Toadcast #43 – The Fightcast
The Fightcast? Yes, the fucking Fightcast. Why? Well because mp3 bloggers have been taking it in the arse with some force over the last week. Posts are being deleted left right and centre, so presumably the major labels have decided to declare all-out war on blogs. This is because they are scabby old unwashed cheesy penises. This is not slander, I can prove it with charts and graphs.
Ultimately this is about corporate control of culture. I don’t want to sound like a ranting conspiracy theorist, but put simply, this is how it works: people pay for things they feel passionate about. People feel passionate about art, the creation thereof and the participation therein. Consequently any company vaguely engaged in cultural endeavours desperately wants to own the loyalty and devotion of as many people as possible, and anyone participating in this arena is a threat. Grassroots art has more emotional resonance with people, people are more loyal to and more devoted to it and it is more personal. Due to social networks of all sorts – blogs, networking sites, even something as simple as email - it is an ever bigger and less controllable threat.
They want blogs to exist inasmuch as we provide free market research and free A&R, but if we think we have any influence, any rights, or indeed any genuine loyalty, they wish us dead. Fuck them, fuck their little games and fuck the horse they rode in on. If they don’t want to play with normal people then let them withdraw. Let them take REM and U2 and fuck off. I would rather form a massive great list of small independent record labels that do want to play nicely and only ever cover them and unsigned bands, and let the big boys compete with the X-Factor, if they think they can. Fuck them, let them drown in their own greed.
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01. The Love Language – Lalita (02.20)
02. Honey Claws – Shout Out (07.14)
03. Findo Gask – One Eight Zero (10.56)
04. The Avett Brothers – Murder in the City (23.25)
05. Yusuf Azak – Ursa Major (28.02)
06. Miracle Fortress – Have You Seen in Your Dreams (30.53)
07. How To Swim – From Here to Dundee/Eternity (33.55)
08. Jib Kidder – Flip Flap (45.09)
09. Situationists – Onwards & Upwards (46.17)
10. Yusuf Azak – 19.19 (53.45)
11. The Avett Brothers – The Greatest Sum (Acoustic) (62.02)
The First Rule Of Fightcast is You Don’t Talk About Fightcast.
just to throw something into the mix; not that I throw either way but….
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/02/compulsory_blogging/
my feeling is however, that the consequences of these company’s desperation will be their complete exhaustion. They will become an empty vessel of legislation and copyright whilst the real activity of music making and appreciation etc…will be happening, as it already is, elsewhere.
I think so. I think that the best we can do is refuse to fight them on their own turf. Fuck them and their bands. We need to show them how culture is made and make sure we keep our own communities intact.
That’s pretty funny!
The Record Companies are desperately trying to remain relevant aren’t they?
It’s like watching your dad dance when he’s pissed at the end of a wedding.
I no longer know whether to laugh or cry about the whole situation…
Fuck them, if they don’t want to play then they can ride off into the sunset with Celine Dion, and I’m sure they’ll all be very happy together.
Thing is that this is the sort of redefinition of roles that is going to take years to sort out. Much like records changed the ability of people to own music in their homes they used to have to go to a club to listen to. I guess the most important thing is that people that love to listen to music simply keep doing so in order to stop getting steamrollered. But I can’t imagine this being a short fight.
The manner in which huge sections of the general public access and consume music is going through fundamental changes.
That’s shaking the established record companies to their foundations. They’re just throwing their weight around while they still have any weight to throw.
They will soon become utterly irrelevant to grassroots music of all genres, losing vast swathes of music fans in the process; and frankly – as has been said before – they can fuck right off and take Celine fucking Dion with them.
Looking into the DMCA/RIAA bullshit it would appear not only music sharing is being threatened by the very wide remit afforded the law. There are cases going back years where someone has enlisted the ‘assistance’ of the DMCA to censor somebody in order to crush (a) right to reply & (b) freedom of speech.
For example, Fed-Ex trampled over some guy who made furniture out of Fed-Ex packaging (http://www.naturalnews.com/011583.html); Warner used it against SeeqPod (a search engine), & The Drudge Retort received 7 attacks from the Associated Press.
One of the more high profile scalps recently has, of course, been music orientated: as you probably know, Muxtape has been effectively killed by the RIAA + Major Labels as they gleefully fucked with the poor bastard behind the site (read his account, it’s quite startling – like seagulls playing with a sparrow before they kill it) . Not to mention the appalling treatment of a couple of bloggers who received house arrest & probabtion for Ryan Adams leak.
Unless there’s a concerted, united effort I really can’t see a light at the end of all this. This site (http://www.durangobill.com/Fight_DMCA_Abuse.html) is interesting. It might at least help focus a direction of rebuttal.
