Stories we are following
The slow-moving stories that matter to us: a rule coming in, a fee holiday, a launch date. Each one has a short brief, a breakdown of what it means for us, and a timeline of what has happened and what is coming.
Developing now
DevelopingLive Nation, the 'Velvet Hammer', and Indie Venues
Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster face a US antitrust case alleging they monopolized live entertainment, including claims that Live Nation threatens venues that use other ticketing companies with losing its tours (the so-called 'velvet hammer'). In Canada, drip-pricing rules now cover ticke...
DevelopingAudio to polyphonic MIDI: state of transcription
Turning a recording into polyphonic MIDI has moved from lab demos to shipping products, but it is still not a finished solution for guitar. Open models (Spotify Basic Pitch 2022, Google MT3 2021, YourMT3+ 2024) and commercial tools (Melodyne DNA, Ableton Live 12, AnthemScore 6, Klangio) now produce...
DevelopingHuman enhancement, brain implants and DIY biohackers
Human enhancement spans three overlapping communities: the transhumanist movement (organised since 1998 as the World Transhumanist Association, now Humanity+), the medical brain-computer interface (BCI) industry led by Neuralink, Synchron, Paradromics and Blackrock Neurotech, and DIY biohackers or g...
DevelopingBarrie live-music venues: Mavricks dark since 2020, Queens still booking
On the public record we could read, the only confirmed venue loss is Mavricks, which went dark in 2020. The 'unknown factor' the owner describes is not explained or even described by any source we opened. Nothing here shows a pattern.
DevelopingCanada's consumer-driven banking (open banking) framework
Canada is moving to consumer-driven banking, where secure APIs replace screen scraping so people can share their financial data without handing over banking passwords.
Coming up
UpcomingBandcamp: fee-free Fridays and the AI music ban
Bandcamp, the music store many independent artists sell through, has said it will waive its platform fee completely on the last two Bandcamp Fridays of 2026, and it bans music made wholly or substantially by AI.