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Girl Talk (Part II)

If the music doesn’t blow your mind, the contradictions will…

It’s been a while since I asked the question What is Girl Talk? and since the criminal mastermind behind Girl Talk has a new album, I figured I should take a look…

Head on over to illegal-art.net/allday and play along if you’d like…

As you may know, Girl Talk is completely reliant on other artists for source material. Artists who actually write and play music. Meaning, Girl Talk’s music would not exist if it were not for the artists which he takes things from. My understanding is that he does not actually pay these artists for their work. That’s OK, because he has this bit that thanks them.

This album is a free download.
Girl Talk thanks all artists sampled.

Please remember to thank me the next time I punch you in the face and take your wallet. Also, remind me to make a nice list of all the people who I punch in the face and steal wallets from.

Now, I’m a fan of Creative Commons, and I’ve been know to call people out when they use a Creative Commons license inappropriately, including re-licensing other’s work when they have no right to.

All Day by Girl Talk is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. The CC license does not interfere with the rights you have under the fair use doctrine, which gives you permission to make certain uses of the work even for commercial purposes. Also, the CC license does not grant rights to non-transformative use of the source material Girl Talk used to make the album.

Consider my mind blown… How does this even work!? As I understand it, Girl Talk uses all of the samples without permission. I’m going to guess that over 95% of the samples he uses are “All Rights Reserved” and do not fall under a Creative Commons license. So… how does one take a bunch of “All Rights Reserved” materials (without permission) and then re-license it under a Creative Commons license? What am I missing here? Am I just not understanding it?

Also, you should note that it’s a Noncommercial license. I mean, Girl Talk doesn’t want you making money from his hard work! (Was that sarcastic enough?) Also, Girl Talk will be in Milwaukee next month, tickets are just $30 (not including the service charges.)

Well, all I know for sure is that this Girl Talk guy is a rebel… He’s all about breaking the rules! He’d never tell you what to do. He’d never tell you how to listen to his album.

All Day is intended to be listened to as a whole.

I’m willing to be schooled on this whole Girl Talk thing… Am I completely backwards in my reading of all of this? Is this guy a champion of artist’s rights? A model citizen of the Creative Commons movement? Let me know…

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Glee

Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

The most amazing thing about Glee is not the music. No… it’s definitely not the music. It’s the marketing. It’s the packaging. It’s the selling. It’s the buying.

If you’re looking for a musical revolution, please don’t look at Glee. I’m pretty sure it’s not a musical revolution in even the most relaxed definition of the term.

(But what do I know about music, or about revolution… I tend to over-analyze things.)

Enjoy the show…

Goodnight!

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Still got some pumpkin? Already made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies? Well, I’ve got another recipe for you… Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients

  • 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup plain canned pumpkin
  • 1/2 cup melted butter
  • 6 ounces chocolate chips

Directions

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin papers.
  3. Thoroughly mix flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
  4. Break eggs into another bowl.
  5. Add pumpkin and butter to eggs and whisk until well-blended.
  6. Stir in chocolate chips.
  7. Pour over dry ingredients and fold in just until moistened.
  8. Scoop into tins and bake 20-25 minutes.

I use silicone muffin pans and canola spray, and I tend to add the dry ingredients to the moist stuff, which is backwards, but still seems to work fine. I also tend to freeze most of them, which works well when you’re running out the door and need something for lunch (or a mid-morning snack) as they defrost over the course of a few hours and are ready to eat.

It should go without saying that you should use raw sugar (not processed!) and unbleached flour (not “enriched” or bleached!) and any other more natural/organic materials you can find. But it doesn’t. So I’m saying it.

Enjoy!

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Microsoft Humor

Ken Segall let us know about a “funny” (?) video in his post The Microsoft festival of comedy.

Now, while you might think I’d join in with the laughter, I also think that in some ways, it’s not funny. I mean, I know that Steve Jobs thinks Blu-ray is a dud, and isn’t going anywhere, especially not into his Macs, but for those of us who work in the media creation industry, we’ve got to deal with it.

Ken has the following to say:

The big advantage of Windows laptops? They can play Blu-ray discs. Like (a) you’ll really appreciate Blu-ray on 15-inch screen, and (b) you’d rather carry discs around than just download high-def movies onto your Mac.

But this to me, is one more example of Apple products seen as consuming devices, not creating devices. If you want to just watch a high-definition video, it makes sense to download it to your Mac, but if you want to make a high-definition disc to give to a client, you’ll be making a Blue-ray disc, and you’ll need to buy an external drive (Other World Computing sells them) and you’ll need extra software (Toast will work) and while it’s all possible, it’s like this thing that Apple is just convinced you won’t want to, or need to do.

I pity the Mac user who is handed a Blu-ray disc and asked to play it, only to have some Microsoft weenie stick it in their laptop to play…

And you know, I actually found the video well done, and kind of funny…

Don’t get me wrong… I still don’t like Microsoft, and I still don’t like Windows, but I also get fed up with the control and decisions Apple sometimes makes about their products.

Also, I’m pretty sure Avatar sucks.

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Do you want to continue?

Fire Eagle

In the post Users vs. Accounts vs. Signer-Uppers I talked about how there’s a difference between the people who just sign up for a service, and the people who actually sign up and continue to use that service.

My suggestion was that a service should check in with you by sending you a reminder to see if you still wanted to use it and keep your account active.

I’m not sure if the Fire Eagle team got the idea from me, or came up with it on their own, but either way, I was happy to get an email from them which led me to the question you see above.