Needling the RIAA

[Groltz]

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http://plasticbugs.com/index.php?p=223



How long will it take for the arrest warrant to be issued? :wink:

 

[Handruin]

So the guy downloaded a silent track, and proceeded to strip it of DRM? I'm guessing he used a silent track to help make his case that he didn't violate the DMCA since the so-called music wasn't actually a song?

 

[GIANT]

Only problem is that there's a totally silent piece of music by John Cage called 4'33" -- well not totally silent, as you can hear the keyboard cover opening and closing 3 or 4 times. The sheet music is measure after measure of full rests.

A recording artist (Mike Batt, if I recall the name correctly) was sued by the estate of John Cage for royalties when he dedicated about 4 minutes of silence on one of his albums to John Cage!

 

[Handruin]

That being the exception.

 

[Mercutio]

4 '33" is actually very difficult to perform, since the musician must still keep a proper beat without any aural cues . It's also fascinating to hear, because absent the music from the stage, an audicence makes a surprising amount of noise, even a well-mannered crowd such that might attend a performance of John Cage's music.

However, it is NOT silent. It's 4 and a half minutes of people coughing, rustling their programs, lightly shuffling their feet and perhaps whispering. The point of the piece is to get the listener to hear the world around him or herself as critically as he hears a performance.

 

[Tannin]

Yeah, it's a pain. Some of those winter nights in that vast auditorium in Melbourne, I can barely hear the coughs and sniffles over some damn fool playing a flute solo.