There they go again

With the release of OK GO’s new Capitol album, “Of The Blue Color of the Sky,” EMI, the eminent UK music company, is telling the band their videos on YouTube — like the new one, “This Too Shall Pass” — can’t be embedded on other sites.

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In 2006, OK GO made a big splash on YouTube by dancing on treadmills for their song, “Here It Goes Again,” that I have to assume helped make money for Capitol.

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Seems to me that EMI is applying the same faulty logic that Disney used in the early days of VHS, when it refused to allow their movies to be rented, rather than sold at retail. The comparison isn’t exactly comparable, because there was money to be made in both transactions. Once again I point out that the first printed warning of the coming age of digital downloaded music was made by Stewart Brand in 1972.

Maybe EMI is thinking that banning embedding will give them time to decide what they can do to generate a revenue stream from streaming videos, like those featuring the Lily Allen, Britain’s leading bad girl of Pop music, who resides on the Beatles’ original label, Parlophone.

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Is Lily any worse than a United States Senator who posed nude for Cosmo in his buff youth, and whose wife was once in a racy music video herself? Isn’t the Brown family only slightly less shallow?

Get Olber it, mann

While I’m not happy about the surprise turn of events in this week’s special election here in Massachusetts, I think Keith Olbermann is off-base in his characterization of Scott Brown. The man may be a lightweight and a bit of a goofball, and I enjoyed making fun of Brown, but he doesn’t take the moral high ground or expect his constituents to share his religious beliefs, so in this case I think Olbermann’s rage is misplaced.

Jon Stewart took Olbermann apart last night, point by point, in his own Countdown-style special commentary.

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Raging robo calls

Here in Massachusetts there’s a special election today to finish the late Ted Kennedy’s term in the Senate. The state is heavily Democratic, although in recent years we have been fond of electing Republican governors. Right now we have our first black governor, Democrat Deval Patrick, but I predict that in November Charlie Baker, former CEO of a leading HMO, and a Republican, will replace Patrick.

Not since Edward Brooke have we sent a GOP senator to Washington. He served for two terms, and during that time Brooke, who was the first black senator, had an affair with Barbara Walters. Irregularities involving Brooke’s divorce were investigated by an assistant DA named John Kerry, who later took over Brooke’s seat in the Senate. This past October, without a hint of irony, Kerry feted Brooke. Massachusetts politics is such fun.

Anyway, leading up to today’s election, the phone rang constantly yesterday, with robot calls for Scott Brown. There were a couple of automated calls for Martha Coakley, including one with Vicki Kennedy, but mostly the Democratic candidate had live volunteers working the phones.

The calls highlighted once again how it’s the undecided voters — the wishy-washy Charlie Brown contingent — that cost campaigns so much money, although there’s also a need to “get out the vote” among the party faithful. For myself, the decision is very simple. I don’t want a Republican senator.