Against Closed Eyes In Marketing

The British Government’s controversial plan to penalise Internet users downloading illegally has been approved by a committee of MPs after it found the proposals to be “justifiable”. The committee’s recommendations appear at a time when the scheme has come under fire from campaigners and Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

The government’s Digital Economy Bill has attracted controversy over its proposals to deal with online piracy. The proposed measures necessitate ISPs to send warning letters to illegal file sharers and downloaders and disconnect them if they repeat their offence.

But consumer rights groups and ISP have opposed the plans as they say policing of online behaviour is uncalled for. They also point out that tracking the IP responsible for Internet piracy does in no way ensure that the actual offender is caught.

However, the Parliamentary Select Committee on Human Rights believes the plan is necessary to curb incidents of Internet piracy. Even as the committee has called for a better explanation of the rules and the premise of the term repeat offender, it has asked the Government to bring in more effective rules to prevent the infringement of copyright. Telecoms watchdog Ofcom has been asked to take care of the technical side of the plans.

The committee, in its review, says it does not believe the coming into effect of these rules will violate an Internet users’ right to privacy, the right to express oneself or the right to respect for their property rights. The committee adds that whatever limited effect on personal freedom may occur due to the imposition of the new rules is quite justifiable.

Whether you’re just starting out on the road to buying broadband, looking for a new deal, or are having problems with your connection or supplier, click on what broadband to answer all your broadband related questions.

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Play all of your favorite music, including your records, on this USB Turntable! Not only can you enjoy the sounds of your records on this USB Turntable you can also convert them to files to play on your MP3!

Do you have records that you love? Do you enjoy the sound of a record more than you enjoy the sound of an MP3 track? Would you like to be able to get all of your favorite music on your MP3 from your records? If so, you will love this USB Turntable! This is everything you have been looking for because it will allow you to play your MP3 and MP4 tracks but it will also allow for you to play your records. This is like the past and the present coming together all in one place!

When you purchase the USB Turntable you will love the ability to play whatever music you choose! No need to have many different pieces of equipment to play the various types of music that you own, instead you can play all of the music you love on the USB Turntable, enjoying the great sounds from all of your favorite artists. Perhaps the best thing is that when you play your old records on the USB Turntable you can actually convert them to MP3 or MP4 files so you get all of that record player sound on your MP3 player! Imagine being able to jam out to your favorite songs the way they were meant to be played! Makes a great gift for the person in your life that has a bunch of records they don’t get to play often enough!

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The exceptional Need4 Video Converter has the capability to convert your best videos in the Xvid format to 3GP. This will open them up to be played on your computer,cell phones, mobile devices, or put on video sharing files. Then your friends and family can enjoy the clip as well. Convert Xvid videos to 3GP in no time at all. Need4 Video has the skills to meet any requirements, if you only want to convert a small part of the video, or the entire clip or audio extract in one shot.

Our conversion software can take care of it.

Step A. Launch

To start with, you require a video converter program, such as a Need4 Video Converter.

Download it and follow the directions.

Step B. Add Xvid Video To Converter

The selected file will be added to the list of opened files.

Step C. Select Output Format

Step D. Specify Folder to Save Video

Step E. Select a Video Segment to Convert

Step F. Hit Convert to Save Xvid Video to 3GP

Need4 Video offer a world of video conversion programs, that may convert any file format within the spectrum available, to carry out any job you require.

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Normally, home theater speaker systems are comprised of a base channel speaker, front stereo speakers, subwoofer, and surround speakers. All of these will be successful as one to present you a pleasant surround sound quality that will make you feel like you are in a real movie theater.

In home theater speaker systems , the center channel speaker acts a very important role. This reproduces in excess of half of the soundtrack and nearly all of the full movie dialogue. The best arrangement of your middle channel speaker is either beneath or on above the tv screen. Its size must match with the size of your TV set as well as with the other speakers.

