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July
31, 2003
Sheldon
Rampton
and John Stauber
True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's
Wars
July
30, 2003
David
Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie
Marjorie
Cohn
Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About
the Oil
Elaine
Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas
in Terror Cases
Zvi
Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War
Lisa Walsh
Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?
Sean
Carter
Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes
ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon
Steve
Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies
Standard
Schaefer
Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing
Website
of the Day
Bring Them Home Now!
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
July
29, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
"Journalist Spotted! Journalist
Dead!" Guatemala Bleeds; US Press Yawns
Thomas
J. Nagy
The Belligerent Dr. Pipes
Kurt Nimmo
Tom Delay Goes to Jerusalem
Chris
Floyd
Dead Reckoning: Bush Warriors Sign Off on War Crimes
Robert
Fisk
Another Botched Raid; Another Massacre
Jason Leopold
Did Chalabi Help Write Bush's State of the Union Address?
Conn Hallinan
Food Bully: Bush's Biotech Shock and Awe Campaign
Dan
Bacher
Sacramento's War on Free Speech
Ray
McGovern
Cheney Chicanery
Website
of the Day
Julie Hilden Caught on Tape
July 26 / 27, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and
Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front
Gary
Leupp
Faith-Based Intelligence
Saul Landau
A Report from Syria
Stan
Goff
Bring 'Em On Home, Now!
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Book Cooking at Boeing
Andrew
Cockburn
The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud
Begins
Jason Leopold
CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans
Robert
Fisk
The Power of Death
Joanne
Mariner
Monsieur Moussaoui
Standard
Schaefer
Joblessness and the Invisible Hand
M. Shahid
Alam
The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History
Harry
Browne
Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process
Fidel Castro
Moncada, 50 Years Later
Lula
Democracy Requires Social Justice
Edward
S. Herman
Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky
Ron Jacobs
Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company
You Keep
Julie
Hilden
A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos
Adam Engel
Man Talk
Poets'
Basement
Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert
July
25, 2003
Francis
A. Boyle
Impeaching Bush
David
Krieger
15 Questions
Harvey
Wasserman
Pat Robertson's Supreme Fatwah
Steve Dunifer
Seize the Airwaves!
Dan
Bacher
Federal Judge Throws Out Bush Salmon Plan for Klamath River
Kurt Nimmo
Bread, Circuses, Uday and Qusay
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog
Website
of the Day
Stop the Wall!
July
24, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses...Again
Robert
Fisk
The Ugly Story of Camp Cropper: The
US Torture Camp in Iraq
David
Lindorff
Dumb and Dumber in Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Ashcroft Demands Death Penalty in
Puerto Rico
David
Vest
Dylan in Bend
Tom Turnipseed
Killing Saddam & His Family Won't Stop Killing of US Troops
Douglas
Valentine
A Nation of Assassins
Stew Albert
Contract Killing
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog
Website
of the Day
Report on Palestinian Child Prisoners
July
23, 2003
Uri
Avnery
Caesar's Favor
David
Lindorff
Lynne Stewart's Big Win: Ashcroft
Rebuked
Mano
Singham
Iraq's Missing WMD Scientists
Steve
Perry
Better Late Than Never: the Press, the Dems, and Bush's Lies
John Stanton
Avoiding Plato's Republic in America: Is Anarchy the Only Hope?
