One of the reasons that they decided to call it quits was the lack of participating audience members at the site. Many great musicians performed at TheStage, but they could never seem to draw audiences of any size to see them. Though each artist had the opportunity to cross-post their performances at Facebook, Twitter, and the like, it never seemed to result in people taking a look. I will miss the site.

I took a look at YouNow as they recommended. I don’t know that this site will be a place of interest to me or not. It will take some time for me to judge the community there to determine if it is worthwhile.

Here’s the email:

Unfortunately, we have made the decision to close TheStage.tv. Thanks so much for your participation and support on the web’s first open mic.

We would like this opportunity to bring to your attention to a new site: YouNow Music.

YouNow.com is a new collaborative broadcasting site that we really like and believe will be a good alternative for our community.

YouNow features many contests, and in fact will be having a Singer/Songwriter contest in January, with prizes over $5,000.

(Last Contest Try outs are January 10th 5-7 PM EST!)

More details here.

So, please browse on over to http://www.younow.com/music and become familiar with the system so you are ready to participate in the contest, or check out some of the other channels that YouNow offers (e.g. comedy, talk, etc.).

Best regards,
-Kevin and Lisa

I’ve censored the following, in protest of a bill that gives any corporation and the US government the power to censor the internet–a bill that could pass THIS WEEK. To see the uncensored text, and to stop internet censorship, visit: http://americancensorship.org/posts/15251/uncensor

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Posted via email from A Rich Perspective

Last night I had the honor to play for the Relay for Life closing ceremonies in Second Life. I played on the stage at the RFL Treatment sim. The closing ceremonies are taking place this entire weekend, so you still have time to participate or see the events as of the time this is posted. There is a LiveStream broadcast taking place, courtesy of Treet.tv at the Relay for Life web site, as well.

I would like to share that performance with you, but I ask that you do one thing. Go HERE to donate to the American Cancer Society page dedicated to Relay for Life in Second Life. Your money goes directly to the American Cancer Society to help fund initiatives to find a cure for Cancer.

Here’s an archive file of my performance:

Rich_Desoto_Live_at_Relay_for_Life_July_17,_2011.mp3 Listen on Posterous

Don’t forget. Go to the Relay for Life in Second Life page to make your donation. Please do it now.

Posted via email from Rich Desoto

I caught a performance of my friend, Chris Harlow, from the web site TheStage.tv. This site is a place for musicians around the globe to get online and perform in an open mic environment. If people like your performance they will “cheer” for you — and they can even tip you with Paypal. Performers can also earn extra time. As the audience watches, they can grant the performer more time in :10 second increments.

I decided to give it a try this morning. Here’s my first time on the stage:

You can also find my videos from these performances at my YouTube page: richpalmerUSA

Posted via email from A Rich Perspective

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Listen on posterous

Did you miss the show? You can listen to my performance from 6 February. Of course, I would love it if you catch these live, but from time to time I’ll post my performances here (if I feel the recording is good enough to share).

This is presented warts and all. There is an apparent skip in the second song. I guess that’s what makes it live.

Rich Palmer Live at Watsamakalit Point in Second Life – 6 February 2011 by Rich Palmer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Posted via email from Rich Desoto

Copyright Infringement

Please do not purchase my music — or the music of any other artist — on the site PayPlay.fm. It is my understanding that the original owners of the site sold the content and web site to owners in the sovereign state of Georgia (Russia). This organization does not have the rights to sell my content, but the content remains on their site. They are charging a very small amount (less than .33 a song) of which I receive no compensation.

My original connection came from CDBaby.com. I am a huge advocate of this service. They do many great things for independent musicians. There had been an agreement between CDBaby.com and the original PayPlay.fm ownership to offer their artists’ catalogs for digital sales. The artist would receive compensation — as we do with iTunes, Amazon.com, and many other online merchants. When PayPlay.fm was sold, the arrangement was severed. PayPlay.fm has not contracted with me to provide my intellectual property.

As a matter of interest, they also appear to be selling the content of The Beatles. I’m quite certain that there is no online sales arrangement through this band’s publishing company for PayPlay.fm to sell this content. iTunes only recently accomplished this feat.

CDBaby’s Role

A representative from CDBaby has advised me:

PayPlay is no longer a partner of ours and we’re actually moving forward on litigation against them.  They are willfully infringing on the copyrights of our artists and not ceasing distribution when demanded.
They have been served notice as a digital retailer and we’re moving forward as a representative of distribution on behalf of CD Baby and artists.

To force them to take the content down you will need to notify them directly.  It could actually add a lot of leverage to our legal pursuit against them if you were to lodge a DMCA copyright infringement towards PayPlay directly.  We aren’t the copyright holder of your content, so we can’t lodge a federal action against them on top of their breach of contract, but you can.  At the bottom of their terms of service - http://payplay.fm/tos - are instructions of how to lodge the dispute with them.

We are moving forward against them aggressively and I’m keeping your email address on file to make sure you’re sent updates as they come in.

Making Contact

I have followed the instructions as provided in the above email. Unfortunately, I don’t know that it will result in much change. The address that we are advised to send correspondence is: 

PayPlay Media Group S.A.
244 Madison Avenue, Suite 357
New York, NY 10016

If you would like report any other known copyright infringements, you can also attempt to complain.

Posted via email from A Rich Perspective

I heard a feature on NPR‘s All Things Considered this evening about the new Wii game “Epic Mickey“. In the story it was mentioned that Oswald the Lucky Rabbit would make his first appearance since 1928 as a character in the game. I wasn’t aware, but Oswald was Walt Disney’s first main character. He apparently lost the rights to the character in a contract dispute with his distribution company. Thus the birth of Mickey Mouse.

Can you imagine if Mickey had not been created and we’d have seen Oswald in Steamboat Willie instead? Here’s Oswald in a 1927 short:

From the NPR Story:

Among the forgotten characters Mickey encounters on his odyssey is “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.” Warren Spector, the creative director behind Epic Mickey, told NPR’s Guy Raz that Oswald was Walt Disney’s first big star but hasn’t been seen in one of the company’s productions since 1928.

Disney lost the rights to him in the late 1920s, only regaining them in 2006. This is the first time the company has used him since then. Oswald plays something of the foil to Mickey’s character as the mouse tries to escape consignment to Disney’s Wasteland.

Here’s a 1928 feature of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPtxPEG3ltc

Posted via email from A Rich Perspective

Watch out, we’re coming to the polls.

Posted via email from A Rich Perspective

The recent announcement by Drop.io that it will soon cease operations has been a bit of bad news for some music podcasters. These show producers, many of whom are members of the Association of Music Podcasting, use the service to allow independent musicians to submit their songs.

The Drop.io interface makes it simple for music bloggers/podcast producers to integrate a widget on their show pages. This widget serves as an upload port for the musicians. In the case of my own show, Audio Gumshoe, the widget is accompanied by a submission form. This allows artists to submit details about their craft, provide web links, and even agree to terms of submission. The Drop.io component allows me to preview the music and choose whether or not I would download it to save for upcoming shows.

According to the Drop.io blog we have until December 15 to move files out of our accounts. Many music podcasters have already looked for alternatives, including Soundcloud and Dropbox. However, I haven’t found either of these services to offer the same ease of use and simple interface for the musicians. They may provide me with a place to receive tunes for review and possible inclusion in the show, but they don’t offer much in simplicity for the person doing the submission. I love Dropbox for personal and business use, but I don’t want artists to have to open yet another account simply to upload a few songs for my show.

Even Mashable reported that Drop.io offers:

“…file hosting and sharing service of considerable renown in Web world, particularly among those who espouse the need to keep things simple.”

Why the closure? Drop.io reports:

Today, we’re proud to announce that we’ve struck a deal with Facebook.  What this means is that Facebook has bought most of drop.io’s technology and assets, and Sam Lessin is moving to Facebook.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be winding down the drop.io service. As of this week, people will no longer be able to create new free drops, but you’ll be able to download content from existing drops until Dec. 15. Paid user accounts will still be available through Dec. 15 and paid users will be able to continue using the service normally.  After Dec. 15, paid accounts will be discontinued as well.

Though I use Facebook, I’m becoming quite annoyed by the many acquisitions that it has made. These often [read: usually] cease the existence of other services that I use. The technology is then used in ways that I would never find myself participating at my Facebook account.

Perhaps I’ll return to using the cforms plugin for WordPress that I had used in the past. I found it to be buggy and unreliable, but at least it was simple for the artists. Perhaps there have been improvements made since I used it last that will show it to be a good alternative.

Be sure to visit my show at AudioGumshoe.com. Visit the Association of Music Podcasting at musicpodcasting.org.

Posted via email from A Rich Perspective

I’ve recently been doing work for a client in Second Life. My voiceovers are being heard as part of the programming at OnEdge Radio. If you like a wide variety of radio popular music, this might be a good station for you to add to your bookmarks.

You can listen online at OnEdgeRadio.net. Or, if you like to get the current song information, you can bookmark www.serverroom.us/radio/9446.

If you are in-world you can visit OnEdge Radio with this landmark: Gormthoog 44, 234, 49

Posted via email from A Rich Perspective