Interestingly, David Byrne (you remember him don’t you? of Talking Heads fame?) had a run-in with the RIAA the other day.

Seems he operates an internet “radio” site that streams music, with a new playlist each month. Last month his playlist was of all one artist. As he explains in his blog, he received a warning letter informing him that for his current flat licensing fee, he can play one artist no more the 4 times in a 3-hour period. If he wants to play any one artist more often, he would have to start paying individual royalties for everything he plays.

Byrne quotes Lawrence Lessig’s estimate that for 20,000 listeners, operating 24 hours a day, Byrne would end up having to pay over a million dollars a year. What’s particularly strange about that is true radio stations pay not one dime in royalties and instead are actually paid to play certain music. Since payola is illegal, how is that possible? By the insertion of a middleman, the independent record promoter. The record promoter pays the radio station for the right to control their playlist and the record companies pay the promoter to include their CDs/artists on his playlist.

The unanswered question: how is internet “radio” any less promotional than true radio? Perhaps it’s the uncertainty of the location and makeup of the audience. With a radio station, you know the station’s range and the demographics of the listeners within that range. What do you know about who “tunes in” on the internet?

Yet another reason to be careful what you eat…
A company in Spokane, Washington has developed a plant that releases a text message during the 7 to 10 days it germinates, that shows on the plant’s bud. Marketed as the Amazing Message Plant, “I love you” is their initial launch, but they plan on doing kids’ names and promotional items.
Let’s see…”Water me!!!” might be nice.
And I suppose it’s not far from this to the development of a new kind of tattoo for people.

Well, it finally happened. Just like the invention of calculus, there are times when circumstances are just right to lead to important breakthroughs in science, frequently by more than one person at the same time. This time: the handbag.
 
A good friend of mine had this idea, maybe 8 or 10 years ago, but never could get it to market. Just like Rosanna Kilfedder, a 24-year old design student at London’s Brunel University, he noticed young ladies in nightclubs and other dark environments using lighters, mobile phones, etc. to try to find something in their purse. What’s particularly clever about Rosanna’s solution is instead of an actual bulb, her SunTrap handbags use an electroluminescent lining and a solar cell is built right into the bag.
As a bonus, the purse’s internal battery can be used to charge your mobile phone or PDA, too! They’ll be on sale on her web site in the near future.

My nephew and some of his friends ran a lemonade stand this weekend. All the proceeds went to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
They called it, naturally enough, Lemon-Aid. Despite the fact that their sign asked for “dontations”, they raised over $400.
I’m really proud of them.
And their parents, too, for teaching them while still so young, that they can make a difference.

Graffiti artist and art prankster Banksy, has done it again. This time planting what seemed to be an example of early cave art in the British Museum. Banksy has often made use of the fact that most museums and art galleries are more worried about the attempted removal of works and haven’t given much thought to how to prevent “art” from getting in. He’s managed to get his art into the Tate Gallery in London, as well as the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Brooklyn Museum, the American Museum of Natural History in D. C., and the Louvre in Paris.
This time, the art, a rock really, was hung and had a sign “very similar” to the British Museum’s own signs, which read, in part: “This finely preserved example of primitive art dates from the Post-Catatonic era…” etc.
 

 
Though I confess I’m not a fan of Star Wars (I like sci-fi, just not space-opera), so I haven’t seen the latest, and thankfully last, Start Wars yet. Despite that, I might not be able to resist this version of Mr. Potato Head, called, naturally, Darth Tater. 
 

Got my copy of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”. The Barnes and Noble I went to had around 2000 people.

 
But things went pretty well, I think they were better prepared than last time.