There are literally thousands of brilliant rock/pop groups in the world - as to why they don't make the money and circulation and distribution they should? It's a complete mystery to me.

P2P is absolutely not helping things though. Way to many casual music fans "check out" lots of music, buy very little and then keep what they've "borrowed" permanently. Most good indie records can be streamed for free in its entirety for a limited time. A perfectly reasonable middle ground to give people the opportunity to hear the album.

I like mog though (it's worth the 5/month to not hear ads on spotify) and then when I like something I buy the physical product (either LP or CD)

JP

so much good music coming out - last thing I care about is these sound subtleties.

My favorite music medium to purchase now is this whole thing where you buy the vinyl and get an mp3 download code. I don't even own a record player but i get the tangible product which is undeniably satisfying and then the convenience of digital. It works out to be like $2 more than on itunes or the CD.

JP

Is that why you lot are always complaining about mobile phone tariffs?

independent music is as accessible and creative as it has ever been. check it out.

I have no idea who the audience was for that.

"Faith is a fact" - George Oscar Bluth, Sr, Caged Wisdom

I stand on three pillars here:

1. There's lots of good new music (and undiscovered old music)
2. You shouldn't steal music unless that band, label and publisher all are OK with it (in which case it's not really stealing)
3. I still buy physical CDs because the selection is better, I like the packaging, i'm slightly anal about the whole lossless thing, and it usually doesn't cost any more than buying a download.

1. There's lots of great music you haven't heard.
2. You are a thief

Wikileaks is pretty well enfranchised I would say. There are billions who are not.

ha he

This was meant to be sarcastic.

My point was that although on the fringes, (mastercard, paypal, amazon, DNS, legal trouble for leakers etc) that the leaks are facing challenges, that in *any meaningful way* nothing is being suppressed.

The mainstream media corporations running all over the world are reporting everything that there is to report.

There is no information war here.

Comcast is blocking access to any websites reporting wikileaks related stories.

This is exactly what I would suspect they would do.

What can you expect from a big corporate interest?

For all of the conspiracy stuff out there - and I happen to be opposed to the public release (especially the poison pill encrypted, unredacted torrent - holding others hostage because you are too cowardly to stand up for what you believe) it is pretty remarkable that this has all been released.

So the current government is speaking out against the leaks - and using *legal* powers to defend itself - I just am not that incensed.

JP

"We" are a big country

If this is a true visual representation

http://xkcd.com/802/

then I would be cautious about discounting the value of FB.