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It is the dissembling, half-truths and unalloyed lies that will kill the music industry: payola, accounting practices, mischaracterization of their sales slump, etc. Here’s a new one according to Fortune: If you think record companies want nothing to do with Napster clones such as Morpheus and Kazaa–or with the listeners …

I’ve mentioned before that while I am philosophically in favor of file sharing (although we have to figure out a way to pay the artists and songwriters), I don’t much like it for myself: I have more music than I can listen to on CD and vinyl, and the CDs …

It is very easy for me, you, everyone and their mother’s horse, to ponitificate about the benefits and detractions of file-sharing, digital downloading of music over the Internet. Studies seem to show the exact opposite conclusions as to the effect on CD sales of downloading depending upon who paid for …

My impression is that Paul McCartney, who has been very much in the public eye of late, is getting something of a bad deal with the mostly negative reaction to his crusade to flip-flop Lennon/McCartney to McCartney/Lennon on the songs he primarily or exclusively wrote while he and John were …

I respect Norah Vincent quite a bit and almost always agree with her politically, but she is rather thin-skinned for a big-time writer and a blogger. When Rebecca Blood and I discusssed blogs on NPR’s Public Interest, Norah was good enough to call in, but her main concern was civility …

We have been neglecting Book TV of late, the weekend mini-network on C-SPAN2 concentrating on serious nonfiction. This weekend’s feature is “24 Hours of History”: Join Book TV this weekend for 24 hours of History starting midnight on Saturday December 21st to midnight Sunday December 22nd. Authors will discuss the …

Hey, when you pry open the mind of a segregationist, vile things can pop out: WASHINGTON — Majority leader Trent Lott issued a formal apology last week: “My mistake,” explains Lott, “was forgetting that coons are people too, and they have feelings. Feelings and votes.” Lott was apologizing for comments …

We have been following the very serious privacy and civil liberties aspects of the Patriot Act. Book sellers and libraries seem to be most institutionally offended, as well they should be. Here is a site that rather flippantly fights back with signs available for your library. Here’s one: “Were Sorry… …

LawMeme and Electronic Freedom Foundation, with an assist from Blogcritics, attempt to smoke suckas wit logic.

Hey, what’s on TV tonight? Anything warm and fuzzy for the holidays? It would appear so based upon pre-reviews from the NY Times, Daniel Pipes and the show’s own website – Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet on PBS. There is no doubt that Islam has come under much closer scrutiny …