No Business like Stealing: "No Business" by Negativland

Without spoiling it too much, here's what you'll find. The music (which comes with the disclaimer: "no elements original to Negativland were used to make these recordings") begins and ends with a collage based on the Beatles' Abbey Road song "Because", which they re-arrange to create the phrase "Because old is new," which kinda sums up Negativland's take on audio collage and cultural production in general. New is old and old is new and it's pretty much just one big mash-up claiming to be "original". CD/Booklet review of Negativland published by MOAK47

I happened to e-mail Negativland about the lyrics to their song "The ABC's of Anarchism" which has a spoken voiceover, a band member reading snippets out of Alexander Berkman's famous piece. Things lead to things, and I'm now writing a review of their new CD package, "No Business".

And what a package. Negativland pulls out all the stops on this one. Just when you thought CD's were getting boring and waiting for downloading mp3s was fun, these guys set you up with a CD with short film ("Gimmie the Mermaid," a funny stab at Disney's cartoon and an overzealous pro-copyright freak). In addition to the CD, you'll find a 56 page booklet explaining in brief pretty much the whole of the copyright debate as we currently find it. And if that's not enough, included in this package is your very own yellow Negativland whoopie-cushion.

Without spoiling it too much, here's what you'll find. The music (which comes with the disclaimer: "no elements original to Negativland were used to make these recordings") begins and ends with a collage based on the Beatles' Abbey Road song "Because", which they re-arrange to create the phrase "Because old is new," which kinda sums up Negativland's take on audio collage and cultural production in general. New is old and old is new and it's pretty much just one big mash-up claiming to be "original".

So, if we were just talking about music it wouldn't be such a big deal, and this CD package wouldn't be that important. But here's the secret, it's all about property. Intellectual property, another name for a collection of rights (trademark, patent, copyright) that have not much to do with each other. In fact, they only have something to do with each other when someone blurts out "intellectual property." But I digress.

To the CD: there are a couple funny songs like "No Business" ("...like stealing", as they make Ethel Merman sing); then there's "Favorite Things," a take-off of Julie Andrew's Sound of Music song (the line "Nose Cream on Kittens" was really good). The song "Piece of Pie" is a little long and annoying, especially when it doesn't end up going anywhere, just people asking if this guy wants Pie or Hamburgers and him getting ever more angry.

They send one out to the Atheists with "God Bull" and the joint-rollers with "Keep Rollin'".

One of the songs most important to the current debate on copyright is "Downloading" which has pretty meaty segments from a speech which talks of the "very special connection between the fan and the artist" while the speaker panders to the music industry and goes after the evil music downloaders (the "insidious virus") whose only goal is to destroy western culture as we know it.

So now that we have a nice segue into Negativland's book, what can I say. It provides a nice overview of the importance of the current copyright debate as well as making a call for building up the neglected idea of fair use for creative purposes (expanding fair use). It edges on (but thankfully doesn't get there) what is common among works critical of copyright, a prostrating before and apologizing to corporate interests. In comparison, the song "Downloading" has a little more teeth than most cultural criticism, but Negativland get a lot of points right in this essay.

They say that there are two fundamental views of the public domain that are irreconcilable. One a property-based view that abhors a public domain, the other a culture-creative view that relishes in it whether legal or not. They also point out that one of the weak points of alternative copyleft initiatives (creative commons, GNU) is that they have no place for artists and musicians to make money, which is one reason that the ideas aren't catching on so fast. The other view, expressed by computer guru Richard Stallman and Fugazi's Ian MacKaye is that people should be interested in making music or computer code. Once they want to make money, the become businesspeople, not artists, musicians, or coders interested in the public good. It's a tough call.

Another point they make is that the current copyright regime is really upsetting an age old practice of cultural diffusion, much like Monsanto and their GMO's are upsetting the age old practice of seed-saving and seed-trading. In the chapter, Grist for the Mill, they detail how contemporary culture has always been a source of inspiration and appropriation for creators of culture. Now, the fat-ass corporate citizen sits down at the table and starts to dictate who can have what for dinner, most of it going into their mouth as they scream bloody murder that they're under attack.

In all, it is a very poignant essay by a band smack-dab in the thick of things, struggling to make art in a culture that criminalizes art.

They end the work with a list of titles of books and websites for further knowledge, as well as a very interesting essay by Robert Hinkley which talks about a small modification in corporate law which could make corporations stop acting as if they were greedy (as he says, greed cannot be directly attributed to a corporation, which only exists on paper). His solution is very simple, adding a line or two about liability when the directors make decisions which adversely effect "human rights, the public safety, the communities in which the coporation operates or the dignity of their employees." In his opinion, reactionary efforts of most activism gets us nowhere, since the corporations are hardwired to act in irresponsible ways. His point is that it is possible to change the hardwiring through a small change in corporate law.

Which is pretty much the direction that Negativland would like to see big music business to go, hamstrung by a decent public policy that protects artist and public domain alike.

One of the nice parts of the CD package is that if any of it gets boring, there is always the whoopie-cushion you can sit on to make loud farting sounds. But more than likely you won't need it.