I've moved my daily blogging over to my personal site. If you're seeing this message, you are currently following the old blog which will no longer be updated. There are many reasons for this decision and I will go into them now, if you don't care and you just want to find the new blog, you can do that by clicking here: alanlastufka.com/blog
First, I can't reply to comments here. Which I thought would be okay, but now it's pissing me off. My personal site has threaded comments, the best kind. And the original commenter gets an email letting them know I replied, if they so choose to receive that email.
Second, I spent a lot of time building my beautiful, sexy, steamy hot personal site. And I never have an excuse to send people to it. No more!
Third, this old blog was hosted by blogspot, and while I don't think Google will ever go belly up, it is, in the future, a possibility and then my blog here would have gone belly up with it. My personal site is hosted by me, and will be hosted by me until I go belly up, and at that point, I won't care.
Fourth, why separate my audience by sending them to two separate blogs? One for music and one for this daily updating stuff? Too much of a hassle. The conversations here have been more interesting than I thought they would be, so, they belong on the "official" site.
Don't worry, all of the posts have been moved over, along with ALL of the comments, so nothing got lost in the move.
I really hope to see you guys over at the new blogging site - alanlastufka.com/blog - you can subscribe via email or RSS over there, if you'd like. Or just follow me on twitter (@AlanDistro), I always tweet my daily blog links. <3
Friday, June 4, 2010
Thursday, June 3, 2010
On Letting Go, and Poop Jokes
My friend John Green likes to remind me that once we finish a project, it no longer belongs to us, it belongs to the audience, the readers, the listeners, the viewers. This is difficult for me to accept sometimes.
For instance, in my iTunes library, all of my albums are organized by release date. By default, iTunes lists albums alphabetically, so I know everyone is listening to my releases out of order. Storytelling and chronology is important to me. Overall, it’s a small concern, but a concern nonetheless.
No matter what I do in the foreseeable future, I will probably be known for my song “Can’t”. It has over 520,000 streams on YouTube, it’s been covered dozens of times in every genre you can possibly think of, and it remains my best selling song on iTunes, even though I’ve released three new (and in my opinion, better) titles since.
It’s a total crap shoot, which work becomes known and which doesn’t. A quick in-the-moment work might blow up while other projects you spend months on may stall.
My friend John asks me to photoshop lots of weird things for him to use in his videoblogs. From Zuckerberg’s head up a giant squirrel’s ass, to shanedawson-type neon thumbnails to attract views. But this one time he asked for two giraffes, humping.
Given the popularity of the vlogbrothers’ videos, I think more people have seen the giraffes I photoshopped having sex than any other piece of art I’ve created.
And if that’s not depressing enough, I think my second most viewed work is the thumbnail of his childhood dog’s poop in his Nintendo that I was asked to photoshop by John (used in multiple videos).
Now I’m not saying these aren’t fine examples of my artistic abilities - okay, yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Ten minute bestiality photoshop sessions should not be viewed millions of times more than week-long digital paintings. But lowest common denominator stuff always does better than pieces that require a little more work to access or appreciate.
John has this great quote, “What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?”. It’s just too bad that the real remarkable stuff is usually only appreciated by a small audience, while the rest celebrate poop jokes.
For instance, in my iTunes library, all of my albums are organized by release date. By default, iTunes lists albums alphabetically, so I know everyone is listening to my releases out of order. Storytelling and chronology is important to me. Overall, it’s a small concern, but a concern nonetheless.
No matter what I do in the foreseeable future, I will probably be known for my song “Can’t”. It has over 520,000 streams on YouTube, it’s been covered dozens of times in every genre you can possibly think of, and it remains my best selling song on iTunes, even though I’ve released three new (and in my opinion, better) titles since.
It’s a total crap shoot, which work becomes known and which doesn’t. A quick in-the-moment work might blow up while other projects you spend months on may stall.
My friend John asks me to photoshop lots of weird things for him to use in his videoblogs. From Zuckerberg’s head up a giant squirrel’s ass, to shanedawson-type neon thumbnails to attract views. But this one time he asked for two giraffes, humping.
