Apple allow what is called DRM restriction in the encoding. This means that programs can pick up on the fact that you are not supposed to copy, upload, or otherwise distribute the file you bought on iTunes anywhere outside of your home network. Mp3s do not support DRM restrictions. The fact of the matter is that the only advantage to mp4 encoding is the additional of DRM restrictions and it’s a large reason why it’s being pushed as the next wave of file encoding. And as I’ll explain later, this is entirely contrary to the way that the economy of information needs to move to succeed in the future.
Being a child of the technology age, I thought, “Gee, I bet someone’s come up with a program that will convert the file for me,” and spent the last 3 days trying to find one. I wasn’t concerned about this file type limitation because I know how to use the internet and computers. But here’s the problem: THERE IS NO LONGER A PROGRAM THAT CONVERTS MP4s to MP3s. NO ONE IS CRACKING THIS THESE DAYS.
Once upon a time, when the internet was a new frontier, there was something called The Hymn Project that did offer the software needed to strip rights off of files and convert them to mp3s for free distribution. That project has since received a cease and desist letter from Apple and is no longer allowed to distribute its beautiful, beautiful freeware.
Apple. You may make great hardware, but you are an asshole. A big fucking asshole. Why are you still fighting for restrictions on the distribution of digital files? Amazon already offers everything in their online mp3 store free of usage restrictions. Muxtape is brilliant because the makers of the site have found a way to use Web 2.0 functions and file sharing (explanation: even if the files are served through a streaming server and application, I’d argue that this is very much akin to Napster and SoulSeek style file sharing) for both monetized (I’m going to speculate they get a kickback for Amazon referrals) and marketing purposes. Not to mention that this represents a new wave in the democratization of taste for the music industry, something important in our post-In Rainbows age to give new and young artists production, distribution, and representation when the established artists who carry the financial burden for the labels aren’t bringing in the dollars they used to.
Don’t become a dinosaur in the area of media distribution, Apple. Follow Amazon’s example, because I am boycotting you until you get with the program. That being said, I still really want an iPhone.
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May 14th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Good thing I didn’t send you the 3 free iTunes downloads I got from Ticketmaster after I bought you a Beirut ticket. LOL.
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Fist Patrick reply on May 14, 2008:
apple:digital music::hitler:germany LOL
May 14th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
It took me ages to figure out that you could upload songs off of CDs onto iTunes as mp3s.
This is what it feels like when old people don’t know how to program VCRs, right?
Wait. This is what it feels like when you still know what a VCR is, right?
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May 14th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
I’m into the muxtapes, although I wish they’d allow me to upload oggs.
My muxtape (or my main one) is sophistidisco.muxtape.com
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May 15th, 2008 at 11:26 am
omg, saddest muxtape in the world. i am going to post one to rival it.
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Fist Patrick reply on May 15, 2008:
It’s really funny you say that because I honestly thought this was a relatively cheerful and not too heavy on the eems… Looking forward to your saddest muxtape in the world.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
This is a good mux. I hadn’t heard some of these in years and had never previously thought to get them onto my computer.
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