Today I finished recording and mixing the final tracks. I now have to wait for Puce to master the album.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been working on this thing for just about a year (356 days to be exact). It will be good to have that part of my brain free again. I can only hope that the final product is actually as good as I think it is because I’ve been working in a bit of a vacuum and I just don’t know anymore. I’m looking forward to lots of feedback (that means YOU, oh faceless audience).

Today the Supreme Court ruled on several pending cases, one of them was MGM v. Grockster. The court ruled in favor of MGM, stating that because Grockster “distributed a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, [it] is liable for the resulting acts of infringement.”

Ok, so after reading the opinion, I gotta say I agree with the Supreme Court. In response to the ruling, Edgar Bronfman, the CEO of Warner Entertainment Group, said, “The most important message from today’s historic decision is that progress and innovation do not have to come at the expense of recording artists, songwriters and the people who make their living in the entertainment industry. This important decision will allow artists and the creative community to prosper side by side with the technology industry” (emphasis mine).

This comment irks me.

The Sups allow that MGM would be justified if they decided to seek compensation, though they they also admit that it would be hard to determine how much should be awarded because of the nature of P2P networks (the judges point to the fact that there is no record of what was traded and that it’s not possible to track), but who would the money go to?

Would these big media companies award all of their artists the same amount of money? (I can’t imagine that being more than a few cents for each artist.) Or would they split it between all of the corporate entities with the individual artists receiving no compensation because they can’t determine to whom it should be divvied out? What do the artists gain from either of these scenarios? Nothing, is what I say.

If the big recording companies manage to completely stamp out illegal downloads, then the artists who will supposedly “prosper side by side with the technology industry” will probably lose even more because there is a large percentage of non-CD buying, lazy internet users out there who will never hear their music and subsequently not go see them play live. (And even that is a contentious point, really. The fact is that no one has, and will never have, solid statistics about who is illegally downloading and why they are doing it and what they would do if they couldn’t. Would they buy more CDs?)

The notion that the elimination of illegal downloading will substantially increase their sales (which is what I think is implied when the industry says, “we’ve lost 4 bazillion dollars to illegal downloading!”) is ludicrous. People using these networks will either a) simply stop trying to illegally download stuff because it’s too complicated or b) trade mp3s with friends through their websites or with portable digital media. There might be slightly less illegal trading going on, but I don’t think the number of people who actually go buy CDs will increase. The satisfaction of owning a CD, for me at least, is owning a physical object with particular packaging and not the content of the disc itself, which if I like it well enough will go on my computer anyway. It is also a symbol of my appreciation for a band.

I recorded vocals for four songs late last night in what can only be described as a frenzy of productivity. I continued that frenzy today by mixing all four songs as well as making final tweaks to Todestraum. This means I have three more songs to go.

Cheryl Sim, a singer that Future Boy plays with, is playing a show on July 13th at Casa del Popolo in Montréal. He’ll be sporting the keytar and is responsible for all of the drum/synth programming. 6$ at the door, show starts at 9 pm, they’re on second.

Although I neglected to mention it while the fight was up, Future Boy collaborated with Johnny Cashpoint on an entry for Policy of Rape. Surprisingly, the fight turned out to be a pretty good one and no one made an “offensive” song. You might want to read the lyrics to this one.

I’ve been making good progress. I have only six more songs to go. But the month of July is bearing down.

And so, I have mostly recovered from being sick and finished recording the vocals for track 6 on the album. Johnny Cashpoint has also finished the very last track. I’m not going to say anything about momentum because every time I do, it goes away. There you have it.