Well, whaddya know? — CD sales are UP, despite file-sharing

Lovely piece by John Pazckowski in today’s edition of Good Morning, Silicon Valley.

“Few organizations are more dedicated to making sure the public cannot quite understand its sales data than The Recording Industry Association of America. So it’s welcome news whenever someone is able to make sense of that data and the rather … curious methods the RIAA uses to report it. Since the advent of peer-to-peer networks, the RIAA has consistently reported a decrease in CD sales, and just as consistently blamed that decline on file sharing. And it has always had the metrics to back that claim up. But it turns out that those metrics are a bit misleading. The RIAA reports a sale as a unit SHIPPED to record stores, not as a unit sold to consumers at those record stores. Now here’s where things get interesting: The RIAA forecast a 7 percent decline in recorded music sales for 2004, but data from market research outfit Soundscan, which measures point-of-purchase sales, shows a 10 percent increase in music sales when comparing the first quarter of 2004 to the first quarter of 2003. What does this mean? Sales of recorded music haven’t declined, shipments have. Retail outfits are moving increasingly toward a just-in-time sales model. Rather than order more music than they need and eat the overrun or pay to ship it back to the distributor, they now order only what they think they need. This doesn’t mean retailers are selling less music (a retailer can order 1000 CDs one month and sell 600 of them, 800 CDs the next and sell 700). But it does mean that the RIAA can claim a decline in sales — at least until a gust of fresh air blows the smokescreen away.”

Danny Gregory’s philosophy: a drawing a day keeps the blues at bay

“I don’t think that illustrated journaling is really about doing great drawings. You’re not out to make something that you could frame or give as an Xmas present. I’m not really into doing the sort of exercises on perspective and tone that you see in most drawing books, exercises that will move your skills to another level artistically. Not that you shouldn’t do them if they are fun or if you have some other goal in mind but I don’t think they are essential for the true purpose of illustrated journaling. That purpose? To celebrate your life. No matter how small or mundane or redundant, each drawing and little essay you write to commemorate an event or an object or a place makes it all the more special. Celebrate your hairbrush and it will make you appreciate the intricacy of the bristles, the miracle of your lost hair, the beauty of you. Sounds sappy but it’s in there. Draw your lunch and it will be a very different experience from bolting down another tuna on rye. If you take your time (and we’re just talking maybe 10-20 minutes here, folks) and really study that sandwich, the nooks and valleys, the crinoline of the lettuce, the textures of the tuna, you will do a drawing that recognized the particularity of that sandwich,. That’s the point: to record this particular moment, this sandwich, not something generic. If you approach it with that attitude, you will create something as unique. reaching that place is just a matter of concentration and attention. A brief meditation and you will have a souvenir to jog your memory back to that a moment forever more. Imagine if you can keep doing that, keep dropping these little gems in your day, recognizing the incredible gift you are given each morning upon awakening. You will be a millionaire.”

I love Danny’s Blog. There’s something beautiful on it most days.

Google Mail

Jack Schofield disliked it. David Pogue loves it.

We don’t do torture — do we?

This from today’s New York Times:

“WASHINGTON, May 12 — The Central Intelligence Agency has used coercive interrogation methods against a select group of high-level leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda that have produced growing concerns inside the agency about abuses, according to current and former counterterrorism officials.

At least one agency employee has been disciplined for threatening a detainee with a gun during questioning, they said.

In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as “water boarding,” in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown.

These techniques were authorized by a set of secret rules for the interrogation of high-level Qaeda prisoners, none known to be housed in Iraq, that were endorsed by the Justice Department and the C.I.A. The rules were among the first adopted by the Bush administration after the Sept. 11 attacks for handling detainees and may have helped establish a new understanding throughout the government that officials would have greater freedom to deal harshly with detainees.

Defenders of the operation said the methods stopped short of torture, did not violate American anti-torture statutes, and were necessary to fight a war against a nebulous enemy whose strength and intentions could only be gleaned by extracting information from often uncooperative detainees. Interrogators were trying to find out whether there might be another attack planned against the United States.”

So if “water-boarding” isn’t torture, then what is, exactly? There may be a case for torturing these folks (it’s a philosophical dilemma that’s been set for countless generations of philosophy students), but there isn’t one for denying that you’re doing it.

Girl in a red sweater

The Pre-Raphaelites have a lot to answer for. Just imagine what they would have done with PhotoShop (or the GIMP).

Exotic Business

I had a meeting in the Judge Institute of Management — Cambridge’s Business School — today. Couldn’t help reflecting on how exotic and unbusinesslike its interior is. More like an Oriental bazaar. Lovely though.

Diebold boss admits error

It would be nice to think that my column had something to do with it, but I think it unlikely. Alas. Still… According to today’s NYT,

“Walden W. O’Dell, the chairman and chief executive of Diebold Inc., said on Monday that it had been a ‘huge mistake’ for him, as the head of a voting machine company, to express support for President Bush’s re-election in a fund-raising letter last year. Mr. O’Dell also said the company was working to address computer security problems and build voter confidence in its wares.

In a meeting with reporters and editors from The New York Times, Mr. O’Dell by turns apologized for mistakes and stood up for what he said the company had done right.

‘The country had a crisis’ after the 2000 debacle, he said; his company realized that ‘we could help; it would be an opportunity to serve, and it would be a good business.’

Mr. O’Dell drew criticism of his company in August when he sent an invitation to a fund-raising party that said, ‘I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.’ He said he had not written it himself, though he declined to say who had, and intended only to sign a ‘party invitation.'”

The china shop rule

Notice often seen in shops selling delicate porcelain: “If you break it, you own it”. Does this apply to Iraq? Yes and no. ‘Yes’ because the success of the invasion led to a vacuum which was predictable, could have been planned-for — and wasn’t. ‘No’ in the sense that Iraq was broken long ago, by Saddam and his regime. What makes the current unfolding disaster so depressing is that no matter what one thought about the original decision to go to war, the US and Britain cannot quit now. Retrospective moral outrage is no longer a credible position. And that’s very uncomfortable for everyone.

What’s really important about Google

In the end, it isn’t the search engine — important though that is. The real significance of Google is that its techies have built the most powerful computing cluster ever created, and this will in due course enable the company to provide web services that nobody else can match. So what investors will be buying into is not just revenue streams from search-related advertising (lucrative though those may be), but the strategic potential of technology that nobody else — not even the DoD — possesses.

Big Music gets it wrong — again!

Sony, which is normally very good at creating attractive consumer products, has launched its own online music store. And guess what? It’s a turkey — obsessed with control-freakery, using a proprietary format that only plays on Sony hardware, etc. See the Washington Post review. In a nutshell: “This service is an embarrassment to the company that gave the world the Walkman.”