My inbox is blowing up. Every other second, it's
ding, ding, ding. New mail, new mail, new mail. Press conferences, product announcements, and party invitations from hundreds of companies who will be exhibiting during the four far too short days that make up the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show.
A guy needs a plan of attack. Have I starting mapping out mine? Heck no. Where to begin? The rush of new mail all starts to look the same. Of course, there's always some $140,000/pair loudspeaker or $300,000 amplifier that makes me close my eyes and shake my head—and, yes, I'll be sure to check out that megabuck gear—but what do I
really need to see?
This afternoon, one interesting announcement from RenegadePR caught my eye:
Hear what Chuck D, DMC and other musicians have to say about DRM at CES in Las Vegas.
Holy smokes, I say,
Chuck D and DMC?!
Carlton Douglas Ridenhour, aka Chuck D, is best known for his work with the controversial rap group,
Public Enemy, whose politically-charged lyrics and powerful stance against music censorship absolutely scared the bejesus out of the PMRC, but, in recent years, he has also co-hosted
Unfiltered on
Air America Radio and has testified before Congress in support of peer-to-peer file sharing. Darryl "DMC" McDaniels is one of the founding members of hip hop pioneers,
Run DMC. Having been the first rap group to be featured on the cover of Rolling Stone, the first rap group to have a music video aired on MTV, and, among many other firsts, the first rap group to have a Top 10 pop album (1986's
Raising Hell, which featured a rap-rock collaboration with Aerosmith), Run DMC is often credited with bringing hip hop into the mainstream. It's safe to say that both Chuck D and DMC are interested in getting music
out there, wildly loud and clear and easily accessible to as many listeners as possible.
It seems Chuck D and DMC have teamed up with a new company called
Beyond.FM whose focus is in "exposing digital content to the masses and allowing artists, musicians and photographers to create awareness and new-found revenue streams." From the Beyond.FM website:
As the mainstream Music/Record/Entertainment Industry fights over competing methods to aggravate the consumer and offer discouraging DRM techniques, continuously finding new ways to make the common American citizen feel like a common criminal, the time is NOW for a paradigm shift bringing the "personal," "social," and "meaningful" music purchasing experience BACK to the consumer.
Beyond.FM will offer all music files as "CD quality" 320kbps MP3s. There will be no DRM. Instead, each MP3 will be encased with Beyond.FM's "Identi-Fi" technology which will tag files with a "Sales Order Number."
I'm all for recreating the meaningful music purchasing experience. However, as we've said before, while 320kbps may provide sound quality that will fool some of the listeners some of the time that they are listening to CD, it
is not CD quality (1100kbps on
MusicGiants).
Perhaps we can discuss this with Chuck D and DMC during the show. For now, you'll have to excuse me. My inbox is dinging. Like mad.
