megaspora (english edition) » 2007

Archive for April, 2007

Transparency? Not in Spain, thanks

By: psr, 2007-04-05

Two recent events in Spain sadly prove that Spain has a long way to go before incorporating transparency in politics and business life.

In the on-going trial of a group of suspects of the March 11th train bombings in Madrid, the former director general of the Spanish police (and current MP of Spain’s Popular Party in the E.U. parliament), Agustín Díaz de Mera, gave testimony for a statement he made in a radio interview. He claimed to know of documents linking ETA to the March 11th train bombings. However, he refused to reveal his sources.

His claims, if true, are very important to investigate further, and for this reason he must reveal his sources. Sadly, his refusal to do so only help to suspect he is merely …

2007-04-05 | Economy - Spain | Trackback | No Comments »

The recording industry will change

By: psr, 2007-04-02

Sound recording was not possible before 1878. Until then, there was no industry build around the sale of sound recordings. Years after recording was invented, businesses started to emerge to distribute and sell music and voice recordings.

Buyers of recorded music were interested in the music, not specifically in the physical support needed to record music on (wax cylinders in the beginning, vinyl discs later on, and cassette tapes or compact discs more recently). However, in order to obtain a copy of that music, they needed to acquire the wax cylinder.

Such business model was based on the need to use physical media to distribute music, which could only be made using a complex and expensive process not available to a music buyer.

And so the recording …