Straight to Video
Rock Art Rock
See more in the Rock Art Rock gallery.
polls
Loading ...
Column: The Smoke-Filled Room
Geldof Lashes Out At BBC For Live Aid/Rebel Fund Report
This situation got uglier in a hurry, as if the original allegations weren’t ugly enough already. On March 4th, the BBC ran this report, in which BBC4 correspondent Martin Plaut claimed that his nine months of research amounted to credible evidence that the lion’s share of money raised by the monumental 1985 benefit concert Live Aid went to purchase arms for rebel militias. “I accumulated evidence from secret CIA reports. Former ambassadors supported the story Aregawi [Berhe] had told me,” Plaut reported. The story told by Aregawi Berhe was that 95% of the money went to guns, a claim just inflammatory enough to make its way around the web, including here at Crawdaddy!, which ignited some interesting debate in the comment section. Geldof spoke out in public, dismissing the claim and casting aspersions on the journalist’s sources. Another article came on the 8th, this time by Rageh Omaar of the Guardian UK, defending Plaut and reaffirming the credibility of his research. And now the Guardian has published a response by Geldof himself, in which the gloves come even more fully off.
A2IM to FCC: Net Neutrality Now!
[Via Hypebot] The Association of American Independent Music (A2IM) has taken the lead in the fight for net neutrality as it filed a brief with ye olde FCC, bolstering the case for a fair, free and open internet. The FCC has been weighing the facts for a while now as it prepares to formulate new policy regarding the internet and how much control the dominating web-providing companies ought to be able to exert. The FCC’s choices will have broad, sweeping effects on the independent music scene’s ability to perpetuate itself in the new media marketplace, and so it remains crucial that the A2IM and other organizations continue to be as vocal as possible. “Without the benefit of an open Internet, we may very well end up with another set of gatekeepers that determine who gets to play and at what cost,” the statement maintains.
The open letter substantiates its position with some strong facts and stats, and is well worth a look-see for those keeping up with the issue. Hypebot posted the statement in its entirety, although you can also find the statement and a wealth of other information on A2IM’s own site.
File-Sharer’s Lawyer Also Now Guilty of File-Sharing
[Via Ars Technica] Judge Gertner is really bringin’ the gavel down on those pesky file-sharing defendants, although their tactics aren’t always the wisest. The issue now is that the defense team, captained by Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, decided back in June to upload a bunch of the songs in question to his blog and make them available for download. For free. That’s called file-sharing, see, and that’s exactly the act at the root of this whole fandango.
Nesson is providing free legal representation to Joel Tenenbaum, who is the second person to fight the RIAA in court in the midst of its attempted wave of cracking down on illegal file-sharing. (The first was Jammie Thomas-Rasset, whose case is about to go into its third trial to decide what damages, if any, she’ll be required to cough up.) Nesson has acted as consultant on the Thomas-Rasset case, and is also preparing a class-action lawsuit against the RIAA to recoup the losses of all those who folded in fear without a trial, paying cumulative hundreds of thousands in settlement dollars.
Tenenbaum has been found guilty and liable for $675,000 in damages to the RIAA. Nesson and Tenenbaum argue that the actual, real-life number is closer to $20, and are fighting to keep the damage award close to something resembling actual damages. Then Nesson decided to post the songs for free download on his website. The judge asked why; Nesson wouldn’t answer; the plaintiffs filed a motion to “compel,” which means to force the defendants to reveal their reasoning, given that they had no apparent reason to refuse such a request. It costs money to file a motion to compel, and if you win the motion, you also automatically win reimbursement for the cost of filing. Nesson is now on the hook for those fees. read more
Former Ethiopian General Claims Live Aid Funds Were Spent on Arms
“We are talking about a disgruntled, exiled general,” Live Aid organizer and former Boomtown Rat Bob Geldof has responded, insisting, “It just didn’t happen.”
Contactmusic reports Geldof as responding to claims made by former Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front member Aregawi Berhe, who has stated that the majority of aid money was spent on weapons for Ethiopia’s rebel armies, at the behest of Meles Zenawi, who was then a rebel army leader and is currently Ethiopia’s prime minister. Berhe claims that Zenawi delegated 95% of funds to two different resistance groups, and only 5% to actual famine relief.
Was Live Aid actually some nefarious plan of Geldof’s to go global with “Boomtown” in a way we would never have suspected? Of course not. Was Live Aid, and various other international aid organizations, duped into funding Ethiopia’s rebel armies? To some extent, probably. But probably not to the extent that Berhe claims.
Live Aid was a major multi-venue concert event in 1985 that raised over $240m for famine relief in Ethiopia. Through groundbreaking live TV satellite links, the even connected truly amazingly huge concerts in London and Philadelphia, attracting 400 million viewers, across 60 countries. The performers were too numerous to list here, but included a glut of the biggest artists of all time. Dylan, Clapton, the Who, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Bowie, Queen, CSNY, Madonna, Elvis Costello, Duran Duran, and many more. Including… The Hooters!
What — you don’t remember the Hooters?! Come on! This video is just… I don’t know — painfully awesome? The Hooters were really in it to save the world. read more
FMC Re-Launches Musicians’ Health Insurance Survey
Back in September, we took a good, hard look at the health care crisis in the music community. The handy stat back then came from a survey conducted by the Future of Music Coalition in 2002; it was that 44% of working musicians lived without access to adequate health care, because they were either un- or under-insured. In part one of that investigation, we heard stories directly from musicians, and examined the widespread problem also with help from Alex Maiolo, a health insurance specialist who helps musicians navigate the insurance landscape through a free, non-profit, non-partisan program set by the FMC called HINT (Health Insurance Navigation Tool). In part two, we zoomed out a little, and examined the political situation at the time, offering a sort of glossary to help people understand what the power-holders are talking about, again with input from Alex Maiolo and other sources.
Welp, the political debate rages on. The hardliners in favor of the public option went all soft and squiggly; Obama’s timeline for achievement fell through the cracks of compromise and corruption, and now the Dems have lost they’re super-majority. Yep, it’s been real inspiring. But the fight’s far from over, and the more we can demonstrate the people’s needs and the people’s will, the more ammunition we might have in exacting actual change and winning politicians back into the fray. To that end, the FMC has embarked upon a follow-up survey of musicians regarding their health insurance status. Are you a musician? Are any of your friends or family members currently working musicians? If so, you might want to take the survey. The more we know about the situation, the better able we are to address it… So stand up and be counted!
Iranian Authorities Release “Disappeared” Music Journalist; Two Others Still Missing
Steve Ballinger of Amnesty International UK has reported (via the comment section of our own previous post on the matter) that Iranian authorities have released one of three journalists detained roughly two months ago and held in secrecy:
A bit of good news – Behrang Tonekaboni was released on bail on Sunday night (28 Feb). Still no news of Kayvan and Lily. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear more.
Steve Ballinger, Amnesty International UK
Tonekaboni was one of two music journalists seized by Iranian authorities in January from the offices of their monthly music journal Farhang va Ahang (the other was staff critic Kayvan Farzin). A third journalist, Lily Farhadpour (Tonekaboni’s mother) was detained in a raid at her home, where computers were also confiscated. The arrests appeared to be in keeping with the thousands of other arrests made in the crackdown on protests that erupted after the disputed Iranian presidential elections last June, however authorities have offered no information about these particular arrests, including why exactly they were busted or where they’re being kept.
Far too many of the Iranian government’s detainees have reported being tortured while in custody. Of course, one would be too many, but it’s been well more than one, and Amnesty International reports that since the disputed elections, “at least three died as a result of torture in the Kahrizak detention centre near Tehran.”
Amnesty’s online form for sending appeals to the Head of the Provincial Judiciary in Tehran and the Iranian Embassy in the UK to call for these journalists’ release is still up and active. Once again we urge everybody to visit amnesty.org.uk/behrang for details, and to send a message to the Iranian government that this shit is just plain fucked.
Morrissey Grants Classic Song to Help Tortured Rabbits
[Via TwentyFourBit} The Moz is at it again, doing everything he can to help the most helpless among us. His latest gesture comes in the form of granting one of his earliest and best loved solo singles, “Every Day is Like Sunday,” to score a video by international animal welfare organization Four Paws. The video is a cute little cartoon message that seeks to raise awareness of the suffering of rabbits in factory farms, which is pretty nightmarish, and which is scarcely described in the cute cartoon itself. The reality (which Four Paws has documented in other videos and research) is that, while battery cages for chickens have been banned in many countries (and a couple US states), the same practice in rabbit meat factories has gone ignored. As a result, 900 million cute little furry creatures are house so tightly together that they develop bone disorders, hurt themselves by chewing on the cages, occasionally turn to cannibalism and are driven otherwise insane by life under such circumstances. To top it off, their feces accumulate in mounds just beneath the cages, creating an atmosphere of gaseous, acidic ammonia that causes their eyes to swell and bleed. Mm, mm!
Defendant to RIAA: $675,000?! How ‘Bout a Jackson?
[Via Ars Technica]
The crusade to wrangle the RIAA’s preposterous file-sharing dough-grabs down to some semblance of actual damages continues. Joel Tenenbaum, the second defendant to take the RIAA to trial after Jammie Rasset-Thomas, has insisted via his lawyers that the $675,000 ruling against him is absurd, given that the only measurable damages he’s caused amounts to roughly $21 (which is how much the record companies would have profited had he purchased the 30 songs in question from iTunes).
Tenenbaum’s lawyer, Charles Nesson, as it happens, is a current associate and former professor of one Kiwi Camara, who has been defending Jammie Thomas in her similar but considerably more publicized trials. Aside from sharing notes on their respective cases, the two legal eagles are also gearing up for a class-action lawsuit against the RIAA, to recoup the disgraceful amount of money bilked out of thousands of other accused file-sharers by way of fear, intimidation, and quick-n-dirty out-of-court settlements. In the meantime, while Judge Nancy Gertner did issue a directed verdict of “guilty” in Tenenbaum’s case, she also had some tough words for the RIAA’s tactics, clearly sympathetic to the victims (the would-be plaintiffs in a class-action suit against the RIAA).
“As I said, it does not make sense, however, to fight them alone,” Gertner has stated. “It simply doesn’t make sense to fight them as an individual, per se, and to some degree you run the risk that the longer you litigate without really having a basis to do so, the longer you fight without having a basis to do so, the plaintiff’s legal fees go up and up. I can’t say this is a situation that is a good situation or a fair situation. It is, however, the situation.”
SongVest: A Depressing and Absurd New Industry Low
If only we were talking about this.
SongVest is a website that offers anyone with money the opportunity to purchase a portion of the rights to certain songs by big name artists. The purchases are sometimes lumped into packages that include facsimiles of original lyric sheets; authentic RIAA platinum album plaques; in the case of music-related book rights, your name can appear on future editions as “Associate Publisher.” SongVest’s motto: “Your favorite song. Don’t just love it. OWN IT.”
Oof. On the one hand — sure, it’s nice to find new ways of generating revenue for songwriters. On the other hand, do people really believe that for $1400, their name or any other part of them is somehow relevantly linked to the history or spirit of a given piece of music? If you really love a song, or have any deep appreciation for the transcendent human magic that is music, would it really be a thing of pride to sink your dirty green papery clutches into it? So far, SongVest has yet to sell any majority stake in a song, so, really, it’s just another bit of shwag in the form of bragging rights, perhaps, as well as an actual tiny cut of future royalties. The investment does not offer the chance to have a say in how the music is licensed in the future, or anything like that at all, so you couldn’t lay your money down in order to protect a song from disagreeable commercial licenses, for example. In fact it seems doubtful that anyone involved in any other phase of the song’s conception, history or business life will ever even know your name.
Except for the Christian rock band Stryper. Antimusic.com reports that there’s an impressive Stryper package up for auction, which includes not only 40% of songwriter Michael Sweet’s rights to the song “Alive”, but two lifetime VIP passes to Stryper shows, a private dinner for two with Michael Sweet, and… read more
Two Other Farhang va Ahang-Related Journalists Released By Iranian Authorities
by: Howard Wyman
Farzin and Farhadpour were arrested along with along with Behrang Tonekaboni (editor of Iranian music magazine Farhang va Ahang) for no stated reason, and were held in an undisclosed location. Tonekaboni was released earlier this month on $70,000 bail. There’s no other information on the details of the release of the other two, nor is it known how they were treated, where they were kept, or even why they were arrested.
It’s good news that all three are now free, however the amount that remains unknown seems frighteningly in correlation to the amount of power abused and unchecked in Iran. It’s likely that the three journalists were arrested on suspicion of activity related to the protests that have roiled Iran since the disputed presidential election last year. Thousands of people were arrested in the midst of the protests, with many later reporting having been tortured while in custody. At present, there remain roughly 40 journalists jailed in Iran. Please visit Amnesty International’s website for information on what you can do to help pressure the Iranian government to release its journalists, and all those held for no reason other than peaceful dissent.
by: Howard Wyman
published: March 17, 2010
in column: The Smoke-Filled Room, What Goes On
no comments yet
Tags: