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It would probably be a fruitless and very tiresome (if not never-ending) effort to list ALL the things that could do with being shaken up around here. So for the moment I am going to settle for this very brief but presently high-profile list of some shit that needs changing.

1. Decriminalisation of Drugs

   I am sure I don’t need to link you to any of the number of articles online about the decriminalisation of drugs in Portugal. Google it if you want to. This, from the TIME.com article about it:

   “Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success,” says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research [into its success]. “It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does.”

   In light of the news about the mephedrone deaths that have just happened, the government will inevitably end up adding it to the list of banned substances, like they did with synthetic cannabinoids at the end of last year. That they still have to keep banning the new ways people find to get themselves high suggests that people are going to try it regardless. The only real way we can increase the safety of those who do choose to try it is by regulating the quality of the drugs sold (so that they’re not cut with rat poison) and to fully understand through scientific experimentation the effects so any short- and long-term effects can be made clear through education. Legalising the old-school drugs that everyone knows about will cause users to gravitate towards them. They’ve been more extensively studied than these new ‘legal highs’, so that bodes better for education and treatment of ill-effects and addiction.

2. Libel Law Reform

   In case you haven’t been keeping abreast of one of the most (if not the most) high profile libel lawsuits of late, Simon Singh was recently accused of libel by the British Chiropractic Association. He wrote that any chiropractic practitioner who claimed to be able to cure things like colic in babies was lying, with plenty of demonstrable evidence showing it to be ineffective. As well as in being counter-intuitive to assume that spinal manipulation can solve all your problems. While with any reasonable set of laws, the chiropractors would have no hope of achieving anything from suing someone with stacks of scientific evidence to back up their claims, actually suing someone for libel is no longer about who wins or loses. Because of the incredibly dramatic cost of being sued for libel, often the accused has no choice but to back down and not fight if the accuser is financially well-endowed. With a relatively small cost to a corporation, it can silence any individual or small organisation it wants to with the threat of expensive legal action, and thus hide any of its wrongdoings. The Libel Reform campaign seeks to raise awareness with the ultimate goal of getting this changed. And while it might not benefit the majority of people directly, it is a freedom of speech/censorship matter that needs to be addressed and corrected lest it remain an affront to liberty forever.

3. The Digital Economy Bill

   Sometimes I think Lord Mandelson doesn’t see things the way the rest of us do. His perspective on certain subjects is so skewed, I think maybe he might benefit from some psychiatric evaluation.

   Even if he passes the lunatic test, though, this doesn’t make his Digital Economy Bill any less insane. Mandelson wants to be given unlimited power to amend copyright legislation. He wants rights holders, via the courts, to be able to disconnect people suspected of filesharing without requiring any proof. He is willing to deny internet access to whole households to punish (and that’s punish, not rehabilitate or force repayment from) copyright infringers. There has also been a clause added that says ISPs would be obligated to block access to certain websites that facilitate copyright infringement (which could even include YouTube and possibly Google), but again this seems to only take place at Mandelson’s command.

   I’m also interested in the overlooked modifications to Nominet. It’s a kind of nationalisation of the service for registering domain names in the UK. Might not mean much to most people, but putting more of the internet in the hands of this government unnecessarily (Nominet is functioning fine as an independent body at the moment and can’t possibly benefit from being under government control) is an unmistakably bad thing. Some of us have registered domain names and don’t want ownership of them revoked at the whim of Lord Mandelson.

That’ll be all for now, I think. I will do some more when I get back to my chat logs and assemble all the ideas I came up with when Chris put me on the spot yesterday evening with all the policies I’d have if I formed a political party.

A Boring Reflection on Art, Rights and Laws

There’s no doubt about it — piracy is an increasingly discussed topic in the media these days especially in light of the recent Pirate Bay trials.

Today I want to focus on the specific topic of music piracy. A definition would be as good a way to start as any, so let’s take a shot at that. How do we define music piracy? It’s wrong to think of “pirating” as synonymous with “downloading” — the acquisition of music delivered via the internet does not necessarily imply anything against the law or against the wishes of an artist. There are subscription services and song-purchasing services and internet radio stations that all provide music through the internet, as well as the oft-condemned peer-to-peer methods. So there are ways of legally getting music from the internet. There are also ways of obtaining music that don’t use the internet, so we’re talking about something much bigger than just firing up Limewire.

So let’s start calling piracy by its other, less appealing name, copyright infringement. The idea of copyright law is pretty simple. Its job is to stop someone taking another person’s music (we’re just dealing with music today, remember) and using in a way that wasn’t intended, such as performing it yourself or selling it as your own work. The person who came up with that piece of music deserves to get the credit for doing so, and should be allowed to say who gets to hear it or use it.

Musicians who enjoy expressing themselves through their music will probably want people to listen to that music. If they didn’t, why bother playing it out loud, anywhere other than in their own minds? To that end, copying and distributing music to a large number of people would be beneficial to the musician’s aims. Their expression of whatever message they want to send will be heard by anyone and everyone who wants to hear it.

Music, of course, is an art form. As we all know, the appreciation of art is an entirely subjective matter. Some will love a piece of music, while others will consider it garbage. That’s fine, it’s to be expected. As humans, we’re a diverse bunch of creatures and we’re usually pretty happy about that.

But when an artist wants to charge money for their music, we start getting into trouble. The musician is veering off the course of wanting to express a message, heading for a collision with profit-making. It’s a safe bet to say that big musicians and related businesses (the RIAA, for example) who are outspoken against copyright infringement are outspoken because of their desire to make money.

When an artist or a record label or anyone else puts a price tag on a CD, aside from the negligible cost of the materials and manufacturing of the physical media itself, the artist is making the claim that a certain piece of music is worth a certain amount of money. That claim can’t really be challenged. Appreciation of art is subjective, so you can’t posssibly say with any objective reasoning what a piece of music is worth. Some people will consider the price of a CD in a music shop fair, while others will see it too high (and some may even think it’s too low). Enter: copyright law. If the artist wants to charge money for his or her work, it’s now against copyright law to distribute it for free. The artist hasn’t given permission for it to be handed out without charge.

If you don’t think a CD’s tracks are worth the price tag, it’s too bad for you; sorry. You don’t get to have the CD and listen to that music because you won’t pay what the artist is demanding of you.

Musical artists who are against distributing their music to people for a price that is agreed on by both the artist and the consumer (even if that price is free) must therefore be more concerned with making profits than they are with making music. They must be at a stage where if nobody bought any of their CDs or paid to see them in concert, they would stop making music.

Now imagine for a second that all commercial artists were in that mindset. Imagine they’d stop making music if nobody bought their CDs. Imagine then that everyone suddenly stops buying CDs. Would we still have music?

Of course we would. Plenty of artists make music for reasons other than profit. They’d be the ones left if the whole world stopped paying for music. It’s no great loss, if you think about it. The recording industry would hopefully go under, as it’s comprised of corporations built on greed, and we’d just be left with a world full of free music.

Greedy, profit-seeking artists don’t realise that we don’t need them; they need us. They need consumers so they can make a living off a glorified hobby. All their protests and bitching about copyright infringement are unfounded and wrought from pure greed. Not that I am preaching against greed — this would make me a notorious hypocrite. Problems arise when you throw a tantrum because you’re not getting your way, such as customers refusing to pay the arbitrarily-set price for music.

Making music is always going to be something that certain people love to do. There will always be those who do it for free without any expectation of a monetary reward. There will also be the wise artists who give consumers the choice about how much to pay. I am not unsympathetic towards musicians who want to make money with their music, but to me they differ very little from buskers playing music in a public place. If I am not enjoying the music, I can listen to it for as long as I want and not pay a thing. It’s unlikely to discourage the busker, and even if it did, it’d only discourage him or her from playing in public. They’d still practice playing if they enjoyed it, just like people who love to paint will still paint and people who love to write terrible, tedious, long articles on their websites will still continue to write. Even if it costs money and there’s absolutely no reward.

I am not suggesting that all music should be free and that copyright law is evil and should be abolished (as an aside, though, note that the UK’s copyright laws are archaic and in dire need of a reform). I am merely suggesting that those musicians who happen to, by chance, make music that appeals to a large audience should stop expecting said audience to lie down and accept arbitrarily set pricing when there are always going to be more fairly priced and free alternative sources of music to enjoy.

And because I’ve gone an entire post without a single curse word or immature rant, here’s a bit of exactly that:
Fuck the RIAA, those faggot cunt recording industry knobcocks. They should just fucking shut up about piracy and stop laying lawsuits down on people. They’re a bunch of fucking wanktards and should all have their faces ripped off and then be launched out of a catapult into a brick wall so they splatter like a water balloon brimming with ketchup. Cunts!!

I can’t sing. But I do like to. I don’t often get the chance to belt out my favourite hits because there are always a bunch of people around and I am cripplingly self-conscious about my horrible voice.

