-
I usually have these old school analogue microphones
-
this is really a politician like
-
You need to turn this up a little bit
-
music
-
Do you remember this piece?
-
you can even turn it up a little bit more
-
boom
-
boom
-
introduction music of 30C3
-
still music playing
-
Hello and …
-
applause
-
… welcome to Hamburg!
-
My name is Alec Empire
-
and what you just heard was the music piece
-
I wrote for last years anniversary opening video installation
-
The 30C3
-
Those of you in the audience,
-
who couldn’t attend last year,
-
there was a video installation
-
that ran on multiple screens
-
it showed the 30 year history
-
of the Chaos Computer Club.
-
The beginning - the 80ies,
-
then the 90ies, you know,
-
when the internet became accessible for everyone,
-
then the years after
-
and now we’re here…
-
This is really amazing for me, to be here
-
and thank you for coming!
-
And thanks also to the CCC for this invitation
-
because I'm a musician, you know,
-
I'm not really a hacker.
-
So when I received the request
-
I have to admit, it kind of blew me away
-
to be invited here and speak to you.
-
I assume most of you in the audience
-
do not know who I am,
-
and there is probably also a percentage of people here
-
who want to forget that they’ve ever heard a song of me.
-
laughter
-
So, I wanna quickly introduce myself.
-
I am a musician, producer, composer,
-
also sound engineer,
-
I am the director of Digital Hardcore Recordings,
-
which is a record label which is based in London.
-
I'm a member of Atari Teenage Riot,
-
applause
-
which is a collective of musicians.
-
I was born in West-Berlin in the 70ies,
-
so I experienced the Berlin Wall and its Fall,
-
yes, I was very involved in the techno and electronic music scene
-
when it exploded in Europe via Berlin
-
in the early 90ies.
-
I don’t want to go into this for too long
-
but I basically have been involved
-
in the production of around 400 releases,
-
worked with tons of musicians
-
like Björk, Gary Numan, Rammstein,
-
Primal Scream, Slayer, or classical musicians
-
like The Brotzki Quartett,
-
The music press calls me “sonic terrorist”.
-
I toured with Nine Inch Nails,
-
Wu Tang Clan, Rage Against The Machine,
-
Moby and many others.
-
Here you see a poster from the late 90ies,
-
and I think you get the idea,
-
where we stand politically.
-
some laughter
-
here you see Trent Reznor wearing
-
an Atari Teenage Riot shirt…
-
laughter
-
and here's a legendary photo of Aphex Twin
-
and as someone on the internet pointed out
-
in the corner there …
-
there's a mysterious person sitting in the garage
-
wearing an Atari Teenage Riot t-shirt.
-
laughter
-
For years I didn't even notice this,
-
so, who was pulling the strings?
-
In the late 90ies the Beastie Boys
-
put out an album by Atari Teenage Riot
-
called “Burn Berlin Burn”,
-
it went gold in the United States,
-
the international release of “Burn Berlin Burn”
-
was a slightly different version
-
and it was called “Delete Yourself”.
-
So the last 20 years of my life were an absolut ride.
-
We're the collective, we try to
-
stay off the grid as much as we can,
-
because we know about the dangers
-
of the music industry and its hype machine.
-
It can swallow you and then it spits you out.
-
And most artists can’t get back up again.
-
So when I spoke to Thorsten and Erdgeist,
-
and a little bit to Frank,
-
they told me that they want me to speak
-
about my approach to music today,
-
the political ideas and methods behind it
-
because they are very unusual
-
and have a lot in common with hacking.
-
Usually musicians are inspired by other musicians,
-
but we are inspired by hackers.
-
So, there're like 3 words:
-
Atari – Teenage – Riot
-
I wanna play you a little clip from 1999
-
music: “Revolution Action”
-
Okay
-
applause
-
the video for the song “Revolution Action”
-
was directed by Andrea Giacobbe.
-
It opens with a shot of Wall Street
-
and then the company faces a little
-
… technical problem.
-
This was in 1999 and it's maybe interesting
-
for you to know, that MTV UK banned it right away,
-
because they feared, that people would get
-
epileptic fits or something like that.
-
But actually MTV international did show it
-
in many other countries.
-
Over the past ten years
-
the internet spread this video
-
and – you saw an edited version of it now –
-
and the internet is probably,
-
where most people saw it.
-
Atari Teenage Riot is not a band,
-
that is often a misunderstanding.
-
It’s more a lose collective
-
of like minded musicians.
-
What might be interesting for you to know is
-
that we program every song on the Atari 1040 ST.
-
applause
-
The Atari 1040 ST, do you remember this even?
-
more applause
-
Who doesn't even know this computer anymore?
-
I guess the majority of you guys here.
-
It has 2MB RAM, laughing
-
it's always a fucking pain to make music on it.
-
It's like solving a difficult math equation
-
or something at our time.
-
But it's great.
-
It has a very fast and tight MIDI attack,
-
and every year that passes
-
it becomes a new challenge
-
to drive this little thing in the red.
-
But it’s cheap also at this point.
-
You know it's 20 bucks maybe on ebay
-
or something …
-
You can create art and beauty on a computer
-
and – I always say this to musicians,
-
who try to figure out like
-
learning the skills of a
-
“more traditional” instrument.
-
And you can also use music and art as a weapon.
-
William S. Burroughs wrote a text in the “Electronic Revolution”
-
about how riot sound effects can produce riots
-
when you play them in a riot situation
-
you simulate a riot, people hear the sounds,
-
they change their behaviour, call the cops,
-
the cops appear on the scene,
-
you have a riot.
-
some laughter
-
When we started in 1992
-
the far right and Neo-Nazi scene in Europe
-
was on the rise,
-
especially in Eastern Germany.
-
We knew we had to fight against that. With music.
-
So we decided to make electronic music
-
on an Atari computer based on Burroughs’ text.
-
Sampling technology was affordable at this point
-
and we created these tracks that were almost collage like.
-
Back then the music scenes were pretty divided
-
into groups like punks, ravers, metal fans,
-
and the Hip Hop scene and so on …
-
But our idea was to tear down those barriers
-
and unite people from all genres for the politics.
-
Fashion, race, sex, social background and so on
-
shouldn’t exclude anyone from joining.
-
I still believe in this approach even though
-
the music has to be adjusted from time to time
-
to make this work!
-
Germany just celebrated the 25th anniversary
-
of the Fall of The Berlin Wall
-
and again we see racist and fascist ideologies
-
spread all over Europe.
-
Anti-Semitism, attacks on Jewish people
-
and the demonisation of Muslims.
-
20 years ago we hoped these problems would be solved by now.
-
But they aren't.
-
It's important, that culture reacts to this
-
and maybe even prevents this.
-
The physical aspect of the music is very important.
-
Using frequencies that give the listener an adrenaline rush.
-
When people hear music
-
they often fall into certain patterns of behaviour.
-
We have all witnessed this many times.
-
You hear a christmas song,
-
your brain switches immediately.
-
Or when soldiers hear the national anthem,
-
their body language changes very fast.
-
Weddings, funerals, supermarkets, rock concerts,
-
raves, birthdays and so on…
-
Be aware of those, become immune to them,
-
and you are in less danger
-
of being tricked into something.
-
For those of you, who never attendend an Atari Teenage Riot show
-
this is, how it looks like
-
video
-
applause
-
The footage was filmed by visual artist Zan Lyons
-
who was there to take some photos first
-
but then switched to filming
-
when the crowd started to tear down the barriers.
-
This was filmed at Fusion festival near Berlin.
-
It's a festival which is completely corporate sponsor free
-
that we played in 2010.
-
These things still exist and I think
-
it is important to support them and go there.
-
Last August we premiered a video at the EFF event
-
at Defcon in Las Vegas in the US, which was this one.
-
music video: “Modern Liars”
-
“Modern Liars love machines,
-
they get inspired and steal your dreams.
-
The price of victory was never higher. …” cont.
-
applause
-
laughing I wish, I would have these comments during our shows
-
so people would know what to do. laughter
-
In the video animated by Rob McLellan
-
we wanted to use a 90ies style video game aesthetics
-
to criticise sexism in video games, the entertainment industry
-
and how it creates stupid rivalries between creatives.
-
You know, a few weeks later
-
the whole Gamergate thing happened
-
so we were slightly off time with this video.
-
I think … little bit later,
-
it would have been a good commentary, maybe.
-
This was also an edited version,
-
the whole thing is longer of course.
-
I think the message is becoming clearer,
-
if you see this whole thing.
-
I often get asked by people from the hacking community
-
why is it that not more musicians participate or help?
-
Okay, people have maybe some friends who do some music
-
and … you know … but I think, we can all agree
-
that since that Metallica Napster fight
-
musicians and artists don’t really want to get involved.
-
But I think they should.
-
Often people ask me ‘why isn’t there more protest music?’
-
There's that triangle, that a lot of creatives use.
-
It's like high quality, high speed at low cost
-
and you can never have the three …
-
It's just the reality of the creative process.
-
Now think about what happens –
-
and make no mistake about it
-
because it is happening now since a few years –
-
so what happens when you try to do it with zero cost?
-
It's almost like you're freezing culture.
-
Now we could argue:
-
If creativity is a resource, and compare it to fuel let’s say,
-
then it is limited and can run out.
-
When there is nothing left to loot.
-
Decentralisation, but we are witnessing the exact opposite of that.
-
Jaron Lanier often gets criticised for his view
-
and analysis of the situation, but he is right and it’s a fact.
-
This philosophy, this thinking, has led to a notch curve,
-
very tiny amount of people become very rich in this scheme,
-
everybody else loses or is driven out of business.
-
It used to be more like a bell curve, more equal,
-
fairer, it empowered the creatives,
-
it brought us the music we love.
-
And all musicians creating music right now in the digital age
-
depend on that second half of the last century
-
for musical references.
-
The era when recorded music flourished.
-
So when then people say:
-
“Wait , Alec, we rode horses and then cars came,
-
they were invented and everything got improved …”
-
I've never fully agreed with that comparison.
-
I don't think it really works here.
-
And you can really identify a con man
-
when you hear him argue this way.
-
It's just too simple.
-
Because, if this was true,
-
then the work of the greatest music composers in history
-
would be shared the most,
-
people would understand complex music more and faster.
-
But the exact opposite is the case right now.
-
Music education was the first that was cut
-
in most countries since the financial crisis.
-
The reality is that young people today
-
only hear something like classical music in a soundtrack
-
for blockbuster movies like Transformers
-
instead of learning and understanding it via the internet.
-
Even popular mainstream artists who make pop music
-
can only survive if they enter into, in my opinion,
-
very compromising corporate sponsoring deals.
-
Independent artists are doing other jobs by now
-
and can’t take risks.
-
In this system it gets harder and harder to speak out.
-
It is well known that if we look at the charts
-
that the majority of artists are coming from upper class
-
or upper middle class backgrounds.
-
Even Noel Gallagher of Oasis pointed this out
-
in an interview with the BBC a few weeks ago.
-
Many artists don’t like corporate sponsoring
-
because it corrupts creativity.
-
I think, they are right.
-
Because once you enter these agreements
-
your mind just starts to think in a different way.
-
Think of a politician who knows he/she took bribes
-
but acts in the media like he/she was ‘employed by the people’,
-
and works ‘for the people’.
-
So artists or those who work with artists
-
access culture funds, government funds, especially in Europe.
-
We all know when libertarians, especially those from Silicon Valley, say
-
“We don’t pay people. Not our problem, let somebody else worry about that.”
-
Well these companies are basing their businesses
-
on the tax payer repairing the damage.
-
That is just a reality right now.
-
So we have created a system
-
in which we are not driving creativity anymore,
-
but by voting with our dollar, we handed that power
-
over to bureaucrats and corporations.
-
Those people don’t like to see political ideas expressed by creatives
-
because it could get them in trouble.
-
I really want you to understand this
-
because I honestly believed and I think many of you
-
believed the same thing 2 decades ago:
-
We thought this problem was solved already.
-
Solved distribution via the Internet
-
and the rest will work itself out somehow.
-
Maybe it was working for a little while
-
but things got out of balance again.
-
It’s not so easy to point out the gatekeepers anymore
-
in this more complex world,
-
but they are out there and they are very busy,
-
and they have adapted to our times.