Given the popularity of the vlogbrothers’ videos, I think more people have seen the giraffes I photoshopped having sex than any other piece of art I’ve created.
And if that’s not depressing enough, I think my second most viewed work is the thumbnail of his childhood dog’s poop in his Nintendo that I was asked to photoshop by John (used in multiple videos).
Now I’m not saying these aren’t fine examples of my artistic abilities - okay, yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Ten minute bestiality photoshop sessions should not be viewed millions of times more than week-long digital paintings. But lowest common denominator stuff always does better than pieces that require a little more work to access or appreciate.
John has this great quote, “What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?”. It’s just too bad that the real remarkable stuff is usually only appreciated by a small audience, while the rest celebrate poop jokes.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Leading By Example
After reading my blog post from yesterday regarding YouTube and Viacom’s court battle, my good friend Aaron posed this question: “If this was the RIAA suing a site like the Pirate Bay and DFTBA Records songs were proven to have been downloaded for free, would you be on the opposite side of the coin here?”
I didn’t immediately answer his question, but decided I would here, in my journal.
Would I be on the opposite side of the coin? No. And how do I know that? Our actions have spoken louder than any words here could. For over a year now DFTBA Records has allowed - nay - encouraged all YouTube users to use our music, for free, in their vlogs, dancing videos and animations.
Hank (the other co-founder of DFTBA) and I have realized the power our listeners have in helping us spread the word about our releases.
Word of mouth or recommendations from friends are the best possible kind of promotions. When new listeners hear recommendations from friends, they aren’t hearing an advertisement, or even a pitch from someone who stands to profit from their friend buying the album, it’s an unbiased review and recommendation. That’s way more powerful than a recommendation from Hank or me.
By encouraging our listeners to use our music in their videos (or to cover our songs), we bypass any licensing or legal hassles. And while we might not profit directly from those streams like traditional music labels want to, we do profit by way of goodwill and, for lack of a better phrase, free advertising.
Of course, the revenue we lose might not be the best business decision - and in order to remain in business and continue producing the fantastic releases that we do, we have to make money - but Hank and I are also YouTube users first and foremost. And we know the frustration of wanting to use that perfect song in a video and not being able to. We don’t want our listeners experiencing that same frustration if we can do something about it.
I’m fairly certain the majority of our listeners can already see this, and because of it, I believe our music is pirated less than any other peer label. Of course, I could be wrong, but until I see data proving otherwise, I’ll think positively.
Please don’t misinterpret yesterday’s entry, I do not think Viacom is wrong for wanting to protect and get paid for its copyrighted material. I do think, however, that they are placing blame on the wrong parties, and demanding more than they should be. They should be participating in this exciting new landscape, not suing it. I’m not okay with copyright laws being broken. If a musician has not given permission, you should not use their work. But I also don’t think things have to be as “locked up” as they are, and I think DFTBA is leading here by example.
I didn’t immediately answer his question, but decided I would here, in my journal.
Would I be on the opposite side of the coin? No. And how do I know that? Our actions have spoken louder than any words here could. For over a year now DFTBA Records has allowed - nay - encouraged all YouTube users to use our music, for free, in their vlogs, dancing videos and animations.
Hank (the other co-founder of DFTBA) and I have realized the power our listeners have in helping us spread the word about our releases.
Word of mouth or recommendations from friends are the best possible kind of promotions. When new listeners hear recommendations from friends, they aren’t hearing an advertisement, or even a pitch from someone who stands to profit from their friend buying the album, it’s an unbiased review and recommendation. That’s way more powerful than a recommendation from Hank or me.
By encouraging our listeners to use our music in their videos (or to cover our songs), we bypass any licensing or legal hassles. And while we might not profit directly from those streams like traditional music labels want to, we do profit by way of goodwill and, for lack of a better phrase, free advertising.
Of course, the revenue we lose might not be the best business decision - and in order to remain in business and continue producing the fantastic releases that we do, we have to make money - but Hank and I are also YouTube users first and foremost. And we know the frustration of wanting to use that perfect song in a video and not being able to. We don’t want our listeners experiencing that same frustration if we can do something about it.
I’m fairly certain the majority of our listeners can already see this, and because of it, I believe our music is pirated less than any other peer label. Of course, I could be wrong, but until I see data proving otherwise, I’ll think positively.
Please don’t misinterpret yesterday’s entry, I do not think Viacom is wrong for wanting to protect and get paid for its copyrighted material. I do think, however, that they are placing blame on the wrong parties, and demanding more than they should be. They should be participating in this exciting new landscape, not suing it. I’m not okay with copyright laws being broken. If a musician has not given permission, you should not use their work. But I also don’t think things have to be as “locked up” as they are, and I think DFTBA is leading here by example.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
The Sideshow Coalition
Over the last few weeks I’ve been quietly helping YouTube fight Viacom in their ongoing court battle (along side a dozen other prominent YouTubers). I can’t say much about it, but YouTube has made our recent legal brief public, so I will talk about that.
Viacom recently referred to all registered YouTube users who post original content as a “sideshow”, suggesting the original content posted to YouTube was worthless when compared to the unauthorized copyrighted content that is illegally uploaded. So together with the vlogbrothers, lisanova, whatthebuckshow, smosh, and others, we formed “The Sideshow Coalition”.
We recently all wrote brief statements for the court to read on how we’ve used YouTube to not only reach an audience with our original work, but how we’ve made YouTube a home, a business, or a place for friends and family.
My piece focused on DFTBA Records, and how this little company Hank and I started, run out of my garage, promoted only on YouTube, is now supporting numerous musicians full-time, myself full-time, and making tens of thousands of listeners from every country in the world, happy.
And none of that would be possible were it not for YouTube.
If Viacom wins this lawsuit, YouTube may be forced to manually approve every video uploaded to the website, making it impossible but for a select few to post videos on the site. No longer would YouTube be a place for everyone, it would be a place for Partners who are legally bound not to upload copyrighted content. This is obviously not what YouTube, or any registered YouTube user, wants.
Our testimonials and personal stories will hopefully help the court decide in YouTube’s favor. Viacom doesn’t understand YouTube, or the community. And Viacom wants every registered user to have to pay for the actions of a very small portion of dishonest users.
You can read the full legal brief we wrote by clicking here.
You can help by bringing this case to the attention of others. You can simply tweet a link to this journal entry, or you can read the brief and write your own thoughts on your blogs.
If YouTube loses this case, we will all lose.
Viacom recently referred to all registered YouTube users who post original content as a “sideshow”, suggesting the original content posted to YouTube was worthless when compared to the unauthorized copyrighted content that is illegally uploaded. So together with the vlogbrothers, lisanova, whatthebuckshow, smosh, and others, we formed “The Sideshow Coalition”.
We recently all wrote brief statements for the court to read on how we’ve used YouTube to not only reach an audience with our original work, but how we’ve made YouTube a home, a business, or a place for friends and family.
My piece focused on DFTBA Records, and how this little company Hank and I started, run out of my garage, promoted only on YouTube, is now supporting numerous musicians full-time, myself full-time, and making tens of thousands of listeners from every country in the world, happy.
And none of that would be possible were it not for YouTube.
If Viacom wins this lawsuit, YouTube may be forced to manually approve every video uploaded to the website, making it impossible but for a select few to post videos on the site. No longer would YouTube be a place for everyone, it would be a place for Partners who are legally bound not to upload copyrighted content. This is obviously not what YouTube, or any registered YouTube user, wants.
Our testimonials and personal stories will hopefully help the court decide in YouTube’s favor. Viacom doesn’t understand YouTube, or the community. And Viacom wants every registered user to have to pay for the actions of a very small portion of dishonest users.
You can read the full legal brief we wrote by clicking here.
You can help by bringing this case to the attention of others. You can simply tweet a link to this journal entry, or you can read the brief and write your own thoughts on your blogs.
If YouTube loses this case, we will all lose.
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