Music. History.

Revolution [Live on Top Gear] - Tomorrow (1967)

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first ever Peel Session, recorded for the ‘Top Gear’ show by the band 'Tomorrow’ - The session was recorded on September 21st 1967 and first broadcast on October 1st.

Leonard Cohen, a Canadian singer-songwriter acclaimed for his poetic lyrics and poignant melodies, has died of undisclosed causes at the age of 82.

“It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away,” an announcement on the musician’s Facebook page reads. “We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries. A memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date. The family requests privacy during their time of grief.”

Cohen was one of the most distinctive voices in popular song, emerging in the 1960s and flourishing in the ‘70s, remaining active until the end of his life. His latest album, You Want It Darker, was released just last month.

Yankee Doodle - Harper Simon (2007)

Now it may surprise you that I would eulogize Janet Reno on this blog, but it being Election week and all, one thing I really need to commend her on is being a champion of the American songbook, diverse and changing as it is.

Reno won a Grammy for executive producing the expansive and wonderful Song of America collection released in 2007, spanning hundreds of years of American song: a Lakota dream song, Neil Young, Grandmaster Flash, Marvin Gaye, Woody Guthrie– they’re all represented, albeit covered by other artists. 

It’s a wonderfully diverse collection of music and I highly recommend it. Here’s Paul Simon’s son taking on Yankee Doodle.

Kraftwerk - Radioactivity

The case in point, with regards to why I hate The Mix, is what it did to Radioactivity.

The Awful German Language is actually a satirical essay by Mark Twain, before Hendrick throws me off his site…

Alright, there’s no getting around it. The topic that every Kraftwerk fan ultimately has to express Opinions! on, even moreso than the usual sticking points like “Early Kraftwerk versus Late Kraftwerk” or “Fritz and Henning versus Wolfgang and Karl (versus ‘Actually, I prefer NEU!’”). Are Kraftwerk better in English, or are they better in the original German?

Just A Dream - Ringo Starr (1977)

Our (Bare) Shelves, Our Selves - The New York Times (via cbye)

Apple’s iTunes Is Alienating Its Most Music-Obsessed Users - WIRED

Song Premiere: Elvis Presley & The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, “Burning Love”

Fair use is … wholly authorized by the law. That’s what the 9th Circuit said today, in a ruling that will become a terrific tool to support sharing of transformative works (like fanfic, fanart, cosplay, fanfilms, filks, etc.). 

Back in 2001 and 2003, when I first started writing and speaking about fair use in connection with what we’re now calling “fan law”,  we did a lot of argiing by analogy. Caselaw hadn’t really caught up with how people were actually using the internet and definitely hadn’t caught up with the idea that fans of a show or book or film or band or piece of art or work of creativity would create a “follow-on work” and share it at no cost to anyone, on the internet. 

But lawyers argue by analogy - we go before a court and say “this is similar to that, and thus the laws for that should also apply to this”. That’s how it works (at least in the US) so it was reasonable  to say because of court rulings in The Wind Done Gone and the 2 Live Crew case re Pretty Woman, or a 1996 case in the 11th Circuit that said “ fair use is not an infringement, that (noncommercially distributed) fanworks - as transformative works - were fair use and thus were not infringements of someone’s copyright. 

By and large, over the last fifteen years (and actually, through  the 90s too) the courts have agreed with this concept every time something that parallels an aspect of fanworks comes before an appellate court. Click the Fair Use tag here for examples. 

However, today the 9th Circuit issued its ruling in Lenz v. Universal, a case that dates back EIGHT YEARS to a pre-Google time at YouTube, when the tv networks were all freaking out about this new way that people could get content via the internet, and the music companies were continuing their perpetual angst about the idea that certain uses of songs could be, in any way noninfringing. 

While Lenz doesn’t really redefine large swaths of law, it makes a few points explicit and clear: 

Fair use is not just excused by the law, it is wholly authorized by the law.

A copyright holder must consider the existence of fair use before sending a takedown notification.

The DMCA requires consideration of fair use prior to sending a takedown notification…

If a copyright holder ignores or neglects our unequivocal holding that it must consider fair use before sending a takedown notification, it is liable for damages.

A copyright holder who pays lip service to the consideration of fair use by claiming it formed a good faith belief when there is evidence to the contrary is still subject to §512(f) liability.

The court also quoted a brief from transformativeworks (OTW/AO3) where we set forth when computer programs might be of use in finding infringements where  “(1) the video track matches the video track of a copyrighted work submitted by a content owner; (2) the audio track matches the audio track of that same copyrighted work;and (3) nearly the entirety…is comprised of a single copyrighted work.” As you can see, that process wouldn’t be applicable for fanworks. 

The ruling doesn’t mean an end to automatic takedown notices; where a file of concern matches exactly to a single copyrighted work *and* nearly the entirety of the file of concern is comprised of that single copyrighted work, bots and automated notices would still be viable. 

But a video manifesting mashup culture or a story that’s a follow-on work or a meme that includes a copyrighted photo and text that comments on or criticizes something, or educational infographs should not be DMCA-ed by autobots, and any analysis by the copyright-holder of the fanfic, fanart, etc. they’re looking at must actually look to current law regarding whether something is a transformative work/fair use/otherwise noninfringing. 

Does this mean that creative fans will suddenly start experiencing fewer DMCA takedowns? Possibly, but also maybe not. But it does mean that if a creative fan gets a DMCA takedown/notification about fanworks (especially when there’s no commercial sale) the fan can and should push back on whether the sender has actually considered fair use; if it’s obvious that they haven’t, the creative fan may be able to seek damages. 

Perhaps that risk of damages will be a disincentive to copyright-holders, so they focus their attention, and DMCA notices, on works that are actual counterfeits - copies of entire movies, books or tv serieses, or high resolution copies of art. 

Copyright holders cannot shirk their duty to consider—in good faith and prior to sending a takedown notification—whether allegedly infringing material constitutes fair use, a use which the DMCA plainly contemplates as authorized by the law.

2001 A Space Odyssey on vinyl records.

From top to bottom

2001 A Space Odyssey read by the author Arthur C Clarke, Caedmon records, 1976

2001 A Space Odyssey soundtrack. First pressing gatefold jacket MGM Records

2001 A Space Odyssey Volume Two (Music inspired by) MGM Records 1970

Holly (Previously Susan) Stocking, now a retired professor of journalism at Indiana University, was a reporting intern at the Minneapolis Tribune in the summer of 1965 when the Beatles came to visit. Their one and only concert in Minnesota was on August 21, 1965 – 50 years ago.

Stocking dressed up as a waitress at the hotel where the band was staying, in hopes of getting access to the band. Here is the story of her encounter – and how John Lennon took pity on a fledgling reporter, enabling her to get a page-one story.

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Monday, August 23, 1965

By Susan Stocking, Minneapolis Tribune Staff Writer

I didn’t faint, I didn’t scream. I didn’t even squeal.

I ate potato chips.

In a room with Beatles Ringo Starr, George Harrison and John Lennon – and all I did was munch potato chips!

And nervously slop coffee in their saucers.

“Half up,” said Lennon, sprawling on the blue spread of a bed in Room 528 of the Leamington Motor Inn. “I drink it white.”

It must have been 9 p.m. Saturday while the Beatles were still bugging the crowd at Metropolitan Stadium when I slipped into a waitress uniform and began the long wait in the tiny kitchen of the motor in..

After 10 p.m., the order from the fifth floor Beatles headquarters finally came in: one medium rare steak sandwich, two trays of assorted sandwiches, seven glasses of ice water, seven coffee cups, a pot of hot water and one of coffee, a bowl of teabags, three small pitchers of milk, a dish of sweet pickles, and chips.

Tray in hand, I tottered behind a waiter with his card and ascended by freight elevator to the security-tight hideaway.

And there they were, living, breathing, moppy: Lennon sitting cross-legged on the bed near the window and wearing a blaring yellow sweatshirt, Harrison in a black knit T-shirt wandering aimlessly up and down in front of the light mahogany bureau – a pocket radio hugging his ear, and Starr in his red and white polo shirt ushering in the food.

But where was Paul McCartney? “He’s ringing home,” said Lennon, and he lit out for the coffee pot. 

“May I pour?” I blurted, biting hard on a potato chip that I’d picked up without thinking. 

For an hour and a half I sat and poured and munched and listened to the visitors from Liverpool banter across the small, blue-walled cubicle.

On 4th Av. S., five stories below, “We want the Beatles!” chants drifted throught he draped windows. No one seemed to notice.

“A reporter in a waitress uniform, eh?” Harrison smirked. “How original.”

A Beatle with a sense of humor, eh? How refreshing.

“Hey, whose food is this anyway?” asked Starr, chomping into the $3.75 tenderloin steak sandwich on the cart. “We didn’t order any food, did we George?” He plopped onto the double bed next to the door, shrugged as if to say “who cares?” and licked his fingers.

(Must have been ordered by one of the 30 members of the Beatles’ official party on the floor, I thought.)

On the television set, sound off, a horse was dragging a cowboy through the dust.

“Aw c’mon,” grumbled Lennon, “they did the same thing last show back!”

Harrison, his radio roaring a Cannibal and His Headhunters tune, growled something about “those bloody DJs.”

“Thot’s a lie, whot they tell the kids about us playing longer if they’re quiet,” he said. “We play the same 35- to 50- minute show no matter whot.”

“Yea,” added Lennon. “And when the audience screams so loud they can’t hear us, we just wave more.”

I asked Starr if his shirt was the same he’d worn at the concert.

“Whot d’ya mean?” he replied. “Same shirt I’ve worn all week!”

Then I asked where they’d be headed next morning.

“On to Portland or some-whar,” one of them said. “I don’t know.”

“Fact is, we never know whar we’re at,” Lennon added, pouring a bag of sugar into his coffee. “Take on the way over here in that truck, for instance … I forgot where I was, but I didn’t dare ask anybody for fear of hurtin’ their feelin’s!”

(The Beatles made their escape from Metropolitan Stadium in a laundry panel truck, sneaking into the motor inn by way of the basement.)

“But don’t you ever go out on the town to see the places you’re touring?” I wondered.

“Who’d want to see a bunch of statues?” Starr mumbled.

“But Minneapolis has a bunch of lakes,” I countered.

“See one lake, you’ve seen ‘em all.”

Starr and Harrison sauntered out of the room without saying goodby.

“They’re ringin’ home – like Paul,” Lennon explained. “I’d ring home, too, but my wife’s in Libya visiting her brother … You can’t ring Libya.”

He sipped a glass of honey (”The manager says my throat’s raspy”), struck a match to his Marlboro cigarette and watched a TV detective get stabbed in the stomach. 

He told me how the Beatles “beat each other down” if one gets cocky; how even when they’re not “in the mood,” they quip in public to avoid being labeled “swell-headed,” and how their managers normally set up five or six “escape gimmicks” to avoid the mobs when they’re on tour.

He told me other things, too: about the “greenness” of England, the greatness of rock ‘n’ roll, and the goodness of knowing what you’re talking about before you criticize. (He was referring to the Beatles’ critics.)

“You know,” he mused, “those kids out there on the street … they always find out where we are … They’re clever, some of ‘em.”

A “We love you Beatles” song struck up off-key and someone shouted, “We know you’re up there Beatles … yea, yea, yea.”

I asked if the noise would keep him up that night. 

“I can sleep through anythin’,” he said. “Thing I’ll beat it to bed after this cigarette.”

I got up to leave. He walked me to the door. 

“Cheerio, now,” he grinned. “And let me shake your hand like an Englishmun.” He gave my much-calmed hand a solid shake.

It was going on midnight. Outside, a police speaker boomed, “OK, now let’s go, everybody home.”

At 10:55 a.m. Sunday the Beatles would whisk out the front door – past another crying, yelling mob of fans – and head for the airport in a big black limousine. 

Their destination: “Portland or somwhar.”

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Here’s the article:

And the pages they appeared on: