Circumventing the Oligarchy

I would like to participate in a project that brings recorded music to the masses in a more ethical manner. I think that the current dominant system is terribly exploitive of both the artist and the listener. I will add more thoughts later, but I'm at work now...

I'm at a point where multiple threads of concern/interest of mine are sort of converging. The link from the title is to the "business aims" page of a business concern created by Robert Fripp, the longtime guitarest in the many iterations and formations of the progressive rock group, King Crimson.

Right now, I am employed at a Linux-centric firm. The details aren't really important here; I certainly may elaborate on what we do and what I do in another post. The relevance here is that Linux is an open source project, the full explanation of which I'm not sure I want to attempt here...

Let's see, I need to talk about "Courtney Does the Math" to outline how horribly the industry exploits the artists; price fixing, wherein the industry exploits the end product consumer; the evils of the RIAA, etc...

I'm not quite sure where I am headed with this yet. More later.

http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3918234

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How you reckon I stumbled onto this?

I like to comb around ebay now and then, and I encountered one of this guy's instruments while looking for other touchstyle guitars.

Wanna see some really realy pretty guitars? Well, do ya?

Look at some of these: http://www.godinguitars.com/godinproductlistingp.htm
I had heard of them before; I think Robert Fripp has played their Roland-ready models before, but I stumbled on a particularly nice one on ebay, as well.

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Thank you WSJ for the wonderful advice

I posted what follows in a discussion thread about the linked column.
I observed afterward that Gerstein worked for Lieberman's campaign as a strategist.


That's rich. First off, I would hardly look to the WSJ editorial staff for people who "have a finger on the pulse" of the American cultural tos and fros. There is a reason that the fringe right considers even the WSJ *news* division to have a liberal bias (all those pesky facts are pretty inconveniant to the cause), while holding up the editorial staff as reasonable, balanced, and insightful. They drank the same PNAC kool-aid.Secondly, imagine the trojan horse generosity of this thinly veiled 2nd ring of hell (around Wolfowitz, et. al.) offering their brilliant political insight to an organization whose demise they would greet with a glee usually reserved for, say, something like total elimination of the federal mimimum wage law, all OSHA enforcement, and all industrial environmental regs at the same time (considering that the former event would surely lead to all of the former, and then some).Yes, now that The Hammer has finally, in the court of public opinion, become the albatross around their necks that he should have been from the moment he ascended to the leadership of their party (and, yes, it is their party, don't pretend otherwise), they seek desperately to make the most prominent public face of the opposition someone who is just as divisive, and will drive away centrist (read: idiots who don't pay attention) in droves.The breathtaking element of this attempted stunt is that every lauditory syllable that they present about the junior senator from New York is true, and always has been, even when they have been part of the band of jackals who demonized her in the past. She has always been "pro-family". She has always championed initiatives to protect and nurture children. The trouble is, she provided the rabid, ranting right with things like the catch phrase "it takes a village", and they have successfully characterized that as a code for allowing the federal government into your household to dictate your child-rearing methods.That's the trouble with the lemmings that follow the flutes of the far right: they comprehend about as much discussion as can be fit on a bumper sticker, and they are almost that deep.

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