Judge Rules in Favor of RIAA in Malicious Prosecution Lawsuit
In 2007, Tanya Andersen was exonerated in a lawsuit brought against her by the RIAA. The child labor-exploiting, baby-eating, SUV-driving music industry argued that the defendant had downloaded gangster rap over Kazaa, a P2P file-sharing application. She countersued in the same year, claiming that the RIAA had attempted to prosecute her maliciously.
Unfortunately for Ms. Andersen (and millions of internet users who hate child labor, eating babies, and SUVs), Judge Anna J. Brown has ruled that "the RIAA had sufficient legal justification to initially file suit against Andersen, saying that they could have ‘reasonably believed’ that she was responsible for sharing copyrighted tracks on a P2P network in 2004." Andersen originally claimed that the suit should never have been brought in the first place, saying there was no way of knowing who the person was "behind the computer when the MediaSentry investigator detected KaZaA user gotenkito's shared folder."
There's still a chance of the RIAA getting a kick in the nuts, with the court yet to decide on whether the organization's conduct was appropriate in attempting to secure the prosecution of Andersen.
Belle and Sebastian Hint at New Album
From Belle and Sebastian's official website:
[Thanks to Fausto Koerich for the tip!]
WFMU Needs Your Money Right Now; Seriously!
WFMU, one of the greatest radio stations out there, is in emergency mode as of yesterday. Code green! Just like everyone else in the world, WFMU is having a rough time in our crappy economy. The station's latest fundraiser came up short by $100k, and the lease on its transmitter has ended. And since the station is 100% listener-supported, it needs our help. In fact, WFMU has given its listeners 24 hours to send some cash. This 24-hour time period started yesterday at 7 PM, so time is extremely limited.
So, get out your credit cards, log in to your PayPal account, or just go sell a kidney, because WFMU needs you now more than ever. Click here or give them a call at 1-800-989-9368 and pledge anywhere from $15 to $3000. They'll make sure to repay you with some sweet WFMU swag and years of awesome weirdness.
Graham Lambkin Releases New Album, Book
To all those hardcore TMT fans out there wild applause], you probably already know how a lot of us here love Graham Lambkin (ex-Shadow Ring, Tart, Elklink, etc.). Last year, he released The Breadwinner ([TMT Review) with Jason Lescalleet, and the year before he self-released Salmon Run (TMT Review) on his own label, Kye. This year? Well, it looks like he's taking a stab at musique concrèe with another self-release, Softly Softly Copy Copy.
Featuring two 20-minute tracks, Softly Softly was described by Scott Foust (who recently released his own solid album, Jungle Fever) as "very disorienting, like a long exhausted train journey where you awake once in a while for a few minutes to a new, beautiful, and odd situation." Sound good to you? If so, make your way to Swill Radio and order a copy (FYI: Kye has a collection from Moniek Darge available too).
Meanwhile, Lambkin is also set to release a limited-edition book + CD. According to Penultimate Press, "'Dumb Answer to Miracles is the first official publication of writings by Graham Lambkin. Previously 20 copies of a signed private edition entitled Tomb of Speed were circulated amongst friends, collegues and mail order customers. This collection gathers all the Tomb of Speed writings, a handful of Lambkin's lyrics he wrote for the band Shadow Ring and many unpublished works." You can pre-order the book here. You know, IF YOU WANT TO.
[Artwork: Graham Lambkin]
New Lightspeed Champion Album Due Out Early 2010; Time to Start Guessing How Weird the Cover Art Is Going to Be the Second Time Around
This week, Dev Hynes from Lightspeed Champion announced the follow-up album to his 2008 debut, Falling Off the Lavender Bridge. The new album is happily titled Life Is Sweet! Nice to Meet You and is due out on Domino February 1. According to the press release, the new album contains 12 songs, two instrumental intermissions, and even one piano étude (which is “a short composition for a solo instrument; intended as an exercise or to demonstrate technical virtuosity” according to The Free Dictionary). None of that is really as important as the artwork, though. It’s time to start placing bets on if Hynes can top the ridiculousness of his 2008 album artwork. Maybe this time he’ll be holding a kitten and wearing a different-colored sweater. The possibilities are endless!
Tracklisting:
1. Dead Head Blues
2. Marlene
3. There’s Nothing Underwater
4. Intermission
5. Faculty of Fears
6. The Big Guns of Highsmith
7. Romart
8. I Don't Want to Wake Up Alone
9. Madame Van Damme
10. Smooth Day (At the Library)
11. Intermission 2
12. Sweetheart
13. Étude Op.3 ‘Goodnight Michalek’
14. Middle of the Dark
15. A Bridge and a Goodbye
It’s Almost 2010! Enjoy 704 Sweet Days of Listening to the New Clipd Beaks Album Before the Horror and Devastation of 2012
If you’re either (a) one of those extremely Type A people who really likes making lists/getting a ridiculously huge head start on things or (b) have heard any of the tracks for Clipd Beaks’ forthcoming album To Realize, you might want to start making your Top 10 Records of the Year list early. But like, 2010 early, because the album hits stores on January 26 via Lovepump United Records, home to HEALTH, AIDS Wolf, Indian Jewelry, and others. The Oakland-based group has previously released two fantastic albums of post-punk noise, and if you’ll give me a second, I’ll show you someone with two thumbs and a really big desire to put this record on loud and on repeat: this lady! I’m not alone, either — Time Out and Stereogum are also talking up these guys.
To Realize tracklisting:
1. Strangler
2. Blood
3. Broke Life
4. Visions
5. Home
6. Atoms
7. Dust
8. Desert Highway Music
9. Jamn
10. On One
11. Shot on a Horse
RIAA Copyright Notices Being Tested by Verizon
Verizon, the last bastion of hope for aggrieved file-sharers, has begun issuing copyright notices. Internet users who illegally download songs may receive a letter on behalf of the RIAA warning them “that such activity is illegal.”
Many liberal web surfers will be disheartened at this move to the dark side by America’s second-largest phone company. Previously, Verizon “opposed antipiracy legislation important to the film and music sectors.” They also stood up for an alleged file-sharer when they refused to disclose their name to the RIAA.
A Verizon spokesman said “We recognize the importance of copyright and the need to enforce those copyrights.”
This all fits in with the global move to greater enforcement of intellectual property over the internet. Indeed, an Iron Curtain is spreading over the interwebz -- ironic considering the recent anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall!
All Reunites for East Coast Tour; Milo Getting Seventh College Degree, I Guess
Who are The Descendents?
Legendary punk rock band fronted by super-nerd Milo Aukerman.
Who are The Descendents without Milo Aukerman?
Slightly less legendary (but still pretty legendary) punk rock band All fronted by Dave Smalley. And then fronted by Scott Reynolds. And then fronted by Chad Price.
Are All reuniting for a short East Coast tour in January?
They sure are.
Who exactly is fronting All this time around?
That’d be Scott Reynolds.
All?
No, All!
All tourdates:
01.06.10 - Cambridge, MA - The Middle East (downstairs)
01.07.10 - Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church
01.08.10 - Baltimore, MD - The Ottobar
01.09.10 - Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg
The Pirate Bay Extinguishes Its Torrent Tracker
So The Pirate Bay shut down its tracker today. That shouldn't come as a shock to anyone following the shenanigans surrounding the Swedish-run website, which has been battling foreign media companies for years. A big verdict was handed down to the site on April 17, 2009 (TMT News), ruling all the involved parties guilty of facilitating copyright infringement. Each Pirate Bay member was sentenced to a year in prison and had to pay a combined 30 million Swedish krona fine ($3.5 million in U.S. dollars).
But what should come as a shock is the site itself is not being shut down. The owners of The Pirate Bay have opted to continue running the site without a tracker. Briefly, a BitTorrent tracker is what currently powers the technology. A tracker does not house any content itself, instead it contains information about all the places where you CAN get the data, mainly end-user computers. Trackers have been the source of litigation for just about every site that's been shut down, as it can be successfully argued that, while the trackers do not house copy-written data themselves, they facilitate the transfer of said data.
So how the hell is this torrent shizz gonna work without a tracker? And the Hydra replied: DHT, PEX, and Magnet links. I'll explain each briefly, then use a hot analogy to show how they click together like sexy Lego.
- DHT is a technology that predates BitTorrent, and it's currently available in just about every torrent client out there. It works by building a web of data behind the scenes, which can provide information on a needed basis. Think of it as a phone book (remember those?) split apart. Every household has a chunk of the worldwide phone book. Whenever you need some data that's not in your piece of the phone book, you shout real loud until somebody hands over the relevant chunk of the book.
- PEX is a fairly new technology that still has some kinks to work out. It works in a similar fashion to DHT, but instead of compiling data, it compiles clients/nodes/people. So to continue our phone book analogy from above, instead of running around screaming your head off until you get what you want, you politely go ask your neighbors if either they have the chunk you need or if they know somebody who does. If your neighbors have no clue what you're talking about, you're still free to run around shouting until you find it.
- Magnet links are the last piece of the puzzle. They work by providing a link to the data, rather than to where the data is located. So, to keep with this phone book angle, let's say you don't even know the page on which the information is held. Using either method described above, you ask for the page that contains the relevant information. Somebody will eventually tell you the page, then you're free to either run around like a nut or ask politely. It's up to you.
Now, you might be thinking "this is boring," and you would be correct. Stay with me for another paragraph, because the interesting part in all of this is that The Pirate Bay is taking the first step towards a continual night terror for the media industries. There is NOBODY to sue except the end users. The Pirate Bay will house magnet links only. Magnet links don't contain any data outside of a random string of numbers and letters. The Pirate Bay is no longer running the service that allows people to connect to each other. All that is handled within your torrent program. I wouldn't doubt it if the next step is for the torrent programs to include some kind of search capability, making The Pirate Bay and other sites irrelevant. It took about 10 years, but we've finally come full circle with a quality replacement to Napster. Since all this new technology is based on open standards and protocols, anyone can design a program that will be play nice with the existing data. So even if Vuze or uTorrent gets shut down, another program can pick up the slack; it's all the same phone book.
Midlake Emerge from the Forest, Reveal New Album Details, Tour
Those Midlake boys sure are a rustic bunch. They seem like the kind of folks that only break their schedule of endless camping trips and whittling sessions to write some songs about the mountains and bandits and the old country. Apparently the whittling block has seen a lot of use the last couple of years, as the Denton, Texas-based group has refrained from releasing a record since 2006’s The Trials of Van Occupanther (TMT Review). Perhaps they’ve busy been observing the growth patterns of the North Red Oak Encroaching Fern. Perhaps you think that’s a real plant and not something I just made up.
Whatever it is that has been possessing Midlake’s attention the last three years, it's over now, as the band has finished their third LP, The Courage of Others. Recorded at their custom-built studio in Denton, the record is set for a February 2 release via Bella Union. In the days leading up to the album’s release, the band will embark on a short East Coast tour. Or at least a tentatively short tour, as more dates are said to be announced soon. Being the group’s first live dates since 2007, the trek breaks another long silence for Midlake. Unless, I suppose, they played a show in a secluded forest somewhere. I wouldn’t be too surprised.
The Courage of Others tracklist:
1. Acts of Man
2. Winter Dies
3. Small Mountain
4. Core of Nature
5. Fortune
6. Rulers, Ruling All Things
7. Children of the Grounds
8. Bring Down
9. The Horn
10. The Courage of Others
11. In The Ground
Midlake tourdates:
01.05.10 - Baton Rouge, LA - Spanish Moon
01.06.10 - Tallahassee, FL - Engine Room
01.07.10 - Orlando, FL - The Social
01.08.10 - St. Augustine, FL - Cafe Eleven
01.09.10 - Mt. Pleasant, SC - Village Tavern
01.10.10 - Asheville, NC - Grey Eagle
01.11.10 - Memphis, TN - Hi-Tone
01.12.10 - Little Rock, AR - Rev Room
The Brian Jonestown Massacre Announce New LP Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?
According to The Brian Jonestown Massacre's website, a new LP titled Who Killed
Sgt. Pepper? is set for release January 1, 2010. As of this writing, the same website is streaming 13 (possibly making up the entirety of the new album) new tracks via YouTube, in what seems to be a popular trend of exposing an entire album for free before its official release.
Before Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? drops, however, a four-tracked EP titled One will be coming out November 23 on Cargo Records. According to Cargo, "The first two tracks on the EP are from the forthcoming album & the other 2 are exclusive to this release. The vinyl is coloured orange & is 180 grm audiophile pressing."
The tracklisting for Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? was posted on their MySpace blog, but then retracted, according to onethirtybpm. Here's how it appeared (subject to change):
1. Tempo 116.7 (Reaching For Dangerous Levels Of Sobriety)
2. The Heavy Knife
3. Lets Go Fucking Mental (Melodica Mix)
4. White Music
5. This Is The First Of Your Last Warnings (Icelandic Version)
6. This Is The One Thing We Did Not Want To Have Happen
7. The One
8. Someplace Else Unknown
9. Detka! Detka! Detka!
10. Super Fucked
11. Our Time
12. Feel It (Of Course We Fucking Do)
13. Felt Tipped-Pen Pictures Of UFOs
