Negativland’s No Business
p2pnet.net News:- Those infamous law-breakers are at it again.
Negativland, that is.
Remember The Mashin’ of the Christ?
Now it’s No Business, a full length Negativland CD/book project that’ll arrive sometime in May all dressed up in a, “fancy shmancy die-cut sleeve package with a 14,000 word essay, a computer playable video, and 37 minutes of audio that are all about, and examples of, Negativland’s current take on issues of file-sharing, downloading, appropriation, and the supposed collapse of the music business, circa 2005,” say the crew on their website.
It’ll also come with a custom made whoopee cushion.
“We’re looking at the ways things have changed in the last decade and the ways things have stayed the same. And yes, it’s going to be funny,” they say. “Really.”
And unlike previous productions, not a single bit of audio on the CD is legally legal, Negativland’s Mark Hosler told p2pnet.
“Some would say our work continues to break the law or be illegal, but our approach is not to worry about breaking rules and to create as though the laws and those rules aren’t even there,” he said, going on:
“And that’s what a substantial portion of the essay is all about. There’s nothing strange about what we do creatively at all. It’s just that these things called corporations have pushed through these draconian shifts in copyright law and intellectual property law.
“We live a very, very weird world these days. But what’s interesting is: these parallel universes are arising. Peer-to-peer, Creative Commons, these are alternative arenas for art and information. They may not be ideal, but they’re all arenas where people are saying, ‘Look. Instead of trying to change the existing system, we’re just going to invent our own.’
“Peer-to-peer is so interesting. Not because you can go and get the new Britney Spears single. Who gives a shit about that? What’s interesting is, someone can release, for example, an internet movie that’s saying things and about things one could never get out in to mainstream media. Nor could they afford to pay for the bandwidth to have it streaming or downloadable on-line. But suddenly you have this situation where a whole lot of people can share than bandwidth and make it available.
“Our own work is in a quasi-legal grey area. Some people would say it’s illegal. We would say that we think it’s fair use. But because of the content, we’re pretty well forced to release ouor work ourselves because no one would touch us. We’re a total liability.
“We’re a legal nightmare.”
Nightmare or not, No Business is on the way and p2pnet will be giving you tastes as it progresses.
And in May, we’ll be devoting an entire Saturday’s worth of posts to Negativland – what it is, who’s in it, how it started, where it’s going, and why it’s so important not only to the online community, but to artistic expression in general.
For now, Download “Downloading” (9:51)
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
, stream it here or grab it from the No Business site
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
, where you’ll also find the No Business mp3.
Stay tuned.
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See:-
fancy shmancy – No Business, February, 2005
