Monday, April 26, 2010

The invention of, and the death of the CD

The first ever CD was created by Sony and Phillips, and was commercially available since 1982. Advantages over the Vinyl included it's capability to hold information in a physically smaller disc. a CD is usually around the size of 120 mm and can hold up 80 minutes of audio or 700 MB. The CD actually was the first commercial product to take advantage of laser technology so that it could read the disc without actually making contact with it. It copied the binary reading that the vinyl used, e.g. emulated sound according to minuscule ridges in and dips in the Cd's surface, which would manipulate the sound that was made. the CD slowly taken over the market from Vinyls, however they still remain commercially available today. most house held computers are compatible with Cd's used for music and other forms of saved data, which really helped the CD overcome the Vinyl. The CD was adapted to become the CDR along with several other variations which also improved sales massively. the CDR allowed consumers to save files from there PC onto the discs and therefore transfer files from one area to another.

The music industries very swift transferal to the Internet began to destroy the Cd's market, and crushed many small CD stores across the world. this is a big social issue as CD stores for some people were more than just shops, they became a meeting place and a personal haven. several people in a documentary spoke about the experience of CD stores like a surreal experience, to be able to walk in and look at the artwork of bands you had never heard of, then listen to the music, and get yourself listening to a variety of bands from all sorts of areas. This experience is being taken away by the musical industries new output in the form of stores mainly iTunes. the prices that the songs are sold at makes accessing music so much easier, and the end product for the artist after $0.99 goes through Itunes, and then the record label, leaving the artist themselves with very little profit per sale.

This now leaves the main form of profit for the band coming from touring and concerts. also the profit they make is generated by the merchandise that is sold at concerts and from retail in stores and through the Internet. Some have suggested that all people using programs such as limewire pay a royalty every year to download the music that they want, for example £50 for access to music for 12 months. this money would then go to the artists to sustain there living and allow them to make money from there music again. However this would possibly worsen the situation of Cd's by making more people become reluctant to buying a CD when music is openly available all year round for just £50. CD player producers have also began to cap there manufacturing because of a lack of customers which also puts damages the CD market. Another issue with CDR is of personal memory sticks, which have become a more popular form of saving certain file types as they are easier to carry round and with the increase in use of IT in modern jobs they are useful just to have attached to car keys of in a bag instead of carrying lots of Cd's around

file sharing

file sharing
file sharing is a practice in which people share files free of price through the Internet and torrents such as Limewire. In certain countries, such as Sweden, these programs are not illegal, which grants allows people in these countries to run servers such as Pirate bay, a file sharing host. this becomes problematic when people from other countries download music where the act is illegal. technology.timesonline.co.uk: "the average teenagers ipod contains around 800 illegally downloaded tracks". also, half of 14-24 year olds are happy to share the musical content of there hardrive with other users to allow illegal downloads. shutting down programs such as Limewire is very hard because the software itself is legal, but almost all it's content is. Limeire has a specific symbol next to Un copywrited music to show that the downloads are legal, however the vast majority of content comes from big bands such as mainstream and other smaller genres. Another area that links into file sharing is people downloading music that is not copyrighted and remixing it to create partially new music. The Good copy bad copy documentary follows a Brazilian artist who takes music from the Internet and remixes it to create new tracks, which are then played at parties with large audiences, raising awareness of his "identity". This is known as "sampling", when someone takes part of a track from the Internet and separate it from the track with some form of software,for example the drum beat and then loops the track and creates new music , Some people like the way that file sharing works even as artists, such as Aphex Twin, who states that the only reason he makes music is because he enjoys it and likes to share his creations with people, however he has to make them available to buy so that he can make a living, meaning that if he could live without money, he would always allow free downloading. He also makes a point of not being bothered about having fame or any of the like, but had to create an identity so that he could sell records and make a living from them.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Research on warp

doing research on warp records. founded in 1989 by Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell in Sheffield after working in the FON record store, along with Robert Gorden, a producer. Highly influencing on the electronic music market, the company produces with artists such as aphex twin, black dog, B12 etc. in 1991 Robert Gorden left the company leaving just Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell. In 1992, they produced several "artificial intelligence" titles as experimental electronic music and a series of digitally animated music video's under the title of "motion" were released. between the years of 1992 and 99 the company evolved, introducing new artists such as DJ Andrew Weatherall. In 1999, a decade after establishment, "warp 10: influences, classics, remixes" to celebrate the ten year anniversary of the company, which featured early techno and acid house. Also in 1999, warp films was created, releasing such films through the years as Dead man's shoes and This is England. in 2000, the company moved it's base of operations to London from Sheffield. Robert Mitchell was diagnosed with cancer in 2001, and passed away later that year leaving just Steve Beckett. In 2004, "Bleep" was launched. Bleep is warps online music download store. It is one of the only stores to completely avoid digital rights management. later in the year, the second music video compilation was released, named "warpvision", featuring almost all of the music videos they had produced since 1989. In 2005 Rob young wrote "warp", the first in the labels unlimited series. In 2009, a 20Th year anniversary celebration in the form of "warp20" concerts were held in Paris, new york, etc.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

i like the action in this scene and the determination of James bond is something i would like to try and capture in our character, in a scenario that seems without hope, for him to be continuing to try creates a really great quality for me

Thursday, January 14, 2010