By Mike McHugh on Nov 21 2008

“Piracy is ‘free riding;’ theft of someone else’s property and a crime under the law. It deprives authors, performers and producers of the income they need to work. It seriously harms musical creation and the development of new artists.” (Emphasis mine)

So sayeth the SCPP, a French organization of music producers whose members range from scrappy independents to the four big dick majors, Sony BMG, EMI, Warner, and Universal. Hey, could you do my a favor? Read that quote again, and once more after that if you need to. I want you to get yourself good and enraged; shoot for a level of fury a wee bit stronger than penning a furious, error-riddled blog post but weaker than calling your mailman a cocksucker just so you can vent. Done? Okay, now that we’re on the same frequency of rage. Let’s continue.

According to TorrentFreak, the SCPP, along with another French society of music producers called SACEM, has filed a complaint against the file sharing community’s ol’ reliable Soulseek. The organizations claim that Soulseek is an application specifically designed to give users unauthorized access to copyrighted materials. Well, obviously! That’s why this message is on Soulseek’s homepage, “Soulseek(tm) does not endorse nor condone the sharing of copyrighted materials. You should only share and download files which you are legally allowed to or have otherwise received permission to share.” You see? Specifically created for the illegal proliferation of our precious copyrighted materials. Throw the book at ‘em, heroes.

At this point you’re probably thinking, “But Mike, only prematurely balding hipsters like me use Soulseek, and I only download King Crimson bootlegs and bleepy bloopy electronica albums no else cares about. These French guys probably want to sue Limewire or Vuze; those ones have all the popular stuff.” Well don’t you worry, dear reader, they already have! Along with pursuing justice against Soulseek, SACEM and SCPP have filed complaints against Limewire, Sourceforge, Vuze, and Morpheus (That’s still around?). Oh, to be young and have a ruthless team of lawyers at my beck and call.

It’s difficult to tell what sort of effect these suits will have outside of France, but with the four major labels involved in this mess, I imagine a ruling in favor of the producers would result in a series of ever-so-annoying limitations on freedom of expression across the internet. Oh, one more thing: For a reminder just how evil those copyright-breaking charlatans at Soulseek are, pop on over to SLSK Records, a sinful haven for unsigned acts to propagate their major label-less “music.” Don’t you assholes know that copyright infringement seriously harms musical creation and the development of new artists?! Stop creating when we’ve got a senseless war to fight, you heartless sons of bitches!

By Annapocalypse on Nov 20 2008

Oh, that precocious Zach Condon of Beirut, always sticking his head into new genres of music to experiment with. In the case of his new double EP, March of the Zapotec, due February 17 in the U.S. and February 16 in Europe on Ba Da Bing! Records and his own Pompeii Records, Condon decided to head on down to Oaxaca, Mexico to the village of Teotitlan del Valle, where he recruited The Jimenez Band to help him record some new songs.

Meanwhile, Holland, the second part of the double EP, features new songs recorded by Condon under his old moniker, Realpeople. Got that? New songs, old band name. According to the press release, Holland “gives the listener a unique perspective on yet another side of Zach’s artistic vision.” Or maybe it just gives Condon a chance to use his old band name, for some random reason.

March of the Zapotec tracklist: