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I apologize if this has already been covered here, but it seemed
appropriate in light of recent discussions.
-nick
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 07:32:28 EDT
From: HAPSLOVE@aol.com
To: droneon@listserv.no-fi.com
Subject: negativland news
Maybe this will get some discussion going during the current slack period.
Gary Koehl
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEGATIVLAND STOPPED DEAD (see also
http://www.negativland.com/riaa/index.html)
Contacts: mailto:mark@negativland.com (Mark Hosler, Negativland)
mailto:hrosen@riaa.com (Hilary Rosen, President and CEO,
Recording Industry Assocation of America)
mailto:ray.thomas@rtmark.com (Ray Thomas, RTMARK)
The career of recording artists Negativland may be over.
Negativland's CD plant has told the group that it will no longer
manufacture their CDs, and Negativland has so far been unable to find
another factory willing to do so. The reason, according to Mark Hosler
of Negativland, is the RIAA's recent guidelines to compact disk pressing
plants, which inform the plants that they risk huge lawsuits if they
manufacture CDs with even one uncleared sample.
Negativland uses uncleared samples extensively, and consider this to be
Fair Use under the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act. Still, the group has had to
establish their own label because other labels consider Negativland
music too legally risky to distribute. With this new offensive by the
RIAA, CD factories feel they cannot afford the risk either, which
effectively silences Negativland.
Many bands besides Negativland--including Beck, Beastie Boys, Public
Enemy, Nine Inch Nails, etc.--routinely use uncleared samples, but only
Negativland, Illegal Art (which with RTMARK's help produced
Deconstructing Beck), and a few others do so openly, and as an essential
part of their esthetic.
According to Ray Thomas of RTMARK, whose Intellectual Property mutual
fund (http://rtmark.com/projectlist.html) is managed by Negativland,
"The industry saw how much bad publicity Geffen and BMG suffered for
trying--unsuccessfully--to clamp down on Deconstructing Beck. They
realized public opinion would not let them get away with such
high-handed tactics, so now they're cleverly targeting production, which
has a much lower public profile than distribution, but is even more
important. The RIAA is putting CD manufacturers in the position of
policing what is and is not acceptable art, and is thus very effectively
practicing censorship."
The problem is a fundamental misunderstanding of copyright law,
according to Thomas. "The music industry says copyright law protects
artists. But copyright law as applied to samples serves only to protect
corporate money. As the recording industry forces this issue to a head,
we hope that the facts will finally become clear, and that the
groundwork will be laid to change copyright law so that it benefits
artists and consumers, not corporations and capital."
Negativland's full press release, including e-mail addresses of many
RIAA employees, as well as a response by Hilary Rosen, President and CEO
of the RIAA, can be found at http://www.negativland.com/riaa/index.html.
RTMARK was established in 1991 to further anti-corporate activism, in
some cases by channelling funds from donors to workers for sabotage of
corporate products. Recent and upcoming acts of RTMARK-aided subversion
are documented on RTMARK's web site, http://rtmark.com/.