Fight For the Future - Time to Stop SOPA - Again

Once again our digital rights are in jeopardy. From the Fight for the Future site:

Hey,

Here’s an update on the new SOPA proposal. More than 30,000 people have already signed our petition to stop the new SOPA before it spreads. We need to get to 50,000 signatures before we deliver it to Obama next week. Only you can make that happen. Forward this email to everyone you know, and use the buttons to share:

         

Thanks to you, and tens of thousands of others who have already taken action, we’re hearing from our friends in DC that this latest attempt at internet censorship isn’t gaining a lot of traction.

But there are powerful interests who are spending millions of lobbying dollars to get SOPA-like legislation back on the table. We need to send a clear message to Obama *right now* that SOPA is not even an option to be discussed. 
You can also share on Tumblr or Google+. Keep in touch with us. With the help of people like you we’ve been winning campaigns left and right to defend our basic rights and keep the Internet free. From CISPA to NSA surveillance to broken copyright laws, we’re fighting round the clock for your digital freedoms

Glad to have you on the team,

-Tiffiniy Cheng and Evan Greer

Fight for the Future

Wither Not Finetune

One of my favorite streaming websites is Finetune.com. I joined Finetune in the spring of 2007. It is a free service that up to this month, allowed users to build their own online jukeboxes or playlist utilizing the music available at the Finetune.com library.

They have more than 2 million songs available for inclusion to user playlists. The music available in the Finetune library is supplied by all of the major labels as well as a number of independents. Artists available for inclusion on playlists included everyone from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac to U2, Lily Allen, Carrie Underwood, Bruddah IZ, Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, Enya, Timbaland, Britney Spears, Kitaro, The Four Tenors, Herb Alpert, punk rock artists, metal bands and hip-hop artists.... plus everything else in-between and obscure.

Users were allowed to build customized playlists utilizing the Finetune library of songs. I created more than 40 playlists that covered several genres including current top 40 hits, classic rock, 60s and 70s oldies, to popular standards, Hawaiian music, science fiction soundtracks and classic country. Each playlist contained a minimum of about 45 tracks before they became active. There was no limit on the amount of songs that could be included with each playlist. The only restriction was that no artist could have more than 3 songs each per playlist... so only 3 Madonna, Blondie, Led Zeppelin, tracks, etc., per list.

The small restriction did not limit user creativity to generate hundreds of playlists on the service. Finetune even employed a professional DJ to come up with mainstream playlists to cover many different genres. The service also allowed users to create playlists on the fly based on artists or songs they included in their own playlists.

One of the best features of Finetune.com was that it allowed users to embed playlists to their blogs and websites, much like how YouTube does with video. Users could also include custom icons for their playlists, post descriptions of each playlist, have other users become fans or comment on the playlist and listen to their playlist on supported mobile devices such as Apple's iPhone.

All that changed this month.

Finetune has apparently been throttled by the music industry, more than likely by the much hated (by music fans) RIAA. Finetune stopped users from editing or creating new playlists. No songs can be added to current playlists or new ones created using the present catalog or new music releases. The embed feature has also been disabled.

Finetune has been relatively quiet about this turn of events, not mentioning much to their user base unless inquired through email or found by luck on Twitter. So far the only thing that has been stated (as of this posting date) is:

"Playlist building and embedding is currently disabled. Sorry!

Dear Users - We're seeing all your feedback. We understand your confusion. Our reason d'être is in flux. More news soon.

Service changes doing what we expected... further changes maybe coming later this week, will update when we decide."

I hope this is not the end of the Finetune music site as we know it. I can hope that they work things out with the record labels and the RIAA and allow us to at least keep the playlists we built and allow us and other users to keep on listening to them. Finetune is a good way to share music without doing it illegally.

New Finds of the Day from The Sixty-One

Here are some new tracks that I added to my growing roster of Sixty-One favorites:










Enjoy!

Playing on The Sixty-One

The Sixty-One is a fairly popular new music website where many unsigned artists publish independent music for people to listen to and vote on. Every song posted to the site is a full length version. All genres are available at The Sixty-One including rock, pop, alternative, jazz, hip-hop, classical, instrumental, country and more.

While there are some very well known songs and artists on The Sixty-One website, most of them are people and groups that you never heard of. Some are very good, others are not. If you are adventurous and want to listen to fresh new music, this is the place to be. Some of my favorite undiscovered artists at the Sixty-One site include The NuRu, Meiko, Chairlift, Joe Sibol, Tegan & Sara, Rebecca Ann and The Nobodies to name a few.

Lastly songs that you discover, listen to, favorite and share are compiled into a point system that are part of a "game" that I really don't keep up with. Some people like the game aspect of The Sixty-One where the only aspect of the game is to pile up points and achieve certain levels of coolness and possibly respect among your peers at the site. I don't go to the site often enough to make my measly collection of points matter.

Besides listening to free streaming music, the features that I like about the Sixty-One are free downloads of some tracks. links to Amazon.com to purchase other tracks, favorite lists and the ability to share tracks on other websites and blogs. I have my own page at The Sixty-One.com as well as a Sixty-One Jukebox page at my music charts page. There is also a Hawaii Ning site where people can go to discuss The Sixty-One and share tracks there too.

Here are a few tracks that you can listen to right now by clicking on the song links below:











I will be featuring more songs on this blog from The Sixty-One.com in the weeks and months ahead. Stop by my Sixty-One page and jukebox to listen to more music.