Song, by Toad

Hmm, nothing like a really depressing news story to start the day, even one that has been in the pipeline for some time. From the Guardian:

Illegal downloaders to get warning letter in government clampdown

Ah, splendid, just what we needed. This is, I think it is fair to say, a bit of a disaster. I am not a fundamentalist freeloader though, so my opposition to this particular approach is not entirely based upon opposition to the principle itself – not entirely.

Anyone with any sense will surely agree that the idea of government essentially mandating the eavesdropping on personal communications is pretty dubious to begin with. The fact that they are mandating it without the recourse to warrants or whatever the UK equivalent of probable cause might be is downright disturbing. And amazingly, this is the least of my objections to this deal, because with the rise in encrypted torrent traffic, the spying can be overcome with relative ease, so fuck them and their snooping.  But the internet is not just about communication, it is also a marketplace, so the argument doesn’t apply entirely that neatly.

No, the bit that really, really worries me is what amounts to the outsourcing of law enforcement to unaccountable bodies. When I objected to the privatisation of healthcare and education it was on a fairly straightforward basis: these services are supposed to be run entirely for the benefit of the ‘customer’. They are crucial and their presence and their health benefits the nation as a whole, so they should fall under the umbrella of government, it’s that simple. If you want to push it further than that, I think there is something fucking sinister about introducing the profit motive to the healing process. Do you want your doctor to have his commission in mind when he decides whether to prescribe you a massive run of anti-depressants or just tell you to get a little exercise, try and take your work less seriously and spend more time with your family? Or how about when teaching your little rugrats about something contentious like, say, political history?

Well this one goes a step further. In the Iraq war one of the most appaling developments was the massive use of ‘private defence contractors’, which is an obvious euphemism for mercenaries, who were completely rogue. Not only were they not subject to the laws of the nation they had invaded, but they have also been entirely excused from having to obey the laws of the United States, the people holding their chain. It’s fucking unbelievable – they are completely and utterly unaccountable. If you want to read more about this particular disgrace, pick any of the following articles.

So how is this relevant to this particular situation? Well basically the British government is outsourcing law enforcement within the British Isles to companies who have no accountability to the electorate. ISPs have already shown excessive enthusiasm to clamp down on people who actually use their networks. This is the ultimate free lunch argument, one more often employed by insurance companies: we are happy for you to pay for a service, however if there is any chance of you actually needing to use it, then we will be very unhappy indeed. Basically, they want rid of large data transfers, like movie and music sharing, because it burdens their networks and they can no longer get away with short-changing their consumers.

Add to that the fact that major media conglomerates hate it because it is an interaction that they do not own an can be abused in a manner that costs them money, and you can see where we are heading with this. The problem is that I have no faith whatsoever in anyone’s willing to tell the difference between legitimate, legal sharing and illegal sharing, which I will happily admit is bad and needs to be dealt with. Not like this though. Increasingly, small media outlets, and even some of the bigger ones, like record labels and DIY filmmakers are using filesharing as a method of distributing their work – of trying to gain a popular foothold without having to go through the onerous process of seeking approval from more traditional media.

Are Virgin fucking Media going to bother differentiating? I would put money on the answer being no. I would also put money on them basically threatening the living daylights out of anyone who seeds multiple torrents, irrespective of content and that is a big problem. I personally anticipate an attack, not on illegal activity, but on the whole bloody kit ‘n’ caboodle. ISPs hate it because it makes them work for their money, Big Media hate it because it excludes them, and the government has just given these two odious entities carte fucking blanche to do their level best to get rid of the whole shooting match.

Basically, in the worst case, which it is not entirely unrealistic to expect, the ISPs will simply be so trigger happy at shutting down filesharers of all stripes that it gradually undermines the whole enterprise. More annoyingly, and more likely, is that large companies will simply wave about legal threats, much the same way they are starting to do on YouTube, and simply have anything turned off which they don’t like, and this is the crux of the problem. All that will be needed will be an allegation, and there will be no way to challenge it, no right of appeal, not because people don’t want to or don’t have grounds, but because very few individuals would have the courage to take on a massive corporation in court.  Basically, as far as I can see, this brings an end to the concept of due process in this area, despite how many times the RIAA have been humiliated in court, when their complaints have actually been required to cut the legal mustard.

Now that requirement will vanish. Bank charges are a classic example of unaccountable corporate entities acting outside the law with almost total impunity – it tooks years of crazy fees before enough momentum was built to finally challenge the banks in court. Their only downfall was that their greed eventually got the better of them. But with the RIAA in some cases extorting $222,000 for sharing 24 files people will, as with the banks, simply obey. Why wouldn’t you when it could cost you your house? No right of independent adjudication, no right of appeal, no capacity to resist, no due fucking process.

I am reminded of America’s laughably empty government catchphrase: “by the people, for the people”. If things like law enforcement are not in any way accountable to ‘the people’ what chance is there of their ever acting ‘for the people’?

Billy Bragg – NPWA
Calexico – The Guns of Brixton

After my difficulties with the Web Sherriff last week a few people left some angry posts about them being bastards and so on, and I kind of got stuck in myself, accusing them of living in the 20th Century, which is fair enough I think.

