David Byrne sues Florida governor over Talking Heads song | Music | guardian.co.uk

David Byrne sues Florida governor over Talking Heads song | Music | guardian.co.uk

"I'm a bit of a throwback that way, as I still believe songs occasionally mean something to people," he said. "A personal and social meaning is diluted when that same song is used to sell a product or a politician."

An Audio Giant Exits the Stage

Fader pushers mourn Fritz Sennheiser • The Register

The founder of Sennheiser Electronics, Dr Fritz Sennheiser, has died aged 98.
Sennheiser studied electronics in Berlin in 1929 first at the Technical University then the Heinrich Hertz Institute. He helped build the amplification for the 1936 Berlin Olympics ceremony. During the war he worked in cryptography, but this was verboten by the Allies after VE Day.
He founded his company in the immediate aftermath of World War II. His first microphone was created for Siemens in 1949, and the company changed its name to Sennheiser Electronic in 1958. The company introduced the first open headphones, which are still in production today.
The name has been ubiquitious for studio engineers for 50 years, particularly for the specialist recording mics the 421 and 441.


read more at

http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/home_en.nsf/root/press_releases_180510_biographie

Justin Beiber More Punk Than SST Records

Justin Beiber is also more hardcore than SST records...but then so are Pat Sajak & Vanna, Carol Burnett, the Fugees and most public school teachers.

Hello Kitty is also more hardcore
than SST records.

BACKSTORY   If one believes the hype, SST Records is a gutsy hardcore label, and it's spiritual leader and CEO is named Gregg Gin.


You may or may not know that they released many records by many bands. Some of them are actually very good.

Those of a certain age may remember when SST the Label sued one of their own bands called Negativland (one of my favourite groups) back in the 90s. 

SST the Label has also been sued by some of their own (former) label heavyweights, including Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth, for the traditional reasons that bands usually sue their labels for...




There aren't enough people who are scaring the kind of people who work at these record companies.
Greg Ginn


Josiah Hughes is a person apparently scaring someone who works at a record company.

Josiah was selling this fun, groovy t-shirt on Etsy, until he got a Cease and Desist order from SST the label.

We're not good at propping up old carcasses. We want to be on top of what's vital at any particular time, and not just hold onto something because it has a name.
Greg Ginn

God, doesn't that sound so gutsy-sexy... so radly indie to the bone?

Sadly, it's not entirely or even a little bit true, it seems. This next Industrial insight of Mr. Ginn's...


The biggest disappointment has been seeing the number of people in this business with very shortsighted views.
Greg Ginn

...sadly, actually is true, and if people could actually die from irony, in the way they do from lead or other heavy metals, this story would never have been written.

... and you or I could buy one of these shirts, and the beat, as ever, would go on, as ever...

You can find out more about this particular battle for intellectual property rights here and even more here. Do check out the zany comments - but watch out for irony!

-30-

.

Bad Canada... no biscuit!

In its release, it chose to target two countries – Canada and Spain – for declining sales and linked those declines to copyright law.

As it no doubt intended, the IFPI release succeeded in generating media coverage, including two Globe and Mail stories (here and here) that dutifully reported that Canada was perceived a piracy haven and was being criticized (again) by the global recording industry.

Yet it doesn’t take much digging to see that the IFPI targeted the wrong country. Canadian sales declined by 7.4 percent last year.  That is obviously bad news for the industry, but it is almost identical to the global average of 7.2 percent.

In other words, far from a piracy outlier, Canada was actually consistent with declines around the world.  Moreover, while the IFPI chose to target Canada, the reality is the declines were far bigger in the United States (10.7 percent) and Japan (10.8 percent) yet neither country is described as a piracy haven. The IFPI data also shows that Canada was ahead of the curve on digital music sales growth.

Canadian digital sales grew by 38 percent last year, while globally the number was 9.2 percent (the U.S. grew at 8 percent, below the global average).

read the rest here

-30-

.

MPAA gives no explanation on source of piracy statistics

MPAA gives no explanation on source of piracy statistics

The MPAA finally agreed it made a calculation error and corrected the incriminated number from 44 percent to 15 percent. The GAO has made an attempt to find out how these numbers were calculated, but the MPAA denied any possibility of making this information available.

Is it time to defend our rights?

Copyright is not the only thing that matters online, says Bill Thompson

John Young is a brave and tenacious man, an architect based in New York whose website, cryptome.org, has been a safe online repository for documents that someone, somewhere does not want published.


Since 1996 he has resisted pressure from governments, companies and individuals, using the strong protection against prior restraint provided by the US Bill of Rights to publish information about secret surveillance, spying, war crimes and many other topics.

Thanks to a robust policy on the part of his current internet service provider, his site has remained online despite the best efforts of those who are embarrassed by its contents.

Until last month, that is, when cryptome.org disappeared from the internet after Network Solutions disabled access to the site's domain.

Mr Young had not revealed military secrets that put the lives of soldiers at risk, or published the finer details of Britain's nuclear deterrent capability. 

 read more about this crucial topic here 

-30-

.