AURAL INTERCOURSE

Thursday, July 24, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Aural Intercourse: See ya in court, kids

By Mike Prevatt

There's a knock at the door. You just got home from SAT prep class, you're tired, and all you want to do is grab the iPod and blast some AFI. Who could it be?

A tall man in a suit towers over you. "Are you the Kazaa user of the household, young man? This is for you, straight from Washington." And, lo and behold, your first subpoena.

Essentially, this has happened--in fact, more than 1,000 file sharers will be sued by the Big Five record companies' lobbying arm over the next few weeks. Looks like the Recording Industry Association of America wasn't kidding around. Just when you thought it was solely after the most prolific uploaders, downloaders and freeloaders--because the RIAA said as much a few months back--it has been reported that lawsuits have been drawn up for users with as few as five copyrighted songs available for sharing. Which, at maximum penalty per illegally ripped song, could come to $750,000. Quite a step up from that $278 fine for parking in a handicapped spot while running into 7-Eleven for a pack of Camels, huh?

The media is all over the story like Dave Matthews fans on leaked pre-release MP3s. The cover of last week's U.S. News & World Report featured a picture of a young boy with headphones, with "WANTED" shouting across his forehead. The subhead reads, "Got a Digital Pirate in Your House? Got a Lawyer?" The RIAA, fighting against piracy activity on which it blames a 25 percent drop in sales, is through trying to scare headstrong teens and college students assuming cyberspace anonymity. They're now threatening the parents--y'know, the ones who can afford the settlements.

And speaking of online secrecy--a thing of the past in John Ashcroft's America--you were once protected by your Internet service provider (AOL, Verizon, et al). But, through legal channels, the labels won the right in June to force those companies to fork over the names of Net identities such as "indepunk74." Worse, some lawmakers are suggesting they break into your computers, or even digitally damage them should you freely download something you should be buying.

It's certainly taken the RIAA--and the Motion Picture Association of America, which claims to be losing about $3.5 billion a month thanks to online pirates--long enough. Before recent settlements with four college students in May, the last time it won against file trading was when Napster was shut down by a federal judge in 2000. It may have been waiting for other developments that would stave off suing its customers. That has proved futile.

Many believe the genie has been let out, so to speak, and hackers will keep these digital bootleg copies in circulation indefinitely, and/or thwart the efforts of the RIAA. Furthermore, the idea that downloaders were trying to send a message to the labels seems true enough when looking at upcoming plans for protest. There are already plans for action to take place Aug. 1-2 (www.boycott-riaa.com/action/action.php), on top of peer-to-peer trading advocates blacklisting companies associated with the RIAA.

For now, the online community scrambles to clear its shared music folders and caches, and erase its P2P programs. How the other 59,999,000 music fans not yet subpoenaed fight back is sure to keep the single biggest revolution in entertainment and technology raging longer than the download time for a copy of 8 Mile on a dial-up connection. To paraphrase that flick's star, they won't give up that easy, no, they won't have it.

Quickies

Michael Jackson, in public relations repair mode of late, has decided to join his brothers for a Jackson 5 reunion tour and album. His de facto spokesman and sibling, Jermaine Jackson, told the BBC recently that it's a go. When exactly the five will enter the studio wasn't announced.

In other reunion news, media outlets are teasing us with reports that members of pioneering Irish guitar act My Bloody Valentine have regrouped in a studio, possibly to record material for a future boxed set. Iconic guitarist Kevin Shields, along with singer Bilinda Butcher and drummer Colm O'Ciosiog, last saw the spotlight 12 years ago with the release of the band's most acclaimed album, Loveless. Shields recently finished work on four tracks for the upcoming movie Lost in Translation, and worked with various artists, such as Primal Scream and guitarist J. Mascis (Dinosaur Jr.), during MBV's hibernation.

Legit Download

of the Week

Since shoegazer is the latest comeback subgenre of the moment, this seems appropriate. At first listen, indie band Toshack Highway's "The Sounds and the Times" sounds like a tight, road-ready acoustic number. But a little research reveals that the song is actually a cover, originally done by defunct '90s act Swervedriver, which closed its final album, 99th Dream, with a more sprawling and longer-titled version. How does it sound so good? Toshack Highway is the alias for Swervedriver's singer/guitarist Adam Franklin. (Visit www.epitonic.com /artists/toshackhighway.html.)

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