On Thu, Feb 04, 1999 at 01:15:52AM -0600, Gentry Wilson wrote:
> I was a frequent to the ILS (International
> Lyrics Server) that was recently shut down due to a pending law suit.
> (http://www.lyrics.ch for more info).
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
- John Gilmore
I have also been a contributor to the lyrics archive, for roughly the
last decade -- the web site mentioned above is the successor to the FTP
site at UW-Parkside, which is the successor to the retrieve-by-mail site
at UMass which started back in the 80's. The first two were shut down
by their maintainers under similar pressure (plus a combination of
resource exhaustion). Additionally, the OLGA (OnLine Guitar Archive) site
was shut down due to coercive tactics from the same folks who are
responsible for this debacle. OLGA has now been reconstituted at multiple
mirrors around the world, many of which are beyond the legal reach
of those who would close them -- and this is a Good Thing. The materials
contained at both, IMHO, do not infringe anyone's copyright.
I'd expect the same thing to happen to the lyrics archive, although I've
heard (via slashdot) an ugly rumor that lyrics.ch may cave in and go
commercial, sharing profits with the music industry. I find this highly
objectionable and intend to demand removal of my lyric transcriptions should
this occur. (I contributed them with the understanding that they would
be freely shared with the Internet community in perpetuity.)
The music industry, BTW, is demonstrating itself to be one of the most
clueless and greedy entities around. Unfortunately for them, the technology
has already outstripped most of their ability to control it[*]. They've
fought DAT, writable CDs, MP3, OLGA, the lyrics server, and others in a futile
attempt to maintain their tight grip on the process by which music propagates
from the artist to the listener. That grip is getting all slippery as
both artists and listeners realize that they don't *need* the weasels
in suits to interact -- it's now completely possible to handle the
entire process via the Internet and cut out the middleman.
Anyway, we cut a hit and toured a bit,
With the song he said he couldn't use
And now he calls, and begs and crawls,
It's telephone Deja Vu
We got percentage points and lousy joints
And all the glitter we can use, mama,
So, huh, don't call us, we'll call you!
--- "Don't Call Us", Sugarloaf
---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[*] One exception: Ticketmaster, which is facing anti-trust investigation
with darn good reason.
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