Patrick
Bond
Bush and South Africa: a Petro-Military-Commerce Mission
Harry Browne
A Victory for a Disarming Irishwoman
Paul
Beaulieu
When the WTO Comes to Montreal
Robert
Fisk
The Sons are Dead, But the Resistance
Will Grow
William
Witherup
Georgie Porgie
Website
of the Day
Lieberman & Falwell:
True Love at Last
July
22, 2003
Diane
Christian
Bad Guy / Good Guy: War Forces;
Peace Frees
Jeremy
Brecher
Solidarity and Student Protests in Iran
Steve
Kretzmann
and Jim Vallette
Plugging Iraq into Globalization
Sam
Smith
Greening the Golden Triangle
James
Plummer
Smile, You're on Federal Camera
Lucretia
Stewart
This Day Shall Not Define My Life:
January 18, 2003
Website
of the Day
Iraq Coalition Casualties
Hot Stories
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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July
31, 2003
The
RIAA's New Music Jihad
The
Devil's Music (Industry)
By SHELDON HULL
Six local men have been charged with Class III
felonies, which carry sentences of up to five years each, for
their role in the next great public scourge: bootlegging. No,
not the kind Joe Kennedy's fortune was built on, nor that which
made household names of Capone and Bronfman. I'm talking about
bootleg CDs. No, not Certificates of Deposit, which could inflict
serious damage upon the financial system if bootlegged. I mean
compact discs, those things that get more expensive to buy as
they get cheaper to produce. 10,000 confiscated CDs and DVDs
could net the sextet 30 years in prison or more.
Question: Why are Officers of the esteemed
and vital Jacksonville Sheriff's Office being made to do the
dirty business of the Recording Industry Association of America?
People caught bootlegging Led Zeppelin shows were usually beaten
senseless and thrown out along with their shattered equipment.
That seems almost better than what the Register of Britain cartoonishly
describes as the "new Prohibition jihad" directed by
the RIAA. The language is clunky but precise, as a jihad ("holy
war") is an irrational hatred fueled by fear, and fear,
in my opinion, is what motivates the recent RIAA craziness.
Register reporter Andrew Orlowski also
quotes Bill Evans of Boycott-RIAA as saying that "there
are more file-sharers than voters for either candidate [in] the
last Presidential election." The six men arrested over the
weekend of July 26-27 would represent only four percent of the
approximately 75 people who are being served with subpoenas every
day for illegal downloading of music, if these newly-minted crimes
were not considered separate and distinct, which thee really
aren't. If the law were uniformly applied, over 40 million Americans
would be subject to at least a steep fine, if not jail or the
destruction of their computer by virus. Some of them would have
to be served their subpoena in the deserts of Iraq, and some
might be dead already. Some of them would be musicians, and others
would be children or old people.
It's bad enough that the music industry
is content with wrecking the local economies of cities all over
America, including ours; but why, why the Hell are local authorities
playing along? Aren't they supposed to be out looking for terrorists
and dope fiends and other criminals who terrorize good, decent,
law-abiding citizens? It's like the old joke:
Q: "How do you smuggle a kilo of
cocaine into the United States?"
A: "Hide it inside the body of a
terrorist!"
No, that's not funny, and neither is
the public's sheepish adherence to the dictates of the RIAA and
others who would first screw the musicians and then screw the
consumers. It's flat-out sick, and fully contrary to the national
interest.
Who in Jacksonville, FL is losing their
livelihood because of illegally duplicated CDs? Most of the locally-owned
record stores were shut down years ago, after certain large corporations
conspired to run local music off the airwaves, and the rest don't
care. They know the score. They know that the RIAA is basically
a front for about five companies, most of which are owned by
foreign interests. The same could be said for the MPAA and, ever
more, the Federal Communications Commission, which should be
about ready to issue a public statement of regret for the Telecom
Act of 1996, which has given us 34% fewer radio owners and millions
fewer listeners in that span. Instead, they are only now beginning
to feel any pressure from the rest of government.
FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who led
the 3-2 vote to, among other things, raise the ceiling of TV
ownership from 35% to 45% and permit the same companies to have
full-spectrum dominance to the point of virtual monopoly in a
single market (or all of them), has not yet received a public
word of support from either his father Colin Powell or President
Bush. Odd, since Powell is now becoming the object of scorn for
a general deregulatory process that he's had a relatively minor
role in so far, but which could end his career at the FCC before
the year is over. It's as if scattered elements of influence
in the nation have only now felt any threat from an agenda that
goes back at least seven years now.
99.9% of calls into the Congressional
switchboard were in opposition to the recent round of deregulation,
and such diverse figures as John McCain, Fritz Hollings and Trent
Lott (who pointedly stated that "probably most of the Republicans
in the Congress would not agree with this decision") have
stepped up to call these people out for what they are: carpetbaggers.
The recent obsession with royalties obscures
the fact that an artist can profit in all kinds of ways, not
all of which involve cash. Ironically, the recent RIAA offensive
occurs just as the positive side of bootlegging has received
a fresh and timely view in such outlets as the occasionally-prescient
Rolling Stone, thanks to a series of high-profile feuds between
people like Nas, Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Ja Rule and Eminem that have
developed on the mixtapes circulated by area DJs, some of whom
even have radio gigs to supplement their income. (Perish the
thought!) The mixtape, which is essentially a compilation of
material with and/or without the permission of the artists, is
an art-form that goes as far back as Alan Lomax's revelatory
recordings for Smithsonian Folkways.
Certain MCs who've made the jump to mainstream
success are able to burnish their reps, keep their battle-skills
sharp and whet the hardcore fan's appetite for fresh material—all
without the poisonous influence of the record industry. At the
same time, newer and rawer talent get the rub from being on the
same CD as people who will draw. The street vendor turns a substantial
profit, the consumer gets cutting-edge material for $5 or $10
and the artists get hype. If run through standard industry channels,
much of the material that people buy these things for would not
be fully-vetted in time to have any relevance. The element of
surprise would be gone, and the artist's creative urges would
be completely at the mercy of the industry.
The line between a mixtape and a bootleg
is drawn by the RIAA, which has no fundamental connection to
the artists it claims to represent. The RIAA is not a union for
musicians; musicians have no union. The suits have the RIAA,
which did not stand up for the musicians when deregulation undermined
and largely destroyed the regional music networks that once functioned
somewhat like semipro baseball or off-Broadway theatre: areas
where craftsmen could hone their skills as they waited for a
spot to open up in the big time. Even the ones who never made
it that far had a fair shot at success, moreso than now. So much
talent in this country now atrophies in call centers or restaurants,
not because they're not good, but because the infrastructure
that was so carefully built to support their gift was destroyed
by deliberate action of the RIAA. And now, when people who know
better like the JSO should be moving to counter this trend, instead
they lay down for Yankees. What happ! ened to sovereignty?
If the American people were more fully
cognizant of what's being done to them in the name of "intellectual
property" and other nonsense, they would buy a whole lot
more of their music through such shady sources, especially stuff
made by musicians who are now dead. I'm fine with artists making
their fair share, and earning what they deserve via the free
market; that's what this debate is all about. The RIAA, however,
needs to answer two important questions:
1) What percentage of "officially-released"
CDs are made in America?
2) Has the average royalty rate paid
on CD sales risen at a rate that reflects the increased cost
of new CDs to the consumer, as well as the decreased cost of
production?
The two questions are both relevant and
related, for if it turns out that the music industry is using
local police to back up their exploitation of cheap labor for
the purpose of stealing income from the artists they claim to
represent, then maybe! the wrong people are going to jail.
Sheldon Hull
writes for CounterPunch and Lew Rockwell.com. He can be reached
at: sdh666@hotmail.com
Weekend Edition Features for July 26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and
Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front
Gary
Leupp
Faith-Based Intelligence
Saul Landau
A Report from Syria
Stan
Goff
Bring 'Em On Home, Now!
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Book Cooking at Boeing
Andrew
Cockburn
The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud
Begins
Jason Leopold
CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans
Robert
Fisk
The Power of Death
Joanne
Mariner
Monsieur Moussaoui
M. Shahid
Alam
The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History
Harry
Browne
Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process
Fidel Castro
Moncada, 50 Years Later
Lula
Democracy Requires Social Justice
Edward
S. Herman
Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky
Ron Jacobs
Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company
You Keep
Julie
Hilden
A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos
Adam Engel
Man Talk
Poets'
Basement
Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert
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