It seems Warner exec Jim Griffin was unprepared for the rancor of the Interwebs, because he’s backpedaling on a proposal to create a blanket fee for ISPs on music. All of that was just part of a “dynamic conversation,” says Griffin in a statement, and “It would be unfortunate if a creative and fruitful dialogue were sidetracked by a rush to judgment about what was simply my own illustrative example of one of many concepts I have in this space.”

Yes, indeed — it’d be unfortunate if a discussion of a hair-brained scheme with no plan for implementation or investment from any of the stakeholders were derailed by the fact that it was a hair-brained scheme with no plan for implementation or investment from any of the stakeholders.

See some excellent coverage and analysis from CNet News.com’s Greg Sandoval.

And as Sandoval notes, “What happens is that people hear the word “tax” and objective analysis goes out the window. People condemn and vilify. Out comes the torches and pitchforks.” That lack of objectivity is what frustrated me yesterday, even without being a specialist on the legal details

Of course, I disagree with Griffin about what happens to the “dynamic conversation” when people bring out the pitchforks. He says people lose the opportunity to “consider a variety of raw concepts without prejudice.” I say they lose the opportunity to consider just how out of touch with reality his proposal is.

I’ll never fully understand technology bloggers when it comes to music policy. Here’s an obviously stupid idea: Warner Brothers, the label, comes up with a scheme to add a surcharge to ISP bills to allow, supposedly, “legal” use of music file sharing services. Stupid, yes.

Here’s the response from Michael Arrington (Techcrunch): “It’s clearly good for the music labels, who are facing their imminent extinction.” He claims that this is the plan the “labels” (actually one label) don’t want you to know (except that they’re sitting down for long interviews with Conde Nast Portfolio).

Gizmodo’s Matt Buchanan just regurgitates and further oversimplifies Arrington’s argument, and adds a picture of a kitten at gunpoint, concluding: “And as Arrington points out, it would basically freeze innovation in the industry, meaning labels would be able to ream them that much harder. Not to mention, thanks to the fine print, we’d probably no longer own our music. But that’s the whole point.”

Apparently, “imminent extinction” means multi-billion dollar industry. (In fairness, the industry often — inexplicably — argues the same thing. I wish I were part of an “extinct” multi-billion dollar industry.) And apparently you can’t even talk about the issue of how music will be distributed and paid for without focusing on the desire of said industry to destroy your life and the fact that it’s still completely doomed.

And we’ve already seen Arringtonisms like recordings are worth nothing, and musicians should really owe websites cash for promotion (the Web 2.0 Payola plan, evidently).

But what happened to the obviously stupid idea? I agree with these sites that the plan is bad — I just think, ironically, it’s bad for even more reasons than they think. I’m not actually sure anyone read the original source — I think they were too busy being enraged, or looking for appropriate kitty pictures:

Fee for All: Jim Griffin will lead Warner Music’s fight to tame the Web’s lawless music frontier.

Forget about artists. Forget about copyright holders. Screw the musicians. This is ridiculously stupid even for the labels, partly because they’re unlikely to agree on the idea — meaning the idea is extinct on arrival. “Freeze innovation”? I guess — if the labels actually pursue this. But the blogosphere has become so rabidly anti-label, it’s fighting them instead of pointing out the planet-sized holes in the logic we’re being fed:

I apparently had better things to do this weekend than hear the latest self-righteous, all music is free, the Web changes the fabric of reality post about the music business, this time from Michael Arrington of Techcrunch. The title is intended to get a rise out of people. (”These Crazy Musicians Still Think They Should Get Paid For Recorded Music.” Uh … thanks?) But tracking through links, I came upon this quote:

Recorded music is nothing but marketing material to drive awareness of an artist. Websites that bring that music to listeners are doing artists a favor. In fact, they’re doing them a favor that they should (and will) be paid for.

Now, regular readers know CDM is all about new business models for music, all about ditching DRM, not at all about archaic royalty schemes. And certainly I can’t think of a good argument for the prompt for Arrington’s piece, which was that Billy Bragg thinks artists are owed money retroactively by a site to which they’ve already uploaded their own music.

Here’s my answer to that:

Recorded music has value to consumers.

Not everyone agrees with all my raves about FL Studio 8 — including some loyal FL users. Whereas Ableton Live has taken some flak in recent upgrades for catering to requests for more conventional functionality, even some FL lovers are frustrated with the program’s quirkier bits. Evan X. Merz writes a rant on FL Studio and version 8:

FruityLoop’s approach is so unique that it negates the value pricing. If you want to use FruityLoops, you basically have to commit to another DAW. So while you will save money by getting everything you get with FruityLoops, you will still find it necessary to purchase another DAW to streamline your recording … so the final price you pay will end up being about as much as if you had just bought another product in the first place. …

There are two phenomena right now on the Interweb. One: access to self-distribution (for artists and small labels) means artmakers can explore new models for the business that supports their work. Two: an open market for ideas (the blogosphere, namely) means if you can come up with some pithy something or other, you can achieve overnight fame. Of course, the former is considerably tougher than the latter. And don’t make that idea too complicated or nuanced, because you’ll lose the link-happy bloggers impatient for you to help topple the conventional Record Industry.

Latest case in point: Kevin Kelly posits the notion of 1,000 True Fans as the magic number you need to support yourself as an artist:

Finding the perfect controller for DJing, laptop music, and so on has tended to mean either buying an off-the-shelf solution, or building one from scratch. But a growing number of users is choosing a third way: find a nearly-perfect controller and mod it to perfection.

DJ Tech Tools, a new blog from three DJs that has grown out of stories for Remix Magazine, has a great story on adding arcade buttons to a Vestax VCI-100 controller. And yes, that’s “arcade” as in gaming — those fantastic, tactile buttons found on vintage game cabinets.

Tutorial on adding arcade buttons to a VCI-100 [djtechtools.com]

Here are a couple of examples of the results:
Sonic Boooom! VCI-100 Vs. Street Fighter
A great VCI MOD rolls off the line!

Speaking of whimsical DJ toys, djtechtools points to DJ Nu-Mark, who has replaced turntables with a “pair of learning toys meant for teething toddlers.” djtechtools can’t seem to find more details, so I turn that to the ever-knowledgeable CDM readership. And Mark, if you’re out there, give a holler. Not totally sold on his DJ name, though it is a big leap better than “DJ Bear-In-Jer.” But the set looks fantastic. (Via.) The video, with Jurassic 5 in 2006: