DC Comics’ Geoff Johns was on Seth Meyers the other night to talk about DC’s new “rebirth” comic story (for what it’s worth: I really liked the first issue) — there’s a little mention of working with Ben Affleck on a solo Batman movie as well.
Miles Raymer, writing for MTV, looks at some ideas on fixing copyright law in how it relates to musicians and clearing samples:
Menell’s solution is to apply something called a compulsory license to sampling, remixing, and other derivative works. Compulsory licenses replace the process of gaining a copyright holder’s permission to make use of their original work with a flat royalty structure and a set of rules for how the work can be reinterpreted. We already have this kind of setup for cover songs: Under U.S. copyright law, anyone can perform and record any song that anyone else has written and recorded without getting their prior permission, as long as they pay a royalty to the copyright owner. This is why pop-punk bands can cover Top 40 songs, why iTunes is full of sound-alike cover versions of hit songs by artists it doesn’t have deals with, and why hip-hop producers often hire instrumentalists to play “interpolations” of musical passages they want to sample but can’t clear.
Hilary Duff is currently working on her new album. I was pleasantly surprised by her last release.
Aleen Mean, writing on her blog, on how in spite of the new features Twitter keeps rolling out, it remains broken in one glaring way: it’s too easy to abuse people on the service.
Time and time again, we’ve been told that the company is working on making things better for targets of harassment. What we see, however, are half-baked enhancements designed to make the service more appealing to advertisers and attempts at enticing new users. Many people have suggested changes they could implement to curb abuse. For example, Randi Lee Harper’s list of suggestions from earlier this year is still on-point.
Five Finger Death Punch has announced they’ve signed with Rise Records. They still owe their former label, Prospect Park, one more album (that the label is kinda saying sucks and are suing over). From the band’s announcement:
We have had great success with our current label, Prospect Park, and will continue to enjoy further success with our next and final album (subject to surmounting the label’s court action to prevent us from recording it), after which we will commence a new and exciting label partnership with the people at Rise and BMG.
I’m just surprised they didn’t find some way to throw in one more proclamation of the great success they were going to have with Rise and BMG.
Jenny Lewis’s new band NAF has announced some additional tour dates. You can find those below.
The tribute show for No Use For a Name at this year’s Groezrock has been posted on YouTube. The set features a variety of guest singers playing with the band in tribute to the deceased Tony Sly.
Biffy Clyro has released their new song “Animal Style” on Spotify and iTunes.
Ben Popper, writing for The Verge, looks at just how big of a hit Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist has been:
According to the stats Spotify released, more than half of Discover Weekly users listen to 10 tracks a week and save at least one of those songs to their favorites. The company is trying to highlight the boost in listening this feature has given to small- and medium-sized artists, and noted it will be sharing data from Discover Weekly with bands to try and help them connect with their newest fans.
Brendan Manley, writing for Diffuser, remembers Bradley Nowell, the Sublime frontman, on the 20-year anniversary of his death:
After the album was released, it became a runaway success and spawned four hit singles (“What I Got,” “Santeria,” “Wrong Way” and “Doin’ Time”) on its way to multi-platinum status. It also helped define the ’90s third-wave ska scene (which also featured genre-bending bands like No Doubt and 311) and the album placed a global spotlight on Nowell’s evocative lyrical imagery and his unflinching portraits of the seedy side of SoCal.
Advice to Writers: 22 Rules of Storytelling from Pixar
The Front Bottoms are the latest to play for Punks in Vegas’ acoustic sessions. You can find the three song performance below.
Laura Jane Grace, writing for Vulture:
The nerves started as soon as I got to North Carolina. Just driving into the state, stopping at gas stations, going where you go — I was on edge all day. I always wait until there’s a unisex restroom, because I’m afraid. I also don’t want to make people uncomfortable — my desire is to feel comfortable, but I don’t want to make other people feel uncomfortable either. If it’s a crowded public restroom, I know I don’t pass, and I know that if I walk into a women’s restroom, someone would possibly take offense. Maybe scream. Who knows? In North Carolina, with it being illegal, it was like, Okay, well, we’re going to wait until there’s a Starbucks, since Starbucks has single-unit bathrooms, and that’s where we usually stop. Which is ironic because I’m someone who wrote a song about throwing bricks through Starbucks’s windows.
SoundCloud has teamed up with LANDR to offer a free “mastering” service to their members. From the SoundCloud blog announcing this partnership:
Driven by the smartest algorithms in the game, LANDR’s all-in-one, drag and drop interface makes mastering your tracks easier than ever. For this partnership, LANDR has created a new format specifically optimized for SoundCloud streaming.
Really I’m just excited I can now make jokes about how algorithms can do a better mastering job on albums than some bands end up with.