http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/ny-etblog4111811jan13,0,885476.story?coll=nyc-manheadlines-music
January 13, 2005
Soul Sides is where O-Dub can express his thoughts on Memphis soul and Latin jazz, on Billy Butler's "Twang Thang" and Jack McDuff's "Electric Surfboard." It's where you can read his astute criticism and download his favorite music. For free.
He knows he's breaking the law, to the tune of about 1,500 hits per day. And he has plenty of company in the booming audioblog world.
"Posting copyrighted material online for people to download without permission is not legal," says Wang, whose writing has appeared in music magazines including Vibe and XXL. "The question is whether or not the recording industry would want to apply their limited resources to enforcing the law with bloggers."
The audioblog has become a staple of the MP3 age. New sites pop up every week to serve a wide variety of musical tastes.
Unlike Napster, the original file-sharing service, which the recording industry successfully sued for copyright violation, audioblogs are part diary, part criticism and part jukebox. They're run by individual music aficionados eager to spread the word on music. Most sites include MP3 files, for listening and downloading.
Audioblog postings are eclectic, a reflection of the a la carte culture that brought us pay per view and video on demand. Recently on Soul Sides, you could hear Bill Cosby's old band, Badfoot Brown and the Bunions, performing "Martin's Funeral" and "The Mouth of Fish." Over at the Tofu Hut (www.tofuhut.blogspot.com), the catch of the day was David Boyle's "The Rapping of the Christ." And Locust St., as usual, kicked it really old school with Gene Autry's "Little Big Dry." Not surprisingly, as iPods fly off the shelves, audioblogs are multiplying like rabbits.
Most sites encourage visitors to buy the record if they like a song. Audioblog keepers generally leave MP3s up for a short time, and the postings are often not CD-quality. Some sites even address the legal implications.
"If you are the copyright holder of a posted song and do not want the song posted, by all means contact me and I will remove the song," reads the disclaimer on Locust St. (http://inkhornterm.blog spot.com), an audioblog devoted to older music, particularly jazz. "But think for a minute first, and consider whether there is any possible harm in giving 50+-year-old music exposure to a new audience. If anything, it's an advertisement to buy old records from the '40s and '50s," says Chris O'Leary of Queens, who runs Locust St.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) feels differently. "If the copyright owner and artist is making the choice to use this tool to distribute their music, we think that's a great thing," says RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy in an e-mailed statement. "The more ways fans can enjoy music online legitimately, the better. What concerns us is when someone else has taken it upon themselves to make that choice and distribute music they do not own, when the copyright owner has not given permission."