France and Benefit Show Wrap Up

WE GOT A WHOLE BUNCH of very nice emails from France yesterday. Why? Because an interview that we did in March with one of the major national French TV stations finally aired. The timing is perfect, because SNEP, France’s version of the RIAA, just put out these two posters to try to scare filesharers back into obedience.

As you can see in the pictures, people who share music are represented by a middle finger– the implication being that filesharers are just trying to flip off ‘the system’. And if the record companies keep thinking about the issue that way, it works just fine for us. We’re not here to flip off the music industry (though we’re always happy to do so when asked), instead we’re here to win and keep winning until we level the playing field in the music business. The longer that the major labels pretend that there’s no values or politics in filesharing, and the more effort they spend trying to threaten and scare people, the less time they leave themselves to adapt. SNEP says they’re about to start suits of their own against people that are sharing music. Do they think that’s going to be a popular move in France? Or do they just not realize that software like MUTE is going to make lawsuits impossible?

·····

The Downhill Battle benefit show on Thursday was awesome, as predicted. All the bands were really, really good, and it raised us some money. So, what does that mean for you? It means that we can get a little bit of cash to a programmer friend, which will let him work less this summer and spend more time organizing coding projects for us. And that means that we can turn the site into an organizing juggernaut, we can drop some sweet software, and we can lay the foundation for some serious business. We haven’t done nearly enough yet to get everyone involved who’s psyched about these issues, but we’re getting our house in order so please stay tuned.

·····

The Postal Department is evolving rapidly and we’ve got a new t-shirt for sale today: concept by KDrisc, groundwork by NRev and HWil, execution by Fujichia. Did filesharing just get a little bit cooler? Check it.