The audio is ©2012 dmgRadio Australia, but here it is ‘cos it hasn’t been posted on the radio station’s website. Besides, this is a reasonable plug.

This week is the 10th birthday of Apple’s iPod and the sixth anniversary of the launch of Apple’s iTunes store in Australia. Yesterday morning I spoke about those things with Keith Conlon and John Kenneally on Adelaide radio 1395 FIVEaa.

I’ve also included the talkback caller they had just before speaking to me, since I refer to his comments.

The audio is ©2011 dmgRadio Australia, but here it is ‘cos it hasn’t been posted on the radio station’s website. Besides, this is a reasonable plug.

In 2005 Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace, as the orthography went, for USD 580 million. Yesterday he sold the operation, now branded Myspace or even just My_____, depending where you look, for a mere USD 35 million. Not exactly a profit.

The buyer was Specific Media, an advertising targeting company. One of the investors is musician and actor Justin Timberlake, although the size of his stake has not been revealed.

There’s now plenty of speculation about whether Myspace will build on its recent music focus, and how it’ll shape up against the monster that is Facebook and the new contender, Google+.

Yesterday I chatted about all this stuff with Lindy Burns on ABC 774 Melbourne. This time she got my name right.

The audio is ©2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but it hasn’t been posted on their website so here it is. In return, I reckon you might choose to listen to Lindy Burns’ drive program next week.

Back in 1990 and 1991, the Adelaide-based Triple J radio program Club Escape did episodes at the end of the year called “Perfect List”, featuring its choice of the best dance music released for the year. I’ve just updated my copies of those lists with links to the tunes.

For your listening and nostalgic pleasure, here are the Perfect Lists for 1990 and 1991.

Those old blog posts explain the story, but the short version is that I was one of the program’s presenters in 1990. It was a great time.

Two things come to mind as I look back at these lists…

First, I’m amazed at how few of the links I’d originally set up still worked. Linkrot is a problem for every website manager, but it’s not made easier when people delete their account or when the music distribution companies insist that you have to link to their version and all the others get deleted. I don ‘t know why they think this helps.

And second, well, I’m really hit by the feeling that time has moved on. Those programs were two decades ago. And yet some people want to wallow in their past. I listened to a few of the songs as I repaired the links, but I felt no urge to spend a lot of time “reminiscing”.

Perhaps I’m unusual in that I prefer to live in the present. Or even the future.

If the embedded video isn’t visible, watch it directly on YouTube.

For me previous Australia Day posts, try Happy Aussie-Ox Day from 2009, my photographic post Great Australian Dreaming 1, sing our new national anthem and my essay Are you proud of your culture? That last one has an excellent photo.

Australian airline Jetstar and the managers of rock band Powderfinger seem to think that waving the magic word “social media” means free labour. Exploitative cunts.

As mUmBRELLA reported:

Jetstar is continuing its drive into social media, funding an official blogger on Powderfinger’s farewell tour which is sponsored by the budget airline.

According to Jetstar: “Over 50 days, Jetstar’s official tour blogger will ‘Follow the Finger’ and produce daily blogs, video diaries, fan photos and Twitter updates. They will interview the band and support acts, interact with fans and locals and become a member of the tour support team.”

As well as covering travel and accommodation, the blogger will receive an allowance of $100 a day.

Right.

So in other words, for more than a month and a half, the “winner” of the “competition” will work as a writer covering the tour — call it journalism or blogging or whatever you like, it’s all the same thing. They’ll work as a producer, curating fan photos. They work as a PR assistant and “interact with fans and locals and become a member of the tour support team”. That’s a whole bunch of different media skills, a pretty special person indeed.

In return they get paid less than the legislated minimum wage.

The federal minimum wage is currently $15.00 per hour or $569.90 per 38 hour week (before tax).

Casual employees covered by the national minimum wage also get at least a 21 per cent casual loading.

I reckon “become a member of the tour support team” sounds like an offer of employment, yeah?

“Jetstar has been making a growing investment in social media,” says mUmBRELLA, but clearly not enough to pay a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.

Maybe Jetstar should try telling the roadies they’ll also get $100 a day “allowance” in return for the privilege of seeing all 34 concerts. To their faces. And I’ll sit back and watch…

Please insert a final angry sentence that includes the words “exploitation”, “unethical” and “pond slime”. And on Monday I’ll be phoning Fair Work Australia for an opinion.

Rock on.

Unless, of course, Jetstar get in touch before then to tell me they’ve decided to pay the winner the proper MEAA rate for freelance writers [PDF].

Has anyone ever explored the apparent lack of overlap between short story titles and rock band names? I mean, is there any doubt which category e.g. “The pit and the pendulum”, “A perfect day for bananafish”, “REO Speedwagon”, and “Neutral Milk Hotel” belong to?

I think Mark Liberman may be on to something here. Perhaps we need to test this theory, using something similar to Steak House or Gay Bar? or a gamed-up version of the rather awesome Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be thinking so early in the morning…

Kristina Keneally confuses mindless populism with leadership. The nimby-burghers of Glebe confuse concerns about the urban environment with selfishness. And the Vivid Festival… another white middle class baby boomer nostalgia wankfest.

Here, ladies and gentlemen, is episode 4 of The 9pm Edict. Finally.

You can listen to this episode below. But if you want them all, subscribe to the podcast feed, or even subscribe automatically in iTunes.

If you’d like to comment on this episode, please add your comment below, or Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

[Update 6 March 2010: I really should link to the material I discuss. That's the Harold Park redevelopment plan and the local residents' objections, the Vivid Festival, Laurie Anderson's Language is a Virus, Dom Knight's The Premier, the portrait and the paedophile and NSW Premier Kristina Keneally's video A New Direction.]

[Credits: The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission.]

