http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/technology/10665684.htm?1c

Oliver Wang sits at his computer and gets busy schooling Web surfers in the ways of funk, jazz, soul, hip-hop and other smoking grooves he wants to share -- a little Eartha Kitt here, a bit of Biggie Smalls there. By day, he's a freelance music critic and ethnic studies student who just finished his doctoral thesis at the University of California-Berkeley. But with a click of a mouse, he leaves the world of professors and editors behind and becomes O-Dub, keeper of the popular audioblog site Soul Sides.

Soul Sides is where O-Dub can express his thoughts on Memphis soul and Latin jazz, on Billy Butler's ``Twang Thang'' and Jack McDuff's ``Electric Surfboard.'' It's where you can read his astute criticism and download his favorite music. For free.

He knows he's breaking the law, to the tune of about 1,500 hits per day. And he has plenty of company in the booming audioblog world.

``Posting copyrighted material online for people to download without permission is not legal,'' says Wang, whose writing has appeared in music magazines including Vibe and XXL. ``The question is whether or not the recording industry would want to apply their limited resources to enforcing the law with bloggers.''

The audioblog has become a staple of the MP3 age, with new sites popping up every week to serve a wide variety of musical tastes. Unlike Napster, the original file-sharing service, which the recording industry successfully sued for copyright violation, audioblogs are part diary, part criticism and part jukebox. They're run by individual music aficionados eager to spread the word on music new and old. Most sites include MP3 files, for listening and downloading.

Not surprisingly, audioblogs are multiplying like rabbits at a time when ***** fly off the shelves. New sites appear every week, with no end in sight.

Most sites encourage visitors to buy the record if they like a song; many provide purchasing links. Audioblog keepers generally leave MP3s up for a short period of time, and the postings are often not CD-quality. Some sites even address the legal implications.

``If you are the copyright holder of a posted song and do not want the song posted, by all means contact me and I will remove the song,'' reads the disclaimer on Locust St., an audioblog devoted to older music, particularly jazz. ``But think for a minute first, and consider whether there is any possible harm in giving 50-plus-year-old music exposure to a new audience.''

``If anything, it's an advertisement to buy old records from the '40s and '50s,'' says Chris O'Leary, the Queens resident who runs Locust St.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) feels differently. ``If the copyright owner and artist is making the choice to use this tool to distribute their music, we think that's a great thing,'' says RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy in an e-mailed statement. ``The more ways fans can enjoy music online legitimately, the better. What concerns us is when someone else has taken it upon themselves to make that choice, and distribute music they do not own, when the copyright owner has not given permission.''
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Note: I censored an overhyped product out of this item myself. :D

Isn't this a rerun? I seem to remember reading that RIAA spokesman's statement before. Deja vu all over again.

I'd say what my favorite audioblogs are, but I want to keep them low profile. Maybe in the current sue-'em-all climate, it is best for them to keep their heads down.

Most of what I donwload on MP3 blogs is more of a curiosity than anything else. Like, "Oh, THAT's what the Wild Strawberries sound like." Then I delete and go on about my business. But they do serve a purpose in introducing people to artists they might not otherwise have heard.

I'm very interested in the upcoming releases by Feist and Josh Rouse as a result of blog downloads. What I heard so far was fantastic. And as a result of U2 downloads I passed along to my friend, he bought their new Dismantling Atomic Bomb CD. (So much for the boycott.) I didn't buy it, so I can hold my head high. The U2 record is a near-great one. If only they would extricate themselves from serfdom to the RIAA, I'd want to buy it too. They'd be the perfect exacmple too. Does U2 need a label? I don't see why.

"the postings are often not CD-quality"

Unless this guy is posting 16 bit, 44.1 MHz songs, his postings are NEVER CD quality.

Given some of the recent CD releases I've listened to in full 16 bit 44.1kHz (not MHz) lately, I think it would be fair to say that many CD releases are often not CD quality anymore.

Continually I am shocked by listening to CDs of stuff from the 60s and 70s, especially Rhino remasters, but even just ordinary record company output, then listening to new albums -- how often the sound quality is worse on a 1994 recording than a 1974 recording. The old stuff very often has clearer top end, more dynamic range, more space, all around more natural and pleasing to the ear.

Is this a deliberate "dumbing down" of sound quality so that compressed DRM-infested Napster and iTunes downloads will sound little better than CDs?

There was a column by John Mayer in a recent issue of Esquire commenting on this. He basically wondered why he spent hours in the studio trying to find the right microphone and the right placement for recording his guitar, if people were just going to be listening to shit MP3s. Good question. He basically hinted that next time he wouldn't waste as much effort worrying about sound quality.

Oh, and the 2004 recordings are worse than the 1994 recordings, at least in the pop genre.

oops, I mean downloads would sound hardly worse than CDs, not "little better"

***** lol

"Is this a deliberate "dumbing down" of sound quality so that compressed DRM-infested Napster and iTunes downloads will sound little better than CDs?"

Nope, it's about record company execs and bands who want the cd to be louder so they compress the crap out of it and ruin the sound. It's a big topic within the music business and audiophile community. If you google "loudness war" then you'll find more info on this topic.

Btw, since you mentioned Rhino - Bill Inglot does a lot of their remasters and he is known to goose the top end a bit. Some people feel his cd's are too bright. Goosing the top end does give the illusion of increased clarity.

Yes upping the gain on CD's increasing distortion/clipping. The Japanese are known for doing this a lot too. Rip a recent CD to a WAV file and run it through something like Cooledit you will note that it hits the red a lot.

mroop, DeadMan2003 are right about all this folks...

Yet ANOTHER reason not to purchase RIAA product.

mroop, you're probably right about Rhino. Inglot is probably getting old, so he gooses up the high end to compensate for his failing hearing. Maybe I'm losing my hearing too, because it doesn't sound unnaturally hot to me. They used to do the same thing with the half-speed masters on LP at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab. Some of those were very hot on the high end.

Be that as it may, sound recordings can have an intrinsic clarity that has nothing to do with zippy high frequencies, and more to do with the audibility of low level detail in all frequency ranges. I give Rhino pretty high marks on this front, at least the stuff I've heard.

Yes, of course compression is ruining a lot of music. I know that. And clipping. Digital clipping -- very bad news. Look at the waveform of a WAV file on Rush's latest studio effort, Vapor Trails. Hard digital clipping. Mountain peaks of sound were cut off flat at the 0 dB mark so they now look like mesas. An absolute atrocity.