[rumori] NEGATIVLAND STOPPED DEAD (fwd)

Steev [rumori] NEGATIVLAND STOPPED DEAD (fwd)
Sun, 23 Aug 1998 23:47:31 -0700 (PDT) (00903970051, Pine.LNX.4.02.9808232346230.10179-100000ATflotsam.detritus.net)


for those of you not on rtmark's list, check this out, and,
if you havent seen the RIAA response to negativland, look it up on their
site (www.negativland.com)...

smh

Steev Hise, Technical Thug
steevAThise.org http://www.cyborganic.com/people/steev recycled art site: http://www.detritus.net -----------------------------------------------------------------
"A painter paints his picture on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence." -Leopold Stokowski, reprimanding a talkative audience
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 23:18:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: rtmark.ANNSERV <announceATrtmark.com> To: SWSNeg <steevATdetritus.net> Subject: NEGATIVLAND STOPPED DEAD

To unsubscribe, write mailto:removeATrtmark.com?subject=steevATdetritus.net, or reply with subject "remove".
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEGATIVLAND STOPPED DEAD (see also http://www.negativland.com/riaa/index.html) Contacts: mailto:markATnegativland.com (Mark Hosler, Negativland)
mailto:hrosenATriaa.com (Hilary Rosen, President and CEO,
Recording Industry Assocation of America)
mailto:ray.thomasATrtmark.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/.
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