Well what with all the file sharing and like it must be hitting sales.

What? No? Who says? The British Phonographic Industry? The same ones that wrote the disconnection clause in the Digital Economy Act? Fed spiked and overdramatic info to MPs that influenced the debate?

And the ones that went loggerheads with MI5 and MI6 over serious security concerns (which could cause a lot more damage than a few people download an MP3s – all of which incidentally doesn’t seem to be impacting sales, more the opposite.

Physical               Digital                                               Total Sales

2002                       43.9m                   -                              43.9m

2003                       30.8m                   -                              30.8m

2004                       26.5m                   5.7m                      32.2m

2005                       21.4m                   26.4m                    47.8m

2006                       13.9m                   53.0m                    66.9m

2007                       8.6m                     77.9m                    86.5m

2008                       4.9m                     110.2m                 115.1m

2009 YTD              1.6m                      116.0m                 117.6m

(BPI’s own quoted figures for singles sales. Source: The Official Charts Company.)

Eh? So who/what are they trying to ‘protect’ if they doing so well? Fergal & co. are just greedy, that’s what I think.

…by way of GYBO and a lot of other mashup/bootleg peeps including interview with a lot of the US bootleggers!

Liam McGranahan’s dissertation “Mashnography: Creativity, Consumption, and Copyright in the Mashup Community” as part of his doctorate from Brown University is available here, a ‘mashnography’ study into the ethnography of the bootleg scene. BTW timbearland = me, before my ‘fingertrouble’ namechange (I’ve also been on GYBO as ‘beardie weirdie’, ‘timbearcub, ‘instamatic’, ‘DJNoNo’ and about a million aliases, just to confuse the historians and dissertation writers out there ).

Slightly surprised since it is a ethnographic study that focuses on GYBO as much as Bootie that there aren’t more interviews with some of us original 2002 GYBO crowd, or indeed McSleazy (we are all quoted from GYBO threads interestingly). Also could cause a few stirs re: quoted comments about some people’s love/hate of GYBO (4 comments? really Partyben? Although I suspect that said Eminem mix is the one DJNoNo purloined the ‘Lose Control’ acapella via LOL…) but a pretty interesting read – includes a lot of the mashup politics, internal schisms, aims and ideas – not really news totally to me, but then I live it don’t I?

Although I disagree with the analysis of one of my writings:

“timbearland: ‘I don’t think you’d find many people here having a problem
with what you’ve said. I mean I’ve even worked for Universal Music and I
agree with you. They seem to usually be one of the better ones, so unusual
if they are doing a Warners. Sony BMG seems best and most flexible,
EMI and Warners historically the worst. UMG are usually in the middle.’

It is possible that certain record companies are more permissive of mashups than others,
but there is no discernable pattern. Rather, major labels appear to issue C&D orders based
simply on what catches the notice of the legal department. This may be the result of
media attention, Internet buzz, the objections of a sampled artist, or just random luck.”

I KNOW this to be the case – but it’s the problem of quoting me during a conversation with my peers without past knowledge – I wouldn’t have re-stated the backstory to this info for the 50th time as a long-term GYBO person most people there have heard it before. I’ve spoken to someone within Sony BMG who confirmed that they send out white labels and promos with acapellas and promote DJ remixes as a sort of focus group – at least within the RnB division they did. I know other labels who’ve paid for white label mashups to be pressed. There is a double standard there – some of the labels DO court unofficial remixes and mashups, others don’t, or in the case of EMI put out a Mashed compilation whilst CD’ing most of the mashup community, without understanding the irony. Universal according to one of their staff are ‘pretty clueless’ about the technology and not really aware enough of the internet to start throwing C&Ds around (until NirGaGa that is).

Coupled with the fact that of all the official and unofficial C&Ds out there, they are all mostly EMI, then Warners close by, then Universal – the NirGaGa one being a rare one – and then Sony. In fact only issue I ever had with Sony was ContentID restricting countries that could see a video on YouTube…compared to a C&D I got from EMI for using Kylie (where I had to do what Pilchard did and ‘duck and dive’ for a while) – this is positively benign! Sony being big in the interactive world, owners of ACID and also having a lot of hiphop/RnB/disco remix culture via BMG seem to in small part get it -as much as evil mega corps ever really get it.

That said, next week I’ll probably get a C&D from Sony, LOL.

Vote Them Out – Jeremy Hunt by Tim Baker / image by Andrew Harrison/PA. Feel free to share this, although I don’t own the image – if that’s a problem use the CC one below. Also feel free to use, remix and adapt my bits, they’re fully Creative Commons

After posting my LOOOOOONG list of MPs who voted for the now Digital Economy Act, I hoped some angry geek would code something up much better – well they have – Vote Them Out. Go and check if your MP abstained, voted for or against.

