festival
SXSW 2010 on BitTorrent: 3.35 GB of Free Music
Since 2005 the SXSW music festival has published thousands of free tracks from participating artists. For some of the previous editions, SXSW itself has offered torrents for the artist showcases, but since 2008 this task has been delegated to the public. Since all of the MP3s are available for download on the festival’s site, it only takes one person to get a torrent up and running.
Continue reading »Open letter to Featured Artists’ Coalition
Dear (please see below): The chances of Britain’s Labour government retaining power in the upcoming elections are zero. It tries to present itself as forward-looking and progressive, but its continuing efforts to promote corporate entertainment industry interests above those of the people plainly demonstrate it has no clue about what’s happening in the digital 21st century, or how to function within it. Your members, as well as artists from around the world, must make it clear to your fans, the people who keep you going, that you absolutely will not countenance the government-backed corporate Three Strikes scheme to turn them into criminals.
Continue reading »Israel celebration sparks protests at TIFF
Harry Belafonte and Noam Chomsky are among famous activists who’ve signed a declaration opposing the Toronto film festival’s decision to showcase Tel Aviv in its inaugural City to City program. “On the other hand,” continues the Toronto Star , “filmmakers Ivan Reitman, Robert Lantos and David Cronenberg and actress Minnie Driver have signed on to the camp supporting the festival and the Tel Aviv program, accusing their opponents of, among other things, ‘political censorship’.” Not that famous faces are anything new in political protests. Jane Fonda is, for example, still living down her active and very public support of the ‘Democratic Republic of Vietnam’ during the Vietnam war.
Continue reading »Stephen Fry stars in online pirate game
p2pnet news view Games | Advertising:- Sadia and Zarrar have come uo with a way to cash in on Stephen Fry. A famous British actor, writer, comedian, author, television presenter and film director, Fry recently, and not at all shamefacedly, admitted he was a file sharer . Zarrar says he’s the, “company driver, morning cleaner, dish washer and occasionally the best salesperson in the world” for t-enterprise, a “leading software development company in Scotland”.
Continue reading »Margaret Atwood of the Long Pen
Famous Canadian writer Margaret Atwood is once again promoting her Long Pen, this time using her latest book as the vehicle. She reportedly came up with the idea when she was signing a UPS electronic tablet. Now, she’ll Introduced The Year of the Flood simultaneously at Word on The Street festivals in Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver on September 27, says the National Post , adding: “Atwood, who will physically be at the Toronto edition of the festival, will take questions from her fans in Vancouver and Halifax via ‘private video chat’ and then use the LongPen device to ‘transmit a genuine, personalized autograph instantly to their copy of the book’, according to organizers.” Among those on Atwood’s Long Pen board is Denise Donlon , who once upon a time ran Big 4 member Sony Music’s Canadian arm.
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