This just in: Donald Duck tried to mass-duplicate and sell pirated copies of a popular album on CD, and got caught (and fined) by the record label’s CEO! It’s all in Dutch, though, so good luck reading it.

Well, at the very least this proves that Disney comics can command attention in the U.S.!

Popularity: 8% [?]

It’s kinda late in the day, but I want to post this quick: it’s Friday-only download, and after tonight the link’s down forever!

Drop your e-mail address in the box at MyFreeMusicFriday and you can grab Robbie Seay Band’s New Day (from the album Give Yourself Away, pictured here). There’s two more MP3s there, but this one’s my favorite from this week’s offerings.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Years ago when Outkast’s Hey Ya was all over the airwaves, I was working the graveyard shift at another job. The people there kept the radio tuned to a Top 40 station that played it constantly. I don’t think I’ve ever been so irritated by a song. But this acoustic version… this I actually like! Wow… (HT: Scott Burness)

Popularity: 6% [?]

I think it might be the result of recent promotions like Derek Webb’s FreeDerekWebb project, but regardless of what’s spurred it on, there’s been a couple “free and legal Christian MP3 downloads” websites that have come to my attention over the past week or so. I’m providing links to them now, both for your sake and mine (I can be forgetful at times):

My Free Music Friday (e-mail address required).

“We at MyFreeMusicFriday are a group of music lovers/marketers that all too often find ourselves trapped within the confusion and extremely over analyzed modern music industry. It just happened to be in a confused and over-thought marketing meeting that we remembered the most powerful tool for selling music… MUSIC. What better way to expose music than by allowing people the freedom to listen. As we pondered this extremely elementary concept, we agreed to develop MyFreeMusicFriday.com, a program that is so simple that it is explained in its name. Personal. Free. Music. Friday… It is really hard for anyone not to like it.”

It doesn’t matter that Geoff Moore grew stale to me in the late nineties. I still like enough of what they’ve offered here (this time around, at least).

FreeCCM.com (registration required).

This looks to be a site specifically designed to promote artists on the INO Records label. There’s some decent stuff here. (I have to say that—I just got a Derek Webb track from ‘em!)

Popularity: 3% [?]

(This is a follow-up to my April 7th warning of a potential BMG Music Service scam.)

On 9 Apr 2007 20:10:45 EST, cs1@bmgmusicservice.com wrote:

To: Travis Seitler

We received your inquiry regarding the Stelk class action settlement email you received.

We hope you’ll take advantage of placing your settlement order online by clicking on the link in the email. If you have any problems placing your order please contact us via email at cs@bmgms.com.

Thank you.

Your Friends at
BMG Music Service

I looked at the headers, and not only did this e-mail originate from a Random House server (BMG and Random House are both part of the Bertelsmann-Media Worldwide network), but both e-mail address domains (bmgmusicservice.com and bmgms.com) are administered by Random House servers.

So strange as it seems, this one is actually legit. Well, I should say the original e-mail came with the approval of a Bertelsmann company. I can’t shake the feeling that the whole “buy online from CDLounge.com” thing is an effort to transfer your membership from BMG to CDLounge for some shady legal reason (avoiding further settlements?). Call me paranoid, but I’m going to use the PDF Settlement Voucher instead (login required).

BTW, notice how this e-mail reply didn’t address any specific concerns? They just made it sound like I couldn’t figure out how to place an order online. (Their own records would show I do know this, but I suppose that would require this particular group of companies to actually know what they’re doing.) With all the ways that this settlement’s execution is being botched up, the folks at BMG/Columbia House are losing major emotional capital at a time when they desperately needed to raise it.

Popularity: 6% [?]