Your front speakers ought to be fitted at the left and the right side, their job is to deliver musical sound, which include the movie’s special sound effects and so they are important in creating the realistic experience too.

The surround speakers give out realistic sound effects even the subtle drop of the water or soft rustle of the leaves. They can also create directional sound effects like speeding objects. You can decide on either a wall-mounted or floor standing surround speakers if your home theater system has a subwoofer. For best viewing experience, you ought to add subwoofers in your home theater speaker systems. They offer unique bass level to improve the quality of sound.

Last but not least, there are so many brands of home theater speaker systems today, so you have got to carefully decide on your unit. And if you will be buying the speakers individually and not as a set make sure that all the speakers are working harmoniously. One good way of buying speaker separately is to stick with just one model and brand to ensure that they will give you a nice surround sound effect.

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It’s ALWAYS been tough to get your hands on a ticket for a music gig or sports event. For example, the whole 2.5 million tickets were snapped up for the up-and-coming U2 tour of the States. How does an individual who is at work when the tickets go on sale actually get to purchase a ticket?

Go online and buy one.

It used to be the case that the only method to purchase a second-hand concert or sports ticket was through a tout at the event itself . This inevitably meant getting ripped off, or even possibly given fake tickets which would likely be recognized as such as you entered the event - meaning you miss the music gig or sports event while wasting your cash by being gypped.

Nevertheless, things have improved for sports and music lovers. Thanks to the internet, the secondary ticket marketplace has improved remarkably in the last decade. Now there is so much competition to resell tickets on the internet, the industry has actually become self-regulating. The tickets you sell don’t have insurance? I’ll purchase that ticket from another website! And so many ticket sellers offer very cheap insurance if the gig or event is called off. And with strong competition online, resale tickets have become cheaper to the stage that sometimes you’re not spending much more than the face value price.

Today you can get tickets for all sorts of concerts and sporting events. From basketball games to soccer to cricket, to getting your mitts on front row seats for a world famous band; resale tickets offer a second chance to attend the event you want to go to. How can you get tickets online? Use a search engine like Google and enter in your keyphrase like Cliff Richard tickets, and you will find a large range of resale ticket agents who have the ticket you’re looking for.

Not everyone is content with the idea of secondary tickets though. For example, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails calls secondary ticket agents “parasites”, and he’d like to see an end to the resale of event tickets. However, he’s missing the point of resold tickets : people simply do not have the time to queue up for tickets. They’re more likely working when the tickets are on sale, and physically cannot be in the right place at the right time to get hold of the ticket they want in that precious 60 or so minutes it takes for an entire tour to sell out.

While there is strong competition between secondary ticket agents, we believe this is a much needed service for true fans who were unable to buy the tickets the first time around.

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I wouldn’t care about [illegal sharing and downloading] if I didn’t have the pressure of having to sell more albums to maintain a career. I don’t really want to do anything else, so I need to be able to maintain myself and I need to keep people happy. Outside of that, I would prefer it just to be heard. Some people might nick it and become lifelong fans. My album is called Speech Therapy because writing it was therapy for me, so I can’t be like, well, other people shouldn’t hear it unless they pay for it. I didn’t pay for it.

[The industry] has changed so much that now you don’t put out a record - you put a record on the internet. You’ve got to have an album to begin with [then] you get your MySpace, your Facebook, your Twitter and you connect them all up.

People spend so much time in front of computers, all they have to do is click a button and they stay in your world.

The only thing I had in mind when I started to set up things before was Speech Debelle TV: just because I wanted to document my career. It’s a YouTube page that’s set up, and every week it will show videos uploaded about what I’ve been doing. It might be clips of shows, festivals, me meeting other people, having conversations with other people, maybe about the industry.

I’m supposed to go on Twitter five times a day and tell people what I’ve been doing. That’s a rule I’ve been given. I think now to have a successful record would depend on how successful your online presence is.

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I bet your wondering all about the Micheal Jackson Trail. Do you think he’s guilty. All of us are entitled to have different opinions. I believe Micheal Jackson isn’t guilty, because not enough evidence was shown during the trial.

The child who had cancer switched up his stories so many times you don’t know what to believe any more. If there is some one to blame I believe the parents that allow their children to spend the night at Micheal’s home should be arrested.

It’s like me having cancer(I really do)and asking my mother for “Make A Wish Foundation” to grant my wish for me to meet R.Kelly. Which will be a definite no no no.

If a parent here’s all these allegations against a person are supposedly true.Why would they give their child permission to go “Never Land Ranch” to meet this child molester? So much for being a child molester!

Children claim to see nude pics from nude magazines. Knowing children they probably sneaked in Micheal’s cabin and were being nosey enough, to get a little taste of the action, that was obviously too much for them.

No they don’t want mom and dad to find out that their sweet adoreable son, is a naughty boy, trying to see grownup things, that should only be seen by the 18 and older eyes.Next time you make a judgement about a celebrity.

Make sure you have all your facts straight.
Email me at: weslhn@aol.com

I was born in New York, At the age of 15 I was diganosed with leukemia. I’m now in remission. I’m doing fine. Three important people helped me to beat this illness, which makes life much more rewarding.

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Remember when radio stations played great music?

OK, before you accuse me of sounding like your dad, I’ll rephrase that. Remember
when radio stations played an exciting variety of music and artists and you never
knew what they would play and when?

Well my friends if you do remember that, you’ve probably been around awhile.
And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll explain.

Years ago, privately owned radio stations and their local disc jockeys would
choose the music or content they wanted to play, when they wanted to play
it, whatever came to mind. And if someone called the station for a request and it
felt right, they’d play that too. What? You mean they don’t do it that way
now? Well in a word, no. In fact let me add no, no, no, and more no.

These days, the majority of American radio stations are owned by mega
corporations like Clear Channel and Infinity Broadcasting. These corporations hire
programmers who decide exactly what songs to play and in what order they will be
played. Then in many cases they do what is called, “Voice-tracking”. Voice tracking
is a process where someone records the programming in one city and then
distributes it to the many stations owned by the mega corporation throughout the
country. So what you hear in San Francisco may be exactly what you hear in New
York City or Atlanta. Often they’ll throw in content like local weather, traffic and
sports to give the illusion that the DJ is local. Fooled ya!

Unlike the FM band, AM radio is made up of mainly news and talk stations and relies
on listener involvement as its core strength. AM has been relying more and more on
syndicated programming and I have nothing against that for many of the programs
are very well done like Clark Howard’s informative consumer action show and the
Kim Komando Show, another very informative show about computers and the
Internet.

But as for FM’s move to mass music programming, many listeners have grown tired
of the predictable playlists and have turned to ipods, podcasting and satellite radio.
Not only does this mega programming squeeze out the possibility of new artists and
their music from being heard, but it also makes many stations sound cookie cutter
identical. Like a particular Top 40 song? No problem. Just switch to the four or five
stations in any given market sharing a similar format and you can be assured it will
be played, again and again.

Today’s stations still classify themselves in formats like Country, Top 40, and Rock
and some are even experimenting with what they call “whatever” playlists trying to
mimic the popular ipods and podcasts. But the station’s playlists are still
preprogrammed into hard drives that spit them out along with the commercials in a
precise, predictable, business like order. And although the powers that be tried in
vain to slow or even stop the progress of satellite radio, it harkens back to the days
when VHS and then later CDs came to be. The bottom line is that if the consumer
wants it, it’s going to happen.

What will eventually cause conventional radio listenership to decline won’t be
satellite or mp3 players. It will be the watered down, mass market approach these
mega companies are taking. Because they’ve changed what was once exciting,
unpredictable radio into what should now be called the, “FM Bland”.

Hal Eisenberg is an award winning copywriter, producer, voice over talent, and
owner of The Eisenberg Agency, a full service advertising agency specializing in
creative ads that get results. Visit his web site at http://www.eisenbergagency.com;
mailto: halacious@eisenbergagency.com.

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Chris Barber’s Jazz Band with the beautiful Otillie Patterson on vocals brought the sound of New Orleans to British traditional Jazz buffs in the late fifties and early sixties. This was just the beginning of a wave of new sounds that culminated in what came to be known as the British Blues Boom! On Banjo was the great Lonnie Donegan who became the Godfather of Skiffle a year or two later. All of the early musical melting pots were springboards for the next generation of musicians and within a couple of years the Music scene was to change forever.

My first exposure to the blues was on Barber’s wonderful L.P. New Orleans Joys. I forget all the titles now but the haunting sounds stirred up strange sensations and led me a few years later to a life long passion for the Blues as I am sure it did with many young kids at the time.
The year 1962 saw the birth of several Blues gigs in London Clubs, notably the Famous Marquee which made its home in Wardour Street, Soho. The great Alexis Korner was to prove to be a nursery slope for what was to come. Cyril Davies on Harp, Dick Heckstall- Smith on the most wailing of saxophones, Mick Jagger (yes that one!) on vocals to name but a few. I guess that first Album recorded live at the Marquee…Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, started the trickle which very rapidly gathered momentum and soon the Blues was the talking point of all young music heads.

Playing at the Marquee shortly after, in 1963 was the man destined to become the Godfather of British Blues… John Mayall…. John’s famous band, The BluesBreakers went onto fame and fortune as many musicians joined and left in quite a procession over the next couple of years. John celebrated his 70th Birthday a couple of years ago and is playing as well as ever. This gives lie to the notion that life is over at forty and its all downhill from there on. The list of John’s prot©g©es is a who’s who of the music business; a good proportion of whom are still playing today. John McVie, co-founder of Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood, Jack Bruce of Cream, Eric “Slowhand” Clapton, Peter Green, Aynsley Dunbar, Mick Taylor and many more.

The band that I believe was the turning point at this time was undoubtedly The Yardbirds, whose incredible energy and enthusiasm were absolutely unparalleled on stage. My first exposure to this Juggernaut was on a Monday morning at school one time when some friends told me about this amazing band that they had seen at the Marquee who had a Guitarist that was simply unbelievable. The Year was 1963, the man in question (well he was only 18 years old!) was Eric Clapton.

The Legend was already underway at this stage and I believe Eric was responsible for the huge interest brewing in the Blues in Britain as the Yardbirds became household names on the R n’ B circuit. Many Guitars were sold at this time as young bloods attempted to emulate Clapton, some with success and many without. Probably one reason for the upsurge in Guitar bands as opposed to wishy washy pop sounds of the time was the discovery of the almost forgotten Gibson Les Paul which produced the sound closest to the Chicago Blues of a decade earlier. Eric’s use of this instrument took the Blues to a new height and no-one could escape the flood that was on the way. With the Yardbirds there was a mix of Gibson and Fender guitars in use. Eric initially played a Fender Telecaster with Rhythm Guitarist Chris Dreja using the Gibson 335, but the favourite in years to come particularly in ‘65 and ‘66 was the Les Paul.

In 1963 one of the first Bluesmen to arrive on this side of the Atlantic for a Tour was the legendary Harp player Sonny Boy Williamson who recorded a wonderful live album with the Yardbirds that was not released for several years. The restrained backing that the band provided to Sonny Boy showed them to be tight and controlled but Keith Relf the Lead singer and Harpist was a little put out at having to take a back seat to the Master during the gig. Many more Blues legends toured Britain and Europe in the following years which not only revitalised their own flagging careers but gave the budding white Blues players a chance to learn from the Maestros. These include Howling Wolf and the legendary Son House who had been a contemporary of Robert Johnson in the nineteen thirties. The author was privileged to see Son House play in London in 1970 shortly before he died. He was very frail but he certainly could make that National Steel Guitar sing sweetly!