Copyright-holders reckon this will help prevent copyright infringement. But the concerns are that we’re entering the realm of guilt by allegation, and potentially punishing innocent people by denying internet access to everyone in a household, not just the guilty party.

The internet is now central to everything from health and education to banking and politics, so that’s one heck of a big stick.

As this 10-minute video by comedian and activist Mark Thomas explains, the UK version of this proposed law, the Digital Economy Bill, has a nasty surprise. Section 17 would give the Secretary of State the power to amend the copyright laws without having to run them past Parliament first.

Um hello? “Parliamentary democracy”, anyone?

If the embedded player doesn’t work, you can watch the video on YouTube.

At this stage, the Australian Government is not yet considering laws like this. But that could change.

Earlier this month iiNet, our third-largest ISP, won a case in the Federal Court where Justice Dennis Cowdroy ruled that ISPs are not responsible for the copyright-infringing acts of their customers. I covered that for Crikey and in the Patch Monday podcast.

Since then, communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy has said he wants the copyright-holders and the ISPs to work out a code of practice on their own. However I reckon that’s just a delaying tactic to avoid discussing such a controversial issue in an election year.

The movie and music industries are fighting hard on this one. France and Japan already have three-strikes laws, to name just two. And the industries are devoting plenty of resources.

Mark Thomas points out they were late in using the internet to make money from their assets, and now they’re looking for someone to blame. Yes, the big players may well be making less profit that before. However the bulk of their profit was from distribution. Now the costs of distribution are almost nil — yet somehow they’ve managed to end up making less money. Fools.

They also reckon that if no-one can make money from their creative acts, it’ll be the death of creativity. But in the video, prehistoric musician Billy Bragg points out that while a few artists at the top end may be suffering, the internet has proved a boon for lower-ranked artists, allowing them to reach new markets at much lower cost.

This is a big issue. It’s a complicated issue. It won’t go away. We should all stay informed.

I continue to get blown away by the quality of material coming from Middle Eastern media network Al Jazeera.

I’ve just watched the latest Listening Post podcast and have learned more about Yemen in a few minutes than from a lifetime of watching, reading and listening to Australian media.

And fascinatingly, this is how Listening Post presenter Richard Gizbert explained how you can take part in the program.

We are now closing in on four thousand viewers following us on Facebook and Twitter. They check in to find out what stories we’re working on and in case they want to weigh in as one of our Global Village Voices. If you’d like to do the same, just go to either of those sites and search us out. Or you can get in touch with us the old-fashioned way on email. We’re at listeningpost@aljazeera.net.

Yes, that’s right. Email is now “old-fashioned”. Love your work, guys.

Yes, Australia will have a mandatory ISP-level Internet censorship system. It was announced earlier today by Senator Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy when he released the final report of the recent filtering trials.

According to the ABC News report, legislation will be introduced into Parliament next year which will require all ISPs to block material hosted in other countries which has been refused classification. That’s actualy not quite correct. It will block material which, in the opinion of an ACMA staff member, would potentially be refused classification if it were actually submitted to the Classification Board.

Provided, that is, that a concerned citizen went to the trouble of complaining about the material in the first place.

I’m still ploughing through the final report from Enex Testlab for a couple media articles I need to write tonight.

Meanwhile, have a listen to this 10-minute interview I did earlier today with Jason Jordan on Radio 6PR Perth.

[The radio interview is Copyright © 2009 Radio 6PR Perth Pty Ltd, but since they don't archive these interviews it's fair enough putting it here provided you just listen to it and I link back to 6PR and encourage you to listen. If you're in Perth. Or if you want to stream it.]

These two posters are currently on view on Liberty Street, Stanmore, near the railway bridge. I can’t help but think there’s some sort of connection… but what?

If that YouTube player doesn’t work for you, try directly at YouTube.

Dave writes:

[It] then got licensed to Rabbit City Records UK, released on the Australian EP 12″. You can also find it on a Vicious Vinyl CD compilation. Carl Cox gave this track a lot of spins in 1994.

Dave has also posted a list of all the music he made as DAMC.

Other tracks on the EP were by Aquila (Matthew Thomas), Quantization (Mat Farrington) and Maas Unconscious (a duo whose names escape me just now).

The journey home was enlivened with an interesting experiment. Instead of me broadcasting Stilgherrian Live — bright TV lights in a moving car at night would be a plan full of FAIL — we created an inside-out radio station. Some of my followers on Twitter took up the offer to send us links to music — which we streamed live from YouTube. The audience chose the music and we listened to it.

This experiment in crowdsourcing a playlist was remarkably successful. I’ll publish the music later. But even more remarkable was the power of the hyperconnectivity. Even though we were driving through rural New South Wales, we were still in touch with our friends — wherever they were too — doing the usual things we do of an evening, like swap links and tell each other bad jokes.

I’ll have much more to say about this soon. But for now I must rest.

As we begin a new and somewhat rainy Monday here in Sydney, it’s worth reflecting on my world as revealed through Twitter.

1. If only cats ate cockroaches my two most significant household chores would cancel out.
2. The only thing a VCR is good for is to watch old porno movies.
3. “Luxurious possum fur” is an oxymoron.
4. Twitter is (like all networks) just an amplifier. Natural news-bringers bring news. Natural wankers wank.
5. Total Eclipse of the Heart has the most sensible music video of any song ever.
6. “Wynyard Hotel, the sign saying ‘restrooms maintained to highest standard’ doesn’t stop stale urine smell.”
7. As we all know, cardio fitness is improved through gin.
8. “Do not insert in ear canal” is sage advice.

Now what sort of impression of me does that give? And what will this week bring?

[Credit: Cartoon Twitter-bird courtesy of Hugh MacLeod. Like all of Hugh's cartoons published online, it's free to use.]