Still, the house has been empty for a few days, and some hours ago I got it into my head that now would be a great time to sing along to some of the more epic songs on Guitar Hero: World Tour. It is a great time — the middle of the night and an empty house; what more could anyone need for the comfort of being completely alone?

There are some fucking cracking songs on GHWT; the best of them are downloadable extras, but they are really good tracks. So, if I am going to sing along to them anyway (which I would do if I were listening at my PC), why not get points for it at the same time?

Cautiously sampling “medium” difficulty, like testing the water with a toe, I quickly found that the lower difficulty settings really don’t require you to have the ability to sing well. This was really pleasing, since according to the game, I was doing well, but according to human ears, I was committing aural murder genocide. It just goes to show that we are quite a way from realism in the Guitar Hero and Rock Band game series.

So the water was a good temperature. It was time to wade in and get comfortable before diving under. I cranked up the difficulty to “hard” mode. Bearing in mind that I was singing songs that I know fairly well and love to bits, I can say I was really pleased at being able to succeed so readily in a difficulty setting that I’d fail at if playing an “instrument”. Time to take the plunge…

Success! I discovered to my joy that I could faithfully recreate the vocal tracks of many of my favourite songs on the game in the “expert” difficulty setting. What celebrations there were! As the dawn slowly filtered in through our living room windows, I embraced my ridiculous-sounding voice for achieving a high rating on the highest difficulty in the game. At last there is some part of the game where my gratification is not dependent on the coordination of my left hand’s smallest finger. Success!

This is going to be a good one, guys.

For one, Smallville resumes broadcasting. I’ve refrained from mentioning it on my blog so far because I haven’t that much to say about it… it’s a TV show, it’s not to everyone’s taste but I am enjoying it. But Season Eight is the first season where creative control has not been in the hands of the original creators of the show, so I am anxious to see what developments will be made.

Next, Death Blossoms, a new Rise Against single, will be out for Guitar Hero: World Tour. Of course, it will be made available as a torrent online; what isn’t? But for a brief while, it’ll only be out on the game, a game owned by my generous housemate… Perhaps he will let me buy the single (and the other two Rise Against songs released at the same time) and play them all, one after the other, on his console.

Finally, it’s the Warwick Atheists’ formal-dress social. Starting out at a nice(ish) place to eat in Leamington, the guys in their suits and the girls in their dresses will undoubtedly move on to the pub and wind down the evening in the dying noise of Wetherspoon’s. A classy end to a shitty term.

It’s about the only thing I am looking forward to in the near future.

Oh man, this one was so much more action-packed than the last one.

First of all, Anti-Flag pulled out. Justin Sane broke his collar bone and fucked off home, said someone, so there was a new support act in. Enter King Blues, a London punk-reggae band with the bare minimum of talent. Between them and the almost-equally under-par Flobots, the bar was set very low for the main act.

During the course of the evening, one of my friends was punched in the face, and another had his glasses smacked off and subsequently crushed underneath the angry crowd. I think that Anti-Flag’s calming influence and shouts of “when someone falls, we pick them right back up,” were sorely missed, as well as their encouragement for getting the energetic crowd members worn out early on so they don’t brawl during the better half of the show.

Aiming as low as they could, Rise Against managed to pull off an almost identical set. Their two accoustic songs were, I think, switched over in this one. But other than that, it was the same, down to the wording of the between-song banter.

Anyway, after taking a look at my friend’s bare, un-spectacled face, and having just been crushed by a bunch of people throwing themselves to the ground (ground that I used to be standing upright in), I fucking cheesed it out of the centre in a hurry. Ruining two pairs of glasses in two months is not something I am prepared to do, and by this point we were at the second song and I knew the set wasn’t going to be any different.

So, I bothered to write down the list in order this time. For your information, here is the setlist for Rise Against on March the 6th at the Roundhouse, London:

But the songs and the order and the banter aren’t the only things that make a performance! There are other things too… like a member of the support act joining in with one of Rise Against’s songs. That wasn’t in this performance, right? WRONG. Flobots’ violinst added her bit to Hero of War.

Wait, there’s more. In both instances, there has been a hilarious instance of a song played that I can somehow relate back to the Altercation. In Birmingham, Anti-Flag burst out a herioc performance of “I Fought the Law (and the Law Won)” — brutally reminding me of my recent trip to the Leamington Police Station and the impending ass-whooping I will receive if the jury doesn’t think I was acting in self-defence. In London, Flobots drove home their inflammatory “Fight with Tools” — euphemism for stabbing, anyone? Bah.