For a full list got the wonderfully titled They Work For The BPI. It includes an interesting message for voters in the SW Surrey election as well as the irksome Jeremy Hunt, apparently the Labour candidate Richard Mollet works for the BPI as Director of Public Affairs.

In fact I’m more likely to be sworn in as the Pope of the Holy Roman Catholic Church than a Labour candidate being voted in there – I used to live there, and as much as I could tell you hair-raising tales about local Lib Dems, that’s your best bet if you want to get rid of ol’ Hunty.

I’m not affiliated with VoteThemOut but as I am a banner designer by trade (I keep quiet about it understandably) I thought I’d use my powers for good for once and design these nice banners for all of youse. Free to share, although the top one with Jeremy Hunt is without permission from PA so depends how butch you’re feeling on the copyfight (I think I’d get into trouble, not you -Shephard Fairey style!). One below of ‘Twitter Tsar’ (insert pertinent revolutionary comment about Tsar Nicholas here) and party drone Kerry McCarthy is Creative Commons.

I have them as PSD files if you need other sizes, or maybe I could make them for you…just ask.

Vote Them Out – Kerry McCarthy, released as Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (same as the image by Paul Simpson – which does not mean he endorses this campaign nor share my views – I have to make that clear cos of the license – he might do, but I don’t know as I’ve not been in contact.-I don’t have to, that’s the wonder of Creative Commons and the free sharing of files and creative work for you – unlike what this act is trying to do)

The Digital Economy Bill with it’s terrible 3 strikes clause (and copyright police quick amendment backdoor) is being rushed through Parliament – it doesn’t look good BUT it’s 3rd reading is today with the final vote at 9pm.

So still time to contact your MP via WritetoThem http://www.writetothem.com and ask them to not rush the Bill through and that more debate is needed, and thus to oppose the 3rd reading. Or call, I forget the way you can find out that info – Google is your friend (not often you say that, but…)

Here’s mine – Glenda is for the bill, btw:

Dear Glenda Jackson,

Thanks for your previous responses re: the Digital Economy Bill. I know your views differ to mine, but I hope you share my concern that the legislation is being rushed through Parliament in the ‘wash-up’ period. I think this is a mistake for all sides, since this bill has far reaching and probably unintended consequences – which I think will rebound on Britain’s status as one of the economic and creative digital centres of the world.

Also the fact that the BPI were allowed to insert this clause re: disconnection verbatim disturbs me - isn’t this the sort of lobby politics and backroom decisions we’re trying to get away from?

I would like you to oppose the third reading – obviously not because you’re against the bill, but to allow it to be properly debated and seen to be part of a democratic process with the future government (and actually I suspect will have more effect; being seen as not a rushed leftover from the previous & treated with more respect) rather than pass an ill-formed bill which will become the 21st century version of the Dangerous Dogs Act!

For if the clauses are still valid and correct – the new government should also pass it, surely?

So please turn down the 3rd reading, I think this act is going to come back to haunt all of us as is.

thanks,

Tim Baker

You might have noticed the little Electronic Frontier Foundation and Open Rights Group banners that have been at the bottom right of this blog for years…why do I support them? Well for one, although I’m not in the States I support the EFF because currently they are fighting for you and I to be able to do video mashups and post them legally to sites like YouTube without getting those infantile (as Lessig pointed out in my last post they do treat you like you’re in school, the Myspace ‘copyright quiz’ is even more offensive) DMCAs.

Also I support them because they are fighting the likes of Apple and co. who are creating anti-competitive closed systems and thus being usually bad for the consumer (AppleVangelists and ‘Geniuses’ should read their rather damning revelation of the AppStore legals that Apple doesn’t want you to see – All Your Appz Belong To Uzz indeed) and fighting DMCA and ACTA which is probably behind the evil Digital Economy Bill, and fighting for free speech and net neutrality online.

Open Rights Group does a similar job but with a UK/European stance – there are things EFF can’t/won’t touch that are specifically UK (the aforementioned DEBill for example, ORG has been campaigning about that). It’s a double handed attack, because what may go down in the US could pop up here, and vice versa. They also cover CCTV and ID card and other security worries where technology is possibly going to infringe on civil liberties and privacy – things that are more specific to the UK.

Pirate Party is also getting bigger here in the UK, I’m a member there too, although not been as involved as I’d like.

So whether you’re a mashup DJ, video remixer, developer, interactive artist, musician, web designer or just concerned about security and the (mis)use of technology and laws around it, I strongly recommend punting some money and support over to EFF and ORG, amongst many others…because they really are fighting for the digital freedoms you currently enjoy.

/soapbox out.