The story on Muxtape is thoroughly depressing, isn’t it?
Justin Ouellette comes across as a genuine music fan like any of us, simply turned on by the idea of sharing cool music with people. Yet he’s been royally fucked by the majors.
What worries me is that the new idea he says he’s thinking about at the end of the story – offering a space for new bands to upload and share their stuff – sounds like it could also leave him open to a good shafting just like the ones people like Ed and Chad have been on the receiving end of.
If a new band upload their music onto Muxtape, then get signed by a major at a later date; where will that leave Justin Ouellette apart from bending over with his pants down? Poor guy.
Toad – are any of your Johnny Flynn mp3s still up? If so, better taken them down because it looks like Universal are clearing the internet of his tunes. I had a post deleted today containing a Flynn mp3 from TWO YEARS AGO, from a free CD I picked up in Rough Trade. Long, long before Universal even knew he existed. And obviously long after the actual mp3 was taken down.
I also got my Welcome To Our TV Show post deleted which contained one of Johnny’s songs, which was sent to me by Jeremy Warmsley who recorded the track in his own living room! I fear for my other JF posts now.
I wouldn’t mind so much if the ‘guilty’ posts were a fair cop, but none of them on my blog have been so far. But a fair and rational approach is not what we’d expect now, would it?
I really must return to that aborted attempt to move TDG to self-hosted WordPress.
Clearly, then, on this evidence, there must be something in all these guys’ contracts which allow the majors to claim ownership of their entire back catalogue, regardless of where, when & by who it was recorded. & if there is something in the contracts then the bands must be aware & therefore must be held accountable (or, at the very least, expect to be held accountable).
But, also, where the fuck does that actually leave the likes of Welcome To Our TV Show? Universal doesn’t own that (does it?!), so they must be in the same breach of copyright by hosting any files/footage.
This is genuinely going fucking doolally & I fear a dark future for blogs.
Well, it’s downright nuts. What happens to any and every live recording, session, radio appearance, anything by any band? I am pretty sure that Tim or WtOTS could actually challenge that DMCA successfully, but to do so puts you in a very dangerous place, should you be ruled against.
DC, Tim, you must have band friends who you can ask about this, in terms of contracts being offered and what tends to be in them. I will see what I can dig up. Personally, I think it’s very, very unlikely. My bet is that it is an over-zealous search bot (either electronic, or some retarded work experience junior lawyer) who simply finds any links to Johnny Flynn mp3s and fires off a DMCA warning. They are incentivised to err on the side of carnage rather than reason, and if they scare off a few bloggers in the process they’ll probably be pleased.
That’s Archive.org fucked, then; Daytrotter, Black Cab, etc. too, if this flails about any more wildly. Suspect grammar, but fuck it.
I’ll ask a few people & see what they’re willing to give up re: contract details. Anni Rossi has recently signed to 4AD, so I’ll quiz her on it. O, we have an interview with her on this Wednesday’s show, by the way, which is very nice & might help you decide a bit more on whether you like her – 5there’s some new stuff from her new LP being played.
We also have an interview with Those Dancing Days the following week, then the week after that we one with Pelle Carlberg, Tim & Sam’s Tim & The Sam Band with Tim & Sam & The Kabeedies, then (we hope) the week after that Ida Maria, then the week after that we have a ton of interviews from the Swn festival. It’s gonna be a busy 2 months.
Well I think I am going to just cut my ties with famous music – fuck them, quite frankly.
Everyone who sends me an email is getting a set of terms & conditions to which they must agree before I will work with them – I promise to take anything down they don’t like, if they promise not to resort to DMCA without contacting me personally first, to remove anything they don’t like. I am not so desperate to interact with famous bands and music that I don’t think this blog would be just as much fun to write if I boycotted them altogether.
How about this?
Unless I’m mistaken, record companies buy an artist’s work, i.e. the music as written down on manuscript paper along with any lyrics.
Therefore if they own the song in a manner in which it can be printed on paper, don’t they then retain the right to all recorded and published performances of it?
I think that’s why you have to obtain permission to publish a cover version of someone else’s song.
I hope I’m wrong, and I certainly could be – I’m adding this up in my head as I type… but a cold chill just went down my spine.
Yes, Dylan, that’s about it – they buy up the publishing rights, which pretty much covers everything.
Also, apparently unless songs are copyrighted by another label, then when a band signs to someone then everything they have done reverts to their label, to prevent them cleaning up with a ‘Demos’ release if they get famous.
I refer you to this recent comment on the Don’t Be Evil thread, from someone who knows these things.
Indeed…fuck them and the horse the road in on.
Why “let” them drown in their own greed, when WE can drown THEM?! xD
Do unto others before they do unto you, thats what I say. >;P