We are very excited to announce that you can now enjoy exfm right within Winamp. Winamp needs no introduction. It’s the MP3 player that got it all started. I remember when I first installed it and played my first MP3 file. It sounded so good. I remember thinking “who needs CDs now?” We’ve certainly come a long way since then and Winamp is still going strong. Recently, they introduced an Online Services platform to extend Winamp using web technology. Using a simple but powerful Javascript API, any web page can now talk to Winamp and play music. What a perfect fit for exfm!

Exfm in Winamp brings all the awesomeness of exfm (trending, search, loving) to the awesomeness of Winamp (playback, management, queueing) for a doubly-awesome experience. Go ahead and try it. We know you’ll love it.

A special thanks to the Winamp folks for their support with this. Those guys rock!

Starting today and for the foreseeable future the “Continuations” at the top of this blog will be covered with a call to Stop Censorship.  If you read yesterday’s Tech Tuesday post on networking or are familiar with the history of the architecture of the Internet you know that a lack of global control was a core principle behind the design of TCP/IP.  That has been key to the amazing innovations we have seen come from the Internet, including its amazing power for social and political change.

Everywhere we look hierarchical control systems are being replaced by decentralized networks operating on the Internet.  Whether it is the funding of creative projects (Kickstarter), learning (Skillshare), publishing (Wattpad), selling (Etsy) and many more (disclosure: all the companies mentioned are in the Union Square Ventures portfolio).  This change in the world clearly isn’t lost on politicians who are increasingly nervous about what the Internet will do to their power – not just in dictatorships in far away places but also in mainstream democracies, which explains Sarkozy’s desire to “civilize” the Internet as expressed during EG8.

Here at home in the US, politicians are finding convenient cover for their desire to control the Internet in pretending that draconian interventions are necessary to protect the recording, movie and publishing industries.  These industries have already been collectively left in the dust both in terms of employment and market capitalization by the Internet economy and it doesn’t make economic sense to hamper Internet innovation on their behalf.  But pointing to rogue foreign sites that allow for the pirating of copyrighted works is perfect, if what you are really trying to accomplish are restrictions on free speech on the Internet.

The time to take a stance and head off the legislation known as PIPA (Senate) or SOPA (House) is now.  Everyone who operates a web site should add the “Stop Censorship” graphic over their site logo.  You can get the code over at American Censorship.   Let Congress know that the people are not going to accept censorship of the Internet.

If you don’t know what these bills are about, the following video provides the perfect summary:

PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

A few weeks ago, I went to Washington DC with a number of other venture capitalists and entrepreneurs to meet with various members of Congress and in President Obama’s administration to discuss important legislation (here and here) that was being pushed through the process.

It’s an awful bill that is vague, poorly written and even worse it is a bill to protect a few special interests (ie Hollywood) and will sacrifice what the Internet stands for, namely an open place that is decentralized in its soul.

There are many posts up today that highlight the problems with this bill. I would encourage you to read my friend and colleague Brad Burnham’s post for starters. It’s thoughtful, insightful and powerful. Albert Wenger has a great post as well. 

In addition to Brad’s thoughts, I’d like to point out a few other things that I find highly problematic. 

1 - In all of the meetings I had, the elected officials I met with convinced me that they are trying to do the right thing but didn’t have all the facts.

The other thing that I heard is that they have only heard the passionate arguments from Hollywood (and apparently Microsoft has lent them their support. whatever).  They need to hear from everyone else, loud and clear, that this legilsation is not in the public’s interest. Here’s a letter from a number of Silicon Valley companies voicing their concern.

2 - In every meeting I was in, I asked what does Hollywood want from Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and thousands of other founders that is not covered under DMCA. DMCA is something that we all know how to manage and deal with. I was not able to get an answer. That is troubling for countless reasons.

3 - Hollywood is asking Congress to give them power that is well beyond anything reasonable. Basically it would be like shutting down AT&T because one of AT&T subscribers decides to use his/her phone to do something illegal. The responsibility belongs to the user - not AT&T. That is how DMCA works and Hollywood doesn’t like that. They want to shut down the startup - not the user.

4 - It’s not clear to me that their intentions are pure either. there have been plenty of examples of big Hollywood companies bullying startups. Consider Universal Music Group (UMG) v Veoh. We were investors in Veoh. The courts ruled that Veoh did nothing wrong but UMG kept suing, appealing and suing and eventually the company couldn’t fund the litigation expense even though the courts constantly sided with Veoh. 

That was a landmark case and now Hollywood wants a bigger stick to go after the next Veoh, or YouTube or Facebook or whatever. How exactly is Facebook supposed to monitor every single photo or status post. At some point, Twitter will have billions of tweets per day. Should they delay a published post until it’s reviewed? Should AT&T monitor every phone call? 

Of course not.

DMCA makes the rules of the road clear. If DMCA needs improvement, let’s fix it. 

Let’s not censor the web. That’s not the answer.

That’s why I have the Stop Censorship badge over my mouth on the avatar on my blog today. And it’s why the same badge is over the Spark logo on our company website. Please join me and make your voice heard! 

Last week we introduced you to Snowmine. We loved them so much that we had to bring them back one last time to premiere “Curfews”, a spanking new never before heard single that they recently recorded over at Weathervane Music’s Shaking Through session.

Shaking Through is an amazing documentary series about “the birth of a song.” Each year they give 10 of the most exciting young minds in music a challenge: One Song in two days. From first take to final mix. No extensions. No safety net.

They bring in the best filmmakers around so they can share the band’s experience with you. Their goal is to tell you about the stories behind the songs, the techniques they used to produce it, and help you witness the sacred places where artists bare their souls. Every song, every take.

Watch Snowmine’s creative process in action during this Shaking Through documentary and then then listen to the final product “Curfews” exclusively on exfm. If you dig it, like we know you will then give it a heart and share it with your friends around the interwebs.

[Album of the Week] Snowmine - Laminate Pet Animal

You no longer have an excuse for the Monday blues now that we give you a new Album of the Week every single Monday. This week we want you to meet a five piece from Brooklyn who call themselves Snowmine. Not many bands can create deep layers and multi dimensional soundscapes with the lyrical guise to match. Snowmine is able to intertwine all of these elements with what seems like the greatest of ease.

Laminate Pet Animal is one of those albums that gets better with each listen. Before you know it every track will have a that little red heart next to it. Trust us we’ve all fallen victim. They embrace an indie pop sound rich with echo pedals, tribal beats and electro-acoustic soundscapes. We can tell you that this one of the most beautifully crafted pop albums we’ve heard in a long time, that you will keep revisiting this album again and again or that Grayson Sanders’ clear falsetto is so fetching everything you listen to after will sound like complete garbage, but really you’ll just have to hear it for yourself.

We know you’ll love this album as much as we do that’s why we’re giving you the chance to win it on vinyl by entering the Ultimate Exfmavaganza Giveaway! You can also purchase it in all forms on their bandcamp page. In doing so we can be assured that they will keep crafting dazzling albums like just like this one.