This is a little dedication going out to those who voted for Prop 8, 2 or 102 in various states. Or those moaning that they don’t like Obama (don’t get me wrong, I do…I wish he was better in a few places but certainly much better than Grumpy McSame) or didn’t vote at all, and are now kvetching about it being the same old same old.

And especially those who think that civil rights are all separate, they won’t fight for yours cos of self-interest or religion and don’t believe that unity and a common front and acceptance of others than them is worth fighting for.

Because You’re Stupid (by the San Francisco Mime Troupe)

Ok going to try and cool it on that other little voting spree, but you don’t get off lightly.

Read this blog post at Rude Pundit for why exactly opposing gay marriage is just screwed up – especially if you create precedence-making rights-restrictions to do it (can anyone saw straw man? Cue that old ‘they came for the homosexuals and they did nothing..’ spiel)

And it’s not just California; apparently I seem to have missed that Arizona and Florida have got into the act by pre-empting this ever possibly happening on their books. Cos you know, it could, not that anyone has yet. How paranoid (and phobic) is that?

But of course my lifestyle choice is the end of the world, I’m Satan’s sperm, blah blah blah. Whatever. Haven’t you got some ditzy Alaskan pitbull to go worship as a false idol or something? Or even a large cow on Wall Street?

I’d like to think doing an own goal on the Net is known as doing a Metallica; like being Dooced, it’s where you go against your own fans (as with Metallica and Napster, and recently having a go at bloggers daring to write about them). But that’s restricted to aging non-technical metal leather blokes right? WRONG.

Let me tell you a story:

There’s an unsigned rock band in Scotland, they’ve got a buzz around them, mostly created around demos pushed around the internet with the band’s permission. They do an interview with a blogger, who posts some of the said demos with the band’s permission. The band becomes a hot ticket as part of all this attention, and signs with a major label. So everyone’s happy then? Band have got big deal, blogger and others who caught on early got the scoops, the fans got the demos and are likely to buy the LP to hear the final tracks and others. All butterflies, yellow brick roads, unicorns and fluffy kittens?

Nope.

What actually happened was over a week ago the blogger, Ed from 17seconds got a DMCA takedown via Google/Blogger from Columbia, for an interview done before Glasvegas, the band, signed with them. The kicker? Well the tracks weren’t even available anymore. And originally were there with the band’s permission (implicit or otherwise, they were posted free at their site I think); when they owned all the rights, anyway, as they were then unsigned.

What this reveals is the utter stupidity (and doing a Metallica-ness, damn need to work on those verbs) of Google, Columbia (aka Sony BMG), Glasvegas and the DMCA. Google for pulling stuff without question – like Prince does with NPG Productions on YouTube, using the DMCA like confetti even when he doesn’t own the rights – Columbia for obviously doing a standard ‘buy everything’ deal with Glasvegas, and then strangely infuriating the fans and bloggers who put the band in the charts by regarding their initial promotional support as reason for litigation, Glasvegas for doing what bands like the Clash did before them and sign with $$$s in their eyes not realising probably what complete CONtrol means and probably not caring about the people who got them there, and DMCA evil piece of litigation that made this whole sad sorry state of affairs possible (apparently right or wrong the offending piece has to be taken down for 10-14 days? Is that true? If so, that is really a chilling effect).

Now where does it leave us? There seems to be one of the periodic crackdowns atm – Teenage Kicks have been threatened also, although that was the Baitles who tbh are like Prince litigious as feck. And no-one wants defends the rights to post ‘illegal music’ do they?

What tends to be less said is that these are less than ‘illegitimate’ bloggers in most cases, they’ve got the go-ahead, the contacts etc – and still get hassle even after being told it’s OK. So the official route is no less difficult, but ‘legit’ or not the record labels and their pluggers and marketers depend on these blogs in part to promote their music – they court them, as they do with DJs and remixers with acapellas and instrumentals, they lure them with the latest tracks. It’s no suprise, there isn’t a darkened back door where these ‘demo’ or pre-release MP3s are leaking out like fleeing rats; the record labels GIVE THEM to the blogs. Or the bands, or the marketing departments, or managers, or agents.

So hence irony of turning around and biting the hand that feeds you.

What to do? Well what about this – goto the Glasvegas Myspace page. Befriend them. Post a message pointing to 17seconds or the Don’t be Evil post. Then unfriend them

Tell your friends not to buy Glasvegas’s album and/or download or give them a copy until Ed or someone hears back. In fact fuck it boycott all Sony BMG if you want (who due to a contact I used to have used to be quite cool about all this, regularly releasing tracks for remix and review, unlike another frequent offender EMI who I’m glad to see are going down the pan May they rot in hell. They caused my own Cease and Desist – ooh remember them? How quaint they seem now – but anyway it’s sad to see Sony BMG join that cabal of stupidity).

Because I’m sure, Glasvegas being a Glaswegian band might not like being asked whether they are men or whether they are mice. Or that they are just now Columbia’s prison bitches…and might see these messages and respond. Doubtful, but one can try.

One thing that irks me about Apple (only one thing? everyone cries, well the ones reading my blogs anyways!) is that they like to be portrayed as the victim, the lone tiny company against a world of big blue corporates. Especially when journalists cover news stories about Apple.

Well I have news for you – Apple is a large corporate, iPod one of the world’s biggest products, and iTunes is probably the biggest music store in the world – selling billions of tracks a year. So I when I hear the news that poor Apple can’t continue the iTunes Store for want of a dime – well 6 cents – I call BULLSHIT on that. But it’s interesting that quite a lot of the media and blogosphere has followed the David vs Goliath on this, but sadly the wrong Goliath.

What I can gather is that unlike how it’s being presented, Apple is playing it’s strong-arm tactics again – those with long memories will remember that for many months after the launch of iTunes Uk/Europe top seling acts such as White Stripes and Prodigy were not on iTunes. This is because Beggars Group, which XL Records is a part, couldn’t come to an agreement with Apple, with Apple paying the indie group less than the Big 4 major record companies in iTunes in the US….now being the world’s biggest go-to online store wields a lot of clout; and surprise surprise again comes out the petulant child in Apple wanting to take away their toys.

What actually is happening? Well no it’s not big industry fat-cats, it’s not greedy record companies, it’s the royalty collecting agency National Music Publishers Agency (kind of like the RIAA of publishers, but I think less evil unless you had a guitar tab site, then they are) wanting to increase the online royalty payments for it’s members – the members are publishing agencies. Now explaining the arcane publishing system for a Sun reader is not easy, or even you, the more intelligent Radio Clash reader, but I’ll try.

When a track is written and released it has mechanical copyrights (rights) – ie. the right to create CDs/vinyl etc – and publishing rights – the right to literally print the score of the work, if the act/artist has a publishing deal (most do, it’s like Music 101 before even getting a record deal). The publishing rights are important because through ‘publishing’ a work then other artists can cover it, and the songwriter can earn royalties such as those from covers, sale of tracks and sale of sheet music – which tends to be an important and steady source of income for most groups or artists, if they write their own material. So publishing companies sort out the legal stuff and the reclaimation of those royalties, when a track is sold.

So what’s happening here is the NMPA is asking for more money, now when iTunes Music Store started they worked out a deal based on the 1997 deal for CDs (11 years ago!) and it not being a big industry then, everyone complied…now iTunes MS is so massive, it’s probably fair that the songwriters should get the same for selling a CD than selling online, which both are being renegotiated now (and probably brought in line with each other).

So rather than ‘Apple gets shafted by EVIL RECORD COMPANIES!’ it’s actually more like ‘Apple refuses to give songwriters (you know, the ones that create the songs you listen to?) more money’. And we are talking an increase from 9 cents to 15 cents here – tbh if Apple’s profit margin is only 6 cents a track as the retailer, then I’d be very worried for Apple as a business (typically a physical record store takes 50% or more of the price of a CD, so I doubt Apple is taking less than that – with less physical overheads (shops, stores, staff) -EDIT: actually apparently Apple takes 29 cents per track – a third – with 61 cents being the record company according to the Guardian article linked above…)

So who then is being greedy here?

It sure as hell isn’t the songwriters, I mean if they were attacking the record companies I’d say be my guest, but publishers and songwriters seems a really small (but probably more bullyable) target.

Maybe the ‘Brick’ is to throw through the windows of the NMPA?

UPDATE: Sadly the Copyright Judges caved and backed down. it’s not usual I’m for ‘industry’ getting more money, but if it’s the songwriters benefiting and not some A&R wanker, or record company exec, then hell yeah. They write the music I love.

Are you looking at me?, originally uploaded by BinaryApe.

No2ID and Open Rights Group are doing a Fear Not Freedom day on the 11th of October. Those in the UK – they need your pictures of the surveillance state!

Those of you outside the UK might not know there is the biggest density of CCTV cameras here in the whole world…and with the new yet STUPID ID coming in attacking migrant workers, it’s just Nanny State 1984.

I’ll try and take some pictures locally over the new few days – not hard since there are so many cameras everywhere now, entryphones and card entry systems…

Here�s how you can help:

1. Spot something that embodies the UK�s wholesale transformation into the surveillance society/database state. Subjects might include your local CCTV camera(s), or fingerprinting equipment in your child�s school library
2. Snap it
3. Upload it to Flickr and tag it �FNFBigPicture� – please use an Attribution Creative Commons license*
4. That�s it!

*We need you to license it this way because we want to give the image to newspapers to run on the day.