-
When I started I strongly believed in this principle:
-
Political art becomes corrupt when it's becoming part
-
of a corporate ad campaign.
-
The context matters so much
-
that it can shut down an artist forever
-
because we stop trusting their words.
-
video
-
(Julian Assange: I'm here to show solidarity)
-
(with the occupy London movement)
-
(In our experience over the last five years)
-
(the most frequent attacks on our organization)
-
(have not been, even by intelligence organizations)
-
(or military organizations,)
-
(they have, in fact, been by banks.)
-
music starting
-
… “are you ready to testify” …
-
(Assange: People cannot wear masks in London)
-
(they cannot wear facial coverings in London)
-
(and that basic anonymity is denied to people.)
-
(I say, that sometimes it may be legitimate)
-
(to deny anonymity. But we should not accept it)
-
(until Swiss bank accounts and off shore bank accounts)
-
(are also denied all their anonymity!)
-
more music
-
… “are you ready to testify” …
-
applause
-
So, what is quite interesting: This is from 2011,
-
so we were going onto a US tour and
-
we needed like a video and the video directors
-
that we wanted to work with didn't have time enough to do it
-
for the beginning of the tour basically,
-
so that we have it ready, so …
-
we tried to do this typical kind of viral thing
-
involving the fans,
-
but what was quite interesting is, that we got sent
-
a lot of these kind of clips by Anonymous activists
-
and we put up the first version of the video,
-
went on tour and in every city, we played in America,
-
like about a week or two weeks after,
-
there was an occupy protest.
-
I don't think, that we caused it, but …
-
It was very interesting to see
-
how a pretty boring idea in the first place
-
became something that connected activists
-
basically on a global level.
-
This is also where I met most hackers
-
like from that scene, let's call it like that,
-
for the first time, you know, backstage
-
and it was a very exciting thing
-
and then it ended up with the third version
-
that you've just seen, where we even got
-
that footage from Wikileaks
-
and because it was a free song we thought,
-
‘why don't add this donation thing to the video?’
-
But then, a few months later –
-
and I don't want this too long,
-
it is a real long story and Quinn Norton
-
did a great piece on it in Wired,
-
I think you can still read it online –
-
of course the corporate music industry reacts to that stuff.
-
And they are linked also, you know, to selling devices.
-
video: Sony advertisement
-
some laughter
-
So … no this
-
was aired on American televison in February 2012.
-
The thing is, they used our music, which …
-
you know, if you work with a publisher together, you kinda work it out,
-
the money comes to you as a composer or a band or whatever.
-
So what we did, to react to it, we donated …
-
it was quite a lot of money, I think,
-
to freeanons.org to the legal fund and …
-
applause
-
The thing is I kinda wanted to keep it quiet
-
and do it without any … publicity,
-
but the same weekend, that this ad aired on American television,
-
there were a lot of arrests,
-
so, of course, the Anonymous scene –
-
or I don't exactly know what you call it at this point –
-
a lot of people tweeted about this
-
and it was, kinda little win in that situation.
-
So, information wants to be free.
-
Music is like language.
-
There are so many layers of information in a music piece
-
that most of us can only understand a fraction
-
of what is communicated.
-
Before music could be recorded people wrote it down,
-
so other people far away were able to play it.
-
I am still blown away by the fact
-
how amazing music notation actually is
-
and has worked since centuries.
-
When you look at sheets of let’s say a symphony of Beethoven or Bach,
-
there is a beauty that some of us feel when we look at code,
-
that's what I was told by some hackers.
-
It is almost like something very deep inside of us
-
understands something before we can even explain that
-
to a colleague or a friend.
-
I was always interested in the personality,
-
the character of the creator
-
that would shine through in those works.
-
Even when these were anonymous,
-
the work could tell me so much
-
I could look at the world from a different perspective.
-
Like, I was looking through them.
-
Empathy is the key word here.
-
For most people using the internet now
-
it means defending your own world view,
-
staying strong while standing in a shit storm,
-
reading articles or comments that just confirm your opinion.
-
Empathy is something that is hard to learn or to find right now.
-
One thing, I just read a few days ago on Twitter and I really liked it,
-
was the statement from Tor about the bullying and all that stuff
-
and I think, to remind ourselves of that is so important.
-
Some people are so cynical at this point
-
that they don't think it matters,
-
but I think, it really does.
-
So it's well known that Mozart embedded secret codes in his compositions
-
that would link to the Free Masons, for example.
-
Music was always open, but you had train your ears
-
to decipher the information embedded in it.
-
When I wrote the little anniversary piece
-
for last year’s opening video, that we heard in the beginning,
-
I knew I just had to start with three C’s
-
and, I have to admit,
-
it was the first time, that I ever did that.
-
Usually children songs or christmas songs start like that
-
and in my world it's … taboo. chuckling
-
It was like ‘how can I make this kind of cool?’
-
We all know that when different musicians
-
play from the same note sheet, they will sound different.
-
The better they are
-
the more their own personality shines through
-
and we can later analyse these differences,
-
e.g. with technology or software.
-
But what we can’t do is to predict those micro decisions
-
that an artist will make when creativity is happening.
-
Too many factors of the universe are influencing that process
-
and it's outcome is always different.
-
Yes you can copy somebody else, that is happening all the time,
-
but every once in a while there are artists,
-
people who do something so special
-
that they seize the time.
-
Historically collectives have suppressed those people,
-
because they did not fit in.
-
But I hear people saying like to me:
-
“But Alec, every creative act is just a copy of a copy of a copy.”
-
“Authors just write down what other people say,
-
painters just paint what the world shows them.”
-
We all have heard this idea in all its variations before.
-
Especially when tech giants want to justify
-
monetisation of their users creations,
-
monetisation that just takes from their users without giving anything back.
-
Instagram is a very good example for that.
-
And I keep hearing the same simplification again and again
-
and it is dangerous.
-
Because it is an open attack
-
on the rights and freedoms of the individual.
-
And when you question those ‘new’ business models,
-
the corporate PR machinery kicks in
-
and peer pressure is applied to shut critics up.
-
In my opinion the fight for privacy, the fight against surveillance
-
and the fight for creators’ rights have a lot in common,
-
they are linked, they are connected.
-
Authorities, corporate or political, who invade your privacy
-
are also the ones who seize the products of your mind.
-
That’s why open source and creative commons are great
-
because those who participate in those adventures
-
do it with consent.
-
In my opinion, sharing MP3s creates passive consumers.
-
I say share your whole recording sessions
-
so people can look at how the beats were programmed,
-
which combinations of notes and frequencies
-
trigger those feelings that you like.
-
This way people learn and understand
-
and we can start moving forward.
-
applause
-
When I started Atari Teenage Riot in 1992
-
I wanted to take the revolutionary spirit of punk
-
and digitise that so it could be transported into our time
-
and hopefully be preserved
-
so future generations could further develop it.
-
When I use the word punk
-
I don’t mean a certain look, fashion or music genre,
-
I mean something that can be of course
-
found in punk fashion or the music genre punk,
-
but I mean this virus
-
that makes people question authorities & control systems.
-
Usually universities don’t produce those minds.
-
But these minds are needed to bring necessary change or innovation.
-
I think the hacker world is full of those,
-
but the music world?
-
Platforms like YouTube and Facebook do not produce them,
-
they make it impossible for these minds to get anywhere.
-
The only interesting artists were those
-
who knew how to trick those systems,
-
fake stats, they thought like hackers.
-
Introverts have created
-
some of the most important works in the history of mankind.
-
And introverts do not fit into that system
-
that has the goal to generate the most clicks in order to sell ads.
-
This system favours those who come up with the loudest
-
and most conformist content fast.
-
We can all sit back and enjoy
-
when things get even more absurd
-
but deep down we all know
-
that it is all very short sighted
-
and even goes against the hacker ethics.
-
To create art and beauty on a computer.
-
I always loved the phrase that I saw
-
on one of the Anonymous twitter accounts a few years ago
-
“On the internet you can be anything you want.
-
It’s strange that so many people choose to be stupid.”
-
laughter
-
I think, you've heard about this …
-
applause
-
But it's also true, like on the internet you can consume anything you want
-
and it's strange that so many people choose to consume something stupid.
-
And you can replace consume with produce
-
and it will also make sense!
-
Most creatives produce for a target audience,
-
an audience that is already defined by the content industry.
-
It’s understandable that one wants to minimise any risk beforehand.
-
Netflix praised this when the series “House of Cards”
-
became successful with their viewers.
-
Critics say that its success had probably more to do with the fact
-
that it was based on the great original BBC series.
-
So not as innovative as Breaking Bad for example.
-
I noticed something interesting –
-
in the media and by talking to other people about it,
-
there was always that underlying idea
-
that the algorithms are so smart and precise at this point,
-
when they tell you you will like this, yes, you will totally like this.
-
And many people accept that without even questioning it.
-
So, are too many people becoming passive consumers again?
-
Like our parents generation?
-
High approval ratings prove that content is of high quality?
-
If we are honest than then we must admit
-
that most people make a judgement by looking at stats and comments
-
before they have read the article,
-
watched the video or listened even to the song.
-
While culture is becoming more fragmented,
-
we see an even more centralised accumulation of power
-
when it comes to who is deciding over the future of the internet
-
and how the majority of average people use it
-
or have access to it.
-
I know very well that I am speaking to probably exactly to the –
-
I don't know how many people are here tonight –
-
thousands of people on the planet right now
-
who have not stepped into those traps,
-
you are very conscious about how you use technology.
-
I am saying this to you because at this point one could argue
-
that we are all losing the war here,
-
even though some smaller battles are won here and there
-
every once in a while, but the bigger picture?
-
I think it looks dark!
-
I remember last year, the 30th anniversary, I couldn’t attend,
-
but I felt it on the other side of the world,
-
the Snowden revelations killed all doubts of what we’re up against here.
-
It was like a reality shock,
-
some even compared it to events like 9/11;
-
there is the time before and after you got hit with the news.
-
Everyone wanted to celebrate the 30 years of this great club and then this …
-
I admit I was depressed on a constant basis since the summer of 2013.
-
What depressed me most wasn’t the magnitude of the surveillance,
-
it was how I witnessed a young generation
-
that was so excited about democracy
-
and the possibilities to improve it with technology,
-
I witnessed how the spirit of that generation
-
was crushed within almost a few weeks, it seemed.
-
Hopelessness, cynicism and frustration spread like a virus.
-
But the worst thing was that indifference
-
from most people out there,
-
people we really needed to mobilise those masses
-
who make the difference in the end.
-
To get the snowball rolling, turn it into an avalanche.
-
I didn’t even feel like I wanted to perform anymore,
-
our new album was finished, we were setting up its release,
-
preparing videos, getting all the tools ready.
-
But the energy that everyone felt in 2010, 2011
-
and perhaps even in 2012 seemed gone.
-
I think decline of the Pirate Party in Germany shows that, too.
-
In the first hours of when the Snowden story broke
-
I tweeted this:
-
“I’m surprised how indifferent so many feel
-
about the US surveillance scandal.
-
Look up Germany’s history.
-
I have spoken to people
-
who lived in Nazi and Eastern Socialist Germany –
-
the spying on your life by the State is one thing,
-
but what it does to your friends and family in the long run
-
is beyond anything you can imagine right now.
-
You lose trust in people you love,
-
every conversation becomes half lie, half truth.
-
It becomes part of everybody's lives.
-
Nobody is an exception.
-
So ignore music, games or whatever you do right now
-
and research the topic.
-
Anything you have said in the past
-
can be twisted against you in a surveillance state.
-
Made the wrong joke in ‘private’?
-
You are constantly being blackmailed by those in ‘charge’.
-
History has shown that these types of societies never last,
-
they get so corrupted with lies that many people will suffer in the end.
-
Everybody loses.”
-
That was in the summer of 2013
-
and my words resonated with many people in the online community.
-
Even the Green Party contacted me,
-
asked if I could see myself somehow working with them.
-
I said no …
-
applause
-
and actually let me make one thing very clear right now,
-
if you are a politician and you wonder
-
why people are disillusioned with politics and don’t vote …
-
Yes, we don’t trust you anymore.
-
applause
-
And in these situations I can’t thank everyone in the CCC enough
-
for their hard work, commitment and passion.
-
Let me say this as a musician, and I speak for many when I say this:
-
People like us, we don’t understand every technical aspect of this stuff
-
but what the CCC does sends a strong message
-
and gives people hope out there.
-
And that is very important right now.
-
The right of privacy is very important to creative people.
-
Culture can be a strong weapon!
-
Even though at this point most of the information was known,
-
feeling the atmosphere together with likeminded people
-
in this old cinema in former East Berlin energised me again.
-
You know, Jacob Applebaum, he invited me to the premier
-
of the film “Citizenfour”. I don't know, if you've seen the film yet.
-
It's a great documentary and I think, everyone here kinda knows it,
-
but I wanted to point something else out today
-
When I sat in this packed cinema next to Frank Rieger and all the other guys
-
and the room was filled with amazing people
-
who deeply cared about this topic
-
and then Laura spoke to the audience and so on,
-
I was so glad that I did not watch
-
a crappy stream online, alone, in my cubicle.
-
So when things look hopeless, remember to use culture,
-
bring people together, share time and space together.
-
Here is a photo of protestors in Tokyo during the Fukushima rallies in 2011.
-
It says “Anti Tepco Riot”,
-
so if you are an artist, be open
-
and let others develop your art further.
-
It’s ok to let go sometimes,
-
if you disagree or something, just create new stuff
-
and move forward.
-
I was just told I have ten more minutes –
-
damn, I really wanna speak about something
-
that happens to me with Spotify,
-
I hope, I have enough time. chuckling
-
Because you might have heard it,
-
in 2014 more and more artists started to speak out
-
against streaming services like Spotify.
-
Usually it is about royalties and I will not go into this too much right now,
-
it is clear to everyone who can do basic math
-
that these services are not the future business models,
-
because they don’t put any money back into the hands of the musicians.
-
These systems can’t be maintained.
-
But I want to tell you my experience with Spotify.
-
So in 1997 Atari Teenage Riot released an album
-
on the Beastie Boys label called “The Future of War”.
-
It was the album that introduced us to the world.
-
Its sales reached gold status,
-
critics praised it as possibly the strongest
-
musical Anti-fascist statement to come out of Germany.
-
For many it’s still the blue print of what can be done with a computer
-
when it comes to pushing the limits of sound,
-
connecting political lyrics with very physical music.
-
Songs from it still get played at protests around the world.
-
Influential music blog Stereogum rates it at number 9
-
of the loudest albums ever,
-
so to put this in perspective for you:
-
ACDC is at 19, Aphex Twin at 16, Motorhead at 13.
-
some applause
-
What is maybe interesting for some of you,
-
we used to print the recording set up in the booklet
-
so more cyberpunks could join the digital hardcore movement.
-
So 6 years later, in 2003 our label received a 40 page document
-
from this institution in Germany called
-
Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien.
-
laughter
-
This album was suddenly put on the Index.
-
And they explained it over 40 pages.
-
To give you an example of what they were criticising:
-
African born rapper Carl Crack sings
-
“I have a fear of a white planet”,
-
so he was expressing his experiences with racism growing up in Germany
-
where he was often the only black child and had trouble ‘fitting in’.
-
A reason for the Bundesprüfstelle to shut him up,
-
they argued that people of “caucasian skin color“ or something
-
are being discriminated against here.
-
some laughter
-
You read this stuff, first you laugh about it,
-
and when you get to page 18, you get so mad
-
that you want to burn this thing.
-
some laughter
-
I think, people who work on video games know what I'm talking about.
-
What does the Index mean? You are forbidden
-
to sell the music, or play it in public.
-
It’s a form of censorship.
-
What actually happened was that a teacher in Bavaria
-
found the CD with one of his students and reported it.
-
Classic scenario where an outsider who doesn’t look deeper into something,
-
takes action against something he doesn’t understand.
-
It would have been easy to contact us,
-
maybe even get us in the class room and clear this up. But no.
-
How Germany deals with anti-fascist art is one thing
-
but now it gets better.
-
Years pass, the internet, thanks to Pirate Bay and the fans
-
people can access the music –
-
we didn't even care about the Index anymore.
-
I made my peace with this whole thing and moved on.
-
Ten years passed, when suddenly we receive notice from Spotify
-
that we have been flagged.
-
Because they were notified by the Bundesprüfstelle.
-
And we were given an ultimatum:
-
We remove this album from Spotify, or
-
the whole catalogue of the whole label will get removed.
-
So we are not even talking about Germany,
-
we are talking worldwide and all other artists on the label.
-
So my guys from the label put a call in,
-
hoping to get to talk to a human being so we can clear this up.
-
The woman on the other end is looking at her screen explains
-
“this happens to bands who use Nazi references in their songs.”
-
So my label manager explained
-
that this artist Atari Teenage Riot has not only one Anti-Nazi song,
-
all the music for over two decades was written to fight Nazi ideology
-
and he offered to send the evidence, like song lyrics, articles, etc.
-
So the Spotify woman’s answer was:
-
“You know, Nazi or Anti-Nazi, it doesn’t matter you’re being flagged.
-
We won’t change anything.”
-
some laughter, some booing
-
For now we decided to remove it
-
because we didn’t want the other artists to suffer, too.
-
But we are still looking into taking legal action.
-
So whenever marketing people try to convince you
-
that you should have one service hosting all content for you,
-
in the cloud, convenient, keep this in mind.
-
Out of sight, out of mind. Mistrust authority, promote decentralisation.
-
applause
-
I think when we speak about streaming services
-
and how much they suck chuckling
-
hopefully will be seen in a few years what they are
-
if they don’t change.
-
They are for me kind of a destructive force
-
that doesn’t help creatives,
-
only exploits them for short term profits.
-
But I want to mention that the guys from Bittorrent
-
are doing the right thing, in my opinion.
-
I really think that Bittorrent is moving into a direction
-
that gives the creatives control and let’s them decide.
-
If you love music and everything that comes with it,
-
support this service, use it, help build a better system.
-
I don't think I have enough time, right?
-
Herold: How much time do you need?
-
Alec: I wanted to talk about us trolling Apple with our iPhone app
-
laughing
-
I don't want to make it too long.
-
Herold: okay, five more minutes.
-
Alec: I was told, I have an hour, this flies by so fast
-
I'm overtime, okay.
-
Damn it, let's come to an end.
-
You know what? Let's forget this,
-
I'm gonna put that up online, the rest
-
chuckling, applause
-
To me it seems like the world is split into two sides
-
One sees the creative as a slave to the audience,
-
self-exploitation 24 hours a day,
-
the other sees the creative as the master of his audience,
-
like they are an army of slaves that have to pay and pay and pay.
-
If you never saw it this way,
-
go read the comments below YouTube videos.
-
some laughter
-
Suddenly it all makes sense.
-
By the way this is a phenomenon that is part of our culture,
-
we inherited that from the times of the Cold War,
-
when the battle between capitalism and socialism,
-
West and East was fought.
-
Other cultures, for example in Africa,
-
have never looked at music through those lenses.
-
I think it’s time to look at those, get inspired by them,
-
so we can move forward and create something better,
-
and finally leave these old battles behind.
-
We were all born into this, but together we can find a way out of it.
-
We just have to.
-
How the media reported on the latest hack
-
of “Sony by North Korea” couldn’t symbolise this better.
-
Ask around in a few months, how will people remember this story
-
and most people will probably repeat the headlines
-
that were written to generate the most clicks, fast.
-
Maybe we can just see a video at the end –
-
damn it, there's so much I wanted to speak to you about …
-
You know what, I show you two last things
-
in case you haven't seen it yet, I think,
-
culture needs to be used more for political battle and,
-
erdgeist mentioned it, the protest of the May 1st demonstrations,
-
I don't know, how many of you have seen this …
-
let me just show it to you
-
video
-
hardcore punk music in the background
-
applause
-
Okay, there's a lot of other stuff I wanted to mention to you,
-
but I don't have enough time right now,
-
but basically what I wanted to say is, I think
-
hackers and the artists must unite more
-
and they have to start working on a much deeper level.
-
Just build something better.
-
Use culture, also in the fight.
-
Okay, thank you.
-
applause
-
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