The Album that preceded the Flood was of course the 1966 rendition by John Mayall entitled simply “John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton” recorded on the Decca label .This album marked the first vocal airing by Slowhand and he chose Robert Johnson’s “Rambling on my Mind” as his debut. The interrelating of Mayall’s gutsy Barrelhouse Piano together with Eric’s Les Paul and his tentative vocals, wrote a piece of Blues History that day in the studio. That Album sums up for me not only the musicianship involved and the passion of the music but the very essence of the British interpretation of the Blues. I have listened to this song so many times now since the first momentous day that it came through the speakers and every time it’s hard to keep the emotions steady.

The Robert Johnson Legacy forms an integral and vital part of the Birth of the Blues in Britain and is responsible for the undoubted vitality of today’s thriving Blues scene on both sides of the Atlantic. There are no Blues Bands past or present who do not owe a debt to Robert Leroy and his magic. His genius and virtuosity with the bottleneck will live forever!

Robin Piggott is a Professional Driving Instructor based in Limerick .Ireland.He was one of the kids referred to in the above article and has been a lifelong disciple of the Blues. If you are thinking of traveling in Ireland please have a look at his web site and blogs.
www.astralmotoring.ie
astralmotoring.blogspot.com

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Celebrating an endorsement between G-Man Music and the fiery axe-makers known as Minarik Guitars, Scott G (The G-Man) reviews the Minarik Inferno X-treme.

From the Telecaster to the Flying V to the Iceman to the Warlock, some guitar designs are forever branded on our consciousness, and now there’s a new one: the Minarik Inferno X-treme. The body shape erupts in furious fingers of flame. If ever there was a guitar design destined to ignite the imagination of young players, especially boys and girls who want to rawk, this is it.

Not that the Inferno X-treme lacks subtlety. With scientifically placed tone chambers, this instrument can sing sweetly if that’s what you desire. Or, it can live up to its appearance and enable you to carve sonic craters in the parking lot.

Although this guitar has a look that will inspire thousands of preteen statements along the lines of “Mom, that’s the one I want,” I suspect that tons of established players will find it useful in the studio or on the road because of its delicate balance, sleek feel, and stunning versatility. (And besides, the cunningly crafted guitar is also available in a more traditional body shape.)

“So, what’s the story on Minarik Guitars?” I can hear you ask. As the designer of the B.C. Rich Goddess Warlock and several other noteworthy models, Marc Minarik already has a legacy in the business. Now heading up his own company, Minarik has the goal of fusing quality workmanship with visually exciting design concepts.

Actually, his plan is much more complex than “make it attractive and build it right.” Marc Minarik is as eager to talk about the playability of his guitars as about their construction and appearance. And if you inquire about the light weight and the chambered body, he is just as pleased to demonstrate the superior nature of his firm’s products.

The flame-shaped body isn’t just flashy; the size and curve of the flames have been carefully calculated to positively affect the tone and balance of the instrument. The flame design is eye-candy, but it’s the application of the physics of sound that makes the Minarik Inferno X-treme really hot.

With a wonderful combination of form and function, the Minarik guitar line may have some interesting side effects, like bringing vitality to retail sales, launching a new generation of guitar players, and saving music from passive pop.

Not bad for a guy with a dream about a flaming guitar.

Minarik Contact

www.minarikguitars.com

818-383-1254

minarikguitars@aol.com

About The Author

Scott G (The G-Man) proudly plays a Minarik Inferno. He creates radio commercials and composes music for songs and spots at G-Man Music & Radical Radio. A member of the National Association of Record Industry Professionals (www.narip.com) and The Recording Academy (www.grammy.com), he also writes about music for the Immedia Wire Service. He is on the Web at iTunes, www.myspace.com/thegman, and www.gmanmusic.com.

immedia@pacbell.net

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