However, I think it’s time someone actually stood up for Web Sheriff.  Wipe the coffee off your monitor, yes, I am serious.  Now, I am not stepping back from accusations that they are foolish dinosaurs desperately clinging onto an outmoded way of doing things and actually are entirely failing to protect the bands they represent.

But in their favour, unlike the RIAA before them, who genuinely are a malevolent bunch of dishonest, vicious whores, they actually don’t do anything all that bad apart from get in touch and ask you to take songs down.  Now this is frustrating as hell, and it winds me up because I take this blog quite personally, and having one of their notices on your site is a bit like finding an uninvited guest in your living room and makes you react angrily.  But I have received similar emails from managers of small bands like The Dodos and The 1900s and complied immediately as well.  Now, these emails were better worded and didn’t carry a thinly disguised legal threat, which helped, but the upshoot is the same: please take that song down as we don’t want you giving it away for free.

I even, ludicrously, got one from a group no-one has heard of, asking me to take their song down.  Manchester’s Modernaires are a terrific group who I’d love to feature more of, but the last time I did I was contacted (by their manager I think – I don’t really remember) informing me that they had signed some sort of release deal with a label or someone and that this deal included internet exclusivity.  Now for a group that small to effectively forbid internet word of mouth advertising is, in my opinion, completely and utterly insane.  Stupid, blinkered, self-defeating, and so utterly indicative of someone, somewhere completely failing to understand how the internet works, that it made me laugh and cry at the same time.  But I took the songs down – of course I did, why wouldn’t I?

Now the Modernaires scenario arises, I would guess, from the label they are dealing with desperately trying to scrabble for more pageviews.  There is an attitude at the moment that pageviews constitute clout, and to a degree I would agree with this, and that for all I don’t have much capital here at Song, by Toad, the perception is that I in some way ‘own’ a particular audience.  I have my doubts about this, but I am guessing that this bunch simply want to drive traffic their way, and have decided on a stupid way of going about it.

But if you think they’re being totally unreasonable, consider this: as a blogger plugging, say, someone’s new 7″ single would you agree with me if I decided not to make the single itself available for download as part of the review?  I wouldn’t do it myself, because I would want to encourage people to go and buy the thing.  In the days when most people no longer have record players this may not be a particularly worthwhile stance, but I would feel wrong making it available.  So I am not entirely disagreeing with the substance of the Modernaires’ management, just the way they actually put similar instincts to my own into practise.

In the case of the REMs and Ranconteurs of this world, the statement is more directly dismissive: we do not want or need your publicity, your discussion or your interest.  Fair enough.  Maybe it’s more nuanced than that: as much as we appreciate your publicity, discussion and interest, it comes with the inherent (debatable, but not spurious) drawback of making almost our entire record available for nothing on the internet, and we want people to buy the records instead.  In the case of the Dodos, 1900s, and the New Pornographers, when they have contacted me (the latter via Web Sheriff) they have all said ‘we would prefer it if just these particular songs were made available as preview songs’, which I actually think is completely reasonable.

In the case of REM and the Raconteurs, there was no such thing, although there were other preview options available via Facebook streams and so on, but if I am being inflexible in terms of how I post music – no streams or other shit like that – it is a bit hypocritical to pull a face that they are being equally inflexible in how they publicise their music.

And lets not be disingenuous here, there is a perfectly reasonable argument of exploitation to be made.  When I post songs by The Raconteurs, Radiohead, REM, whatever, my hits do increase.  As the pageviews are the only currency in which I can really trade, this means that it can be argued that I am using their big name to increase the value of my own enterprise whilst offering very little in return.  As I said at the time, they don’t need my review in particular, and neither do you.  There are millions out there.

They have no obligation to value what we are doing here, and I am not stupid enough to think that what we do is in any way a benefit for groups of that size.  They are well beyond needing the approval or even acknowledgement of anyone at this level.  Even small groups have no obligation to want to be on these pages – that’s just arrogant.  I am writing about music because I like it, for my benefit, not entirely for theirs so why should they feel any obligation to participate?

As I said, the malevolent tone and fairly explicit threat of Web Sheriff requests in the middle of a small time, personal website are jarring and a little scary.  They are making it quite clear that they could sue if they wanted to, and as a result we react with understandable hostility.  But they aren’t making requests that other, smaller enterprises do not and what they are requesting may be considered misguided, but it is not entirely unreasonable.

Effectively a great many sites like this and audiences like us are using blogs and small sites as away of actively turning our backs on the (capitals!) Music Industry Behemoth.  Groups like REM and The Raconteurs are part of that behemoth, almost by default by virtue of their size and popularity.  So if we are turning our backs on their world then it is a little bit churlish to take exception when they in turn do not feel obliged to grovellingly accept what crumbs of approval we actually do disdain to toss in their direction.

As to the songs, well I’m not sure how these are at all relevant, but they have been knocking around my inbox for a bit and I thought it was time someone heard them.

Teitur – Catherine the Waitress
Tobias Froberg – Blissfull
Tafra – I’m Sorry Brakne-Hoby