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*
*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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