Damien Mulley

It seems DownloadMusic.ie will get sued into non-existence if they don’t pay IMRO a license fee for people to be able to download music from their site. No matter if they are already dealing direct with the artist or not. It seems once you are in IMRO you automatically give them the right to be your money collector.

Photo owned by Sridhar J (cc)

This means that you cannot allow websites such as MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, and downloadmusic.ie to use your music, unless you obtain permission from IMRO or unless IMRO collect royalties from these sites.

Therefore, to allow downloadmusic.ie to continue to promote your music, IMRO must be paid a license fee, because they have exclusive control of the right to make your music available on the Internet.

This means that we have to deduct 8% from every sale you make on downloadmusic.ie, plus 0.0032c for every stream of your music. This money will be paid to IMRO, which they will pay to you, if you meet their criteria for payment.

There appears to be an opt out you can sign that will leave the likes of DownloadMusic.ie contract directly with the artist but I understand from Johnny from DM that it’s not retroactive so IMRO still want their fistful of dollars.

Have they being going after Bebo, mySpace and others or only businesses operating out of Ireland?

A friend of mine who I won’t mention in case I KATHY FOLEY embarrass her saw my recent Facebook yes that Kathy Foley and was of the Sunday Times, yes and was wondering what I was heading to no she really likes Twenty the RTE show for.

Photo owned by jared (cc)

So yeah, there’s Q&A as in Questions and Answers and there’s Queer and Alternative the best music event around if you like indy music. But Kathy would hardly be expected to know that. I’ll be clearer on FB in future. It’s on Friday, April 4, 2008 at 10:30pm in the Button Factory/Temple Bar Muso Centre. The only equivalent we have in Cork is Freakscene and while good, is no longer great and is on a worknight too. Well done to Vince for always putting on a well organised show. Back in the little more plush Temple Bar Music Centre too. Facebook event for it.

Photo owned by a town called malice (cc)

To celebrate my birthday on March 7th, Sigur Ros in association with YouTube (you may have heard of them) will devote the front page of the YouTube to my favourite band and to make it better they’ll be streaming Sigur Ros’ DVD Heima for everyone to see.

Lads, seriously, am honoured.

Been a fan for years but played their debut album again. The first track is a spoken word piece/sample called Wolves, spoken by a dude called Chairman Omali from INPDUM (International Peoples Democratic Uhuru Movement). These are the lyrics:

I’m not a hunter but i am told,
that, uh, in places like in the arctic,
where indiginous people sometimes might, might, hunt a wolf,
they’ll take a double edged blade,
and they’ll put blood on the blade,
and they’ll melt the ice and stick the handle in the ice,
so that only the blade is protruding,
and that a wolf will smell the blood and wants to eat,
and it will come and lick the blade trying to eat,
and what happens is when the wolf licks the blade,
of course, he cuts his tongue, and he bleeds,
and he thinks he’s really having a good thing,
and he drinks and he licks and he licks,
and of course he is drinking his own blood and he kills himself,

thats what the Imperialists did with us with crack cocaine,
you have these young brothers out there who think they are getting something
they gonna make a living with,
they is getting something they can buy a car,
like the white people have cars, why can’t i have a car?
they getting something they can get a piece of gold,
white people have gold, why can’t i have gold?
they getting something to get a house,
white people have a house, why can’t i have a house?

and they actually think that theres something thats bringing resources to them,
but they’re killing themsleves just like the wolf was licking the blade,
and they’re slowly dying without knowing it.
thats whats happening to the community, you with me on that?
thats exactly, precisely what happens to the community,
and instead of blaming the hunter who put the damn handle and blade in the ice
for the wolf,

that what happens is the wolf gets the blame, gets the blame for trying to live,
thats what happens in our community,
you don’t blame the person, the victim,
you blame the oppressor, Imperialism, white power is the enemy,
was the enemy when it first came to Africa,
and snatched up the first African brothers here against our will,
isss the enemy today,
and thats the thing that we have to understand.

At the end of 2004 Rock`n`Roll Hall Of Fame Show this version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps was shown. Tom Petty, Jeff Lynn, Prince and more.

Got their album recently and really impressed with it.

Meanwhile Justice V Simian – We are your friends:

Pure pop.

But is happy to let John Waters rant about bloggers and their lack of fact-checking. So Suzy, being the single source for the Michael Lynn Tapes has a right to be miffed. As I understand it, Newstalk were given access to the tapes but were afraid to use em but now that Rick O’Shea has used them (and gave attribution!) and papers have referenced them (without attribution) Newstalk too are playing them. I do wonder though who’ll get the royalties for these songs? The banks? A bank account in Brazil? Newstalk should thank Suzy in the morning and spell out her website address.

Edit: Clarified the point that Rick did the decent thing, as he always does!