[DMCA-Activists] Press Release: The Madonna P2P Remix Project

[Seth Johnson]

For Immediate Release

30 April 2003

Press Contact: Miriam Rainsford aka iriXx
address@hidden

THE MADONNA REMIX PROJECT

In a vain attempt to stop peer to peer file sharing of her album  American
Life, Madonna released her own dummy mp3s on to KaZaA. Only the  first few
seconds of the files contain sound, a recording of Madonna  saying 'What the
fuck do you think you're doing?'. This gave an  unmissable opportunity to
parody remixers to turn Madonna's words into  their own statements in
support of freedom of speech.

John von Seggern's Digital Cutup Lounge produced the first remix, which  is
available from iriXx's website, http://www.iriXx.org/madonna/ where  the
'Madonna Remix Project' is hosted. The news spread like wildfire,  and
within days iriXx was receiving bandwidth warnings from her ISP as  articles
appeared on Yahoo! and the front page of CNN.com. Digital  rights activists
www.anti-dmca.org rushed to her assistance, and have  mirrored the files,
while friend 'RMG' has made a mirror webpage  available at
http://www.madgelloland.org/irixx/madonna/, where users are  encouraged to
visit in preference to the original site.

Yet some have cynically, or even realistically, suggested that all this 
activity will simply add to Madonna's own publicity. Together with John, 
iriXx released a statement entitled 'The Madonna Manifesto: or What the 
Fuck do we think we're doing?'  (http://www.iriXx.org/madonnamanifesto.html)
outlining their reasons for  producing the remixes as a protest against the
locking down of digital  technology.

John comments:

"My concern is more with her implication that major copyright holders  are
in the right when they attempt to place onerous restrictions on the  flow of
culture and information, which I see as necessary for the  maintenance of a
healthy culture and society, and that fans downloading  music ought to be
ashamed of themselves.

"By remixing her warning and putting it to a headache-inducing techno  beat,
I am both ridiculing its content as well as attempting to demonstrate that 
any creation or utterance put forward into the public sphere necessarily
becomes  grist for the mill of future creators, no matter what the original
intention of the  author [and that is as it should be]. Make it illegal if
you want but these  critiques will still circulate in the underground and on
the Net. Using her own words  to make this point is 'signifyin' in the
[Henry Louis] Gatesian sense,  and should be seen as a way to level the
playing field and make  oppositional voices heard.

"We could write a reasoned verbal critique of the viewpoint Madonna is 
expressing instead -- and such critiques are posted frequently here on ...
But how  can we put forth an alternative viewpoint in a way that makes it as
powerful as  Madonna's original expression?"

iriXx's reasoning was more political. Under her real name, Miriam 
Rainsford, she is currently working on a book focusing on digital rights 
issues, entitled 'Copyleft: Creativity, Technology and Freedom', to be 
published by GNU Press later this year (see 
http://www.copyleftmedia.org.uk). She does not believe the media hype  that
file sharing damages the music industry - in fact, she offers this  incident
as an example proving that it serves instead to promote CD  sales. She is "a
p2p user and proud of it", believing that "peer to peer  networking is a
massive leap forward in human communication,  unprecedented since the
development of the internet, and should be put  to positive and creative
use."

As a digital rights activist, iriXx wished by her actions "to draw 
attention to the fact that any attempts to lock down music sharing by 
technological or other means are a) doomed to failure and b) impossible  to
achieve without placing unnecessary restrictions on the user."

"I object to any form of Digital Rights Management (DRM), which often  has
grave implications on privacy, and I am active with the UK Campaign  for
Digital Rights <http://ukcdr.org> in lobbying for the continuance of  fair
use rights and against oppressive legislation such as the DMCA and  the EUCD
which threatens our civil liberties.

"I believe that p2p is an expression of fair use rights in the digital  age.
It has never stopped CD sales - that would be quite ridiculous in  such a
label-oriented consumer society, where people enjoy the feel-good 
experience of shopping and its nice off-the shelf packages.

"My parody of Madonna's words is my only means as an ordinary citizen of 
giving the finger to the system which force feeds us the sugary pop of  top
10 artists. I object to the dominance and personal exploitation  practised
by the major labels in the same way that I object to  globalisation in its
many forms. So many people - including myself -  turn to p2p filesharing to
escape the banal and repetetive tripe that an  increasingly desperate music
industry has resorted to promoting in an  effort to sell records to
teenagers. Through peer to peer systems I have found - and often purchased -
the music which i enjoy, and which  inspires me as an artist to create.

"Oh, and I'm also just having a bit of fun...."


©2003 Miriam Rainsford / iriXx.

Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies of 
this document, in any medium, provided that the copyright notice and 
permission notice are preserved, and that the distributor grants the 
recipient permission for further redistribution as permitted by this notice.

Modified versions may not be made.

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