Anyway, they announced that they’ll be at Reading and Leeds this summer. If I get the chance to go, I would love to see them, for reasons mentioned in my last post about these guys.

Here’s what they played:

• Drones (opening)
• Give it All

The rest are not in order, except the last one.

• Stained Glass and Marble
• Heaven Knows
• Like the Angel
• State of the Union
• Life Less Frightening
• Swing Life Away
• Chamber the Cartridge
• Injection
• Ready to Fall
• Behind Closed Doors
• The Good Left Undone
• Survive (short intro)
• Collapse
• Long Forgotten Sons
• Re-education
• Audience of One
• Hero of War
• Prayer of the Refugee

I might have missed one or two. I’ll update the order when someone who remembers posts the setlist online.

Been looking forward to this ever since Appeal to Reason came out last year. I’ve been listening to it over and over to make sure I know it in time for the gig, and they play mostly old stuff. The older stuff is, of course, better (Like the Angel was really great), so I wasn’t too bothered that I didn’t get to yell along to Entertainment (favourite from the new album, though Audience of One and Saviour come in at very close second and third).

Two things were really annoying though — just before they spun out Swing Life Away, McIlrath yells out some bullshit about some car crash victim named Steve who was recovering from a brain injury and who requested the song. It’s bullshit because they ALWAYS play Swing Life Away because all the fourteen- to seventeen-year-old girls love it to bits unnecessarily. So they weren’t really catering to his request. He should have asked for a better song… I would have. Maybe I should be in a car crash?

The other thing that annoyed me was that they ended on Prayer of the Refugee, which I refuse to believe is a good ending song on its own merits — it’s just because the newfags heard it on Guitar Hero and were all “hmm, maybe Rise Against are actually a decent band” and got into them through that.

But they were small prices to pay for having a setlist heavy in The Sufferer and the Witness, which reminds me of the best summer I ever had, ever, ever, ever. They should have fucking played Rumours though. Or Under the Knife. Not bloody Ready to Fall, which is about animal rights (arrghh!!) if the video’s anything to go by! But Injection was a really nice touch!

Hero of War was another one that they were definitely going to play, even though there are so many better songs. But the accoustic interlude of that and Swing Life Away (which followed) was nice because I could catch my breath! By this point I was two people from the front (which is my limit seeing as I’m just not aggressive and I was being injury-wary about the possibility of my finger being bent backwards (which would, according to medical professionals, shred the nerve that’s trying to regrow)) and getting the breath crushed out of me and the hydration sweated out of me.

I was pleasantly surprised by Behind Closed Doors. State of the Union was great as well, it has that really heavy opening which I love.

They weren’t too heavy on the chit-chat either. This is important because they have really shitty opinions of stuff and I could seriously not care less about them. Much more vocal were Anti-Flag (which top the list for best support act so far — yeah, better than Rodrigo Y Gabriela), who yelled about the lameness of racism and bankers. Chris Barker snuck on during Rise Against’s Life Less Frightening and sang along, which was so cool.

I could have gone with more from Appeal to Reason — the way things went this time, it sounded a bit too much like their Sufferer tour that I saw them on last time. I’d like to believe that they put careful thought into each and every setlist, but too many were the same as they were in May 2007, including the older ones (Heaven Knows definitely, and maybe Stained Glass and Marble too…). They’d better vary it up a bit for London next Friday if I can make it. If I can’t make it, they can play any old shit…

This is the most I’ve written about music, ever…

Writing about Red Alert 3 made me realise that there needs to be a cool word for the DRM crisis that EA have instigated. I wanted to make a play on the word “dictatorship,” but it didn’t pan out. So for now, we’ll have to call it DRMinism. It rhymes with ‘feminism,’ which is almost good enough. But, fuck DRM.

Who wants to come see Alestorm with me in Peterborough on the 5th of September? It’s only £5.

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Remember just two years ago
When our bands were playing house shows?

Remember how we struggled (oh!)
Remember nights we spent on hard wood floors?

We’re fighting for
To make a change
To live our lives the way we dreamed,
Despite what they might say.

You’re there when I fall
You helped me be strong
Even when I lost my faith
Now we’re standing so tall
We’ve made it through it all
And we’ll keep it going strong
‘Cause I feel it in the songs

To all my friends from around the way,
Much respect, we owe you dues,
We’ve got your back, you’ve got ours too.
I’ll be there, should you fall
And I just wanted you to know
You can always count on me…

In the Songs, by Midtown. For what comfort it can offer.