Apple/U2: A Downhill Battle

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I take back my endorsement of these two, it was borderline anyway. Francis Hwang took the special edition ipod, uploaded Negativland's albums, changed the box, stated it was unauthorized and put it up for sale on Ebay as a work of art meant to comment on the 1991 case U2's label brought against Negativland for parodying Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, making "an example" of Negativland and outlawing the song. The comment was also about free culture, specifically mash-ups, showing the irony of putting U2 on a device meant to connote artistic freedom when U2 should stand for exactly the opposite. The bidding was up to $455. when Apple made a stink and Ebay pulled it. Most lawyers feel there was no copyright violation here, stringent as those laws are, I thought we still had a right to parody and artistic comment in this country. Silly me, I guess I was wrong. Is that right reserved for Bono and all the promo Jobs can buy? As it turns out, the GC at Ebay is a friend of mine, so I'll try to find out what went on here. If they are just buckling to Jobs, that's pretty outrageous.

Hwang intended the profits to go to yet another fledgling advocacy group called Downhill Battle (what an optimistic group - I would definitely classify this battle as uphill). The link to it is above. Anyway, Downhill Battle had a great piece from the guy who produced for Nirvana showing a typical record deal where 250k albums get sold (what is typical are the terms, not the sales, which sounds very high, to me). After grossing 3M, over a year of ball-breaking work, the band members get about 4k each. Who gets the rest? Guess? And you know what the labels do with that money? Spend it in DC. Who pays for that? Music lovers. In other words, if you love music and are willing to pay for it on records, you are essentially paying someone to go screw you over; do everything possible to keep music from you unless you pay and pay and pay. When I was active in the anti-nuclear movement, I did know people who were into civil disobedience, and it does have its place. Last night at the Billboard's they awarded OutKast for most LEGAL downloads, they should be accounting for all downloads, especially those willing to risk their own necks to apply pressure to those who want to inhibit very important freedoms. The legal downloads account for well under 1% of all downloads.

Anyway, this little expose also goes into these labels MO: it's just like the tobacco & alcohol companies, they pick someone young, that the bands will trust, to face these bands, he goes into the whole psychology of it; the control, the "we'll make you a star", ego stuff. Check out Damn Yankees, it's the deal with the devil.