In September, Allen wrote a blog on Myspace critisising bands such as Radiohead and Pink Floyd for their view that file sharing is okay.

But now it appears, in a radio interview Allen has had a change of mind and heart and says “If someone comes up with a burnt copy of my CD and offers it to you for £4, I haven’t a problem with that as long as the person buying it places some kind of value on my music.”

Tory.

She says bands who sell out arenas such as Pink Floyd and Radiohead are not the ones feeling the effects of piracy but for new acts, music piracy and file sharing make it hard for new acts to emerge.

Allen says while old-school artists are driving Ferraris the new, emerging artists are still trying to pay off record company debts.

She recommends record companies get smart about new technology and make the internet more user friendly for kids to download music legally instead of having to steal parents credit cards or download music illegally.

Tory.

Image from Sharky_p2p on Flickr.com

Today’s blog is about the reinvention of the music industry. Music is not dying completely, maybe CD’s are dying but music will always live on, just in different forms.

I have two links to post today. But I guess I could do it in two different posts on two different days just to add to my content a little.

I am currently having some issues working out jargon from one link I’ve found. Using abbreviations makes things very hard. Terms like RIAA and DRM are abbreviations a lot of people would have to google repeditively to find out about.

However, this is a good piece about the transformation of the music industry.

My apologies to anyone who is following this blog, I will try and make my posts more frequent. I am also learning a lot about the different ways I can make the blog more visually exciting aswell as add more exciting content.
I’ve just done a quick Google search for a couple of things I could write about and it seems that most of what comes up are blogs. Clearly the topic of music, piracy aswell as a little politics thrown in here or there is a popular topic with bloggers.

“Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.” 
–Oscar Ameringer

Tory.

“Remember Jerry, it’s not a lie if you believe it”

I have decided to start every blog with a quote from either Mr Costanza, a politician/about politics or a musician/about music. This is just my way of personalising my blog and maybe making the things I talk about a little more bearable.

What my blog will be about will be rather dry and although interesting, probably won’t be the most exciting thing everyone has ever read.
It turns out our choices are as I thought. Government, politics or the economy.

However, my idea about music is not hard hitting enough. My Costanza theme may not be hard hitting but it’s one way I can personalise this blog.
I had this plan that I could write about musicians who include politics into their music on days when nothing else is happening. This needs to be more refined. I’m going to focus instead on areas like:

• Piracy in music.
• How downloading is affecting the music industry.
• How government funding is affecting the music industry here and abroad.
• Whether or not a change in government has affected the music industry in any way.
• How the state of the economy affects music sales

I need things I can easily stick into my Igoogle and get regular updates about. Single, key words and terms.
There are a few other things I discussed with my tutor earlier but I’ve completely gone blank. If anyone has any ideas relating to politics, economy or government and it’s relation to music, please comment and tell me about it so I can write! Always needing ideas!

Tory.

Picture: Parliament, taken by myself.

So here’s the story about this blog. I will always use correct spelling and grammar (or as much as humanly possible) and I won’t say anything which is politically incorrect or offends anyone.
If you want to see my usual style of writing, you should probably see my blog TORYS sTORYS which is very different to what will be here.
I will update this once a day, once a week or whatever the tutors decide is appropriate.

I’m pretty sure my blog will be about politics and it’s relation to music. This may be hard although in one interview I did, a tutor of a music course told me that Labour did a very good job providing funding for New Zealand music and that he hoped National would do the same, if not better.
So that is just one example of what I could blog about.

I feel a little hesitant about writing about government related issues because I have a strong bias towards one side. I think I would like to make it clear in this blog what my bias is. I prefer Labour and left wing parties in general because they seem to agree with the same things I do. Both parties in New Zealand lean towards the centre, ie: Centre right and centre left which means neither is fully left wing or right wing.
Since the latest election we have experienced the National government which hasn’t been all that different to Labour, proving that both parties are leaning so much towards the centre that they’ve lost any left wing or right wing style they once had. As one of my colleagues said, Norman Kirk would be turning in his grave about how ‘centre’ Labour has become.

As a journalist, all stories have to be balanced and fair which means putting all my prejudices and beliefs aside, which is what I will do with this blog. Despite the fact I’ve admitted my bias towards Labour, I’m willing to write as if I don’t have a bias and don’t favour either side or either leader.

Music is my main passion here anyway. Sure, I enjoy politics and find it all very interesting but there’s just something about the way music speaks to me.
Music can make me feel a way that nothing else can whether it’s the instruments or the lyrics.
I love that it doesn’t take a ‘muso’ to be able to enjoy music. Even though I can’t play music, I still understand it and enjoy it in many forms.
So joining my liking for politics aswell as my love for music does make sense. It just seems difficult at this early stage. The idea of the blog could completely change as it goes on.

Tory.

Pictures: Top left
Top right
Bottom left: Taken by myself at Whitireia music school in Porirua.