Mark Hosler(Negativland) lecture Part Two, reveals that U2 lied about suing them
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2024
- Mark starts out talking about how they get their inspiration which then develops into him talking about how they got the material for the U2 EP. He then starts talking about all the trouble they got into and for what reasons and talks about how he tracked down the store that the record was purchased, Athens, GA.
This is where it starts to get very interesting because he makes the connection that the only thing in Athens connected to U2 was REM and (surprise, surprise) REM's manager is attending the conference. They both resolve that the resulting lawsuit started with U2, not Island Records as U2 has attempted to suggest in the past.
This is from a conference at Duke Law called "Framed!" and is supposed to be under Creative Commons License. If you represent Duke Law and there are issues with the licensing(I can't seem to find the type of CC license it is and there's no hint of who to attribute it to), please contact me and I'll gladly work with you.
They're not theives and sampling isn't really a crime. Allow art to be art,.... He's a super nice guy!
They did break copyright law for sure, but it had to be done. this man is one of my artistic inspirations.
Do you have any more of this lecture? This is amazing. Dude's sitting right effin there! haha!
Man, Mark is pissed
Negativland was on SST ?!?!? Now that, I didn't know !!! Man, SST had some great acts back in their prime. The fact Negativland were on that label just adds to it's diversity.
Yep, it's true. I've still got some of the vinyl from that era including U2.
Yeah, Negativland was the first group on the SST label I had heard, when Escape From Noise came out. Of course, the band got into a big legal debacle with SST after the U2 debacle cooled down. Apparently, the braintrust at the label were upset about something of the things that were revealed in the book the band put out about the U2 debacle, vis-a-vis relating to label accounting and such. Anyway, SST was getting weird, as I understand they sued several of the other bands at that time too, so it wasn't just Negativland. The upshot of the SST lawsuit was that the band left the label (eventually, I believe they ended up reissuing all of their SST titles on their own Seeland records) and they had to hand over a contractually obligated live album (which SST managed to completely butcher) as part of the severance deal. SST may have started off as a cool label, but in the end they turned out to be a bunch of jerkoffs like any of the major labels.
SloughMusic wasnt greg ginn of black flag the owner of sst?
@blastingcaps That's pretty cool. It doesn't surprise me that they did that. My wife sent them some mail back in the mid-90's and we got an envelope full of all sorts of crazy stuff. We still have it around here somewhere.
Mark gave a lecture here in town and I got him to sign my copy of U2. He wrote:
"I am ruining this cover by writing on it! Do not sell on Ebay! That's the letter U and the... Love Mark Hosler"
It couldn't get much better than that in my book..:)
yeah, that's exactly how it sounded when I got it(they used RealAudio originally if that tells you anything..heh). I'm actually surprised it sounds as good as it does..heh.
good to revisit this after Kasem's death
No but you are welcome to find one of those extensions for your web browser that will let you download the audio. I know there is one for Chrome that will let you download the MP3 of it. The lecture is Creative Commons so there shouldn't be any issues assuming you attribute Duke Law when using it.
@blastingcaps Part I of the lecture(this one is technically part II) is listed as a video response so you can find it here or in my list of videos. I'll have part III up sometime soon but it's taking a bit to get it rendered properly. I'll respond to your comment once I've finished.
Ok, thanks. Was hoping to be able to get a less compressed version, but no problem. I know the license well, I'll send you a link too.
Iyt's too bad we can't really hear what the REM manager guy is saying. Would have liked to have heard his side of the story.
@ehrichweiss Awesome man, thank you. How did you first hear of them and what year? I have found that people often have cool stories about how they found their work. I first hear of them back in late 93 in a newsletter from the band phish, so i plunked down 25 bucks at a music store who had to order the CD. Took like four weeks to get to me. Escape from noise. Its wild how different things are now ya know? Now you just click a few times and shit shows up at yer front door in a day haha.
Something about this that always bothered me that i i never heard anybody bring up is that its exceptionally annoying that a band couldnt make that record the way that they did JUST because U2 is so popular and some dumb ass might not know its not a U2 record. What i mean is say i wanted to create a concept album about the U2 spy plane and wasent even THINKING about that stupid band. Its almost as if THEY own the name, idea, and everything surrounding this thing. Its ridiculous.
oh yeah, and definitely leave a link..I'd love to hear the finished product.
@ehrichweiss Thanks man, thats totally cool. I am really interested in seeing the rest of this so i thank you very much. They seem to be pretty cool guys to. I say that because back in i guess about 2000 or so i was locked up (selling drugs, i was just a dumb kid) and i had about three years in i sent them a letter and they sent me back the letter U and the numeral 2 and a bunch of other stuff for free and a little encouraging note. I know they arent made of money, so it was cool to get all that
oh, speaking of books, he autographed his book for me too, it said "Fuck Snuggles"...
@blastingcaps (just found the software btw and am hoping I have the settings correct for export so it may be uploaded tonight or tomorrow)
I first heard Negatvland back in 1987 or 88, when the song Christianity is Stupid, which is of course on the album you bought, was playing on a local college radio station. I was actually a christian back then but I wasn't offended by their message because I understood what they were really saying. Later I heard U2 and then started collecting all their stuff
@blastingcaps Currently I live in Lexington, KY but we're moving out of this godforsaken state and our next destination will likely be Ohio, followed by Hawai'i in a couple years.. Too many people are just plain stupid here and have no willingness to grow and it's driving me nuts to have to deal with them on any level..
I'm involved in a free form station in Glasgow, I'm working on a radio episode about Negativland. I've already interviewed Don Joyce and I'm currently collating relavent sources to include on it. Do you have the audio from this talk? I would love to be able to use it.
I don't get how U2 lied about suing them. Can you explain?
Yes, when the lawsuit was going on and sometime afterward they explicitly said they were not the ones who initiated the lawsuit. This is why Mark was so hot to figure out who had made U2/Island Records aware of the single in the first place. So when it's revealed in this video that it was REM's manager who gave a copy to U2's manager, there's zero question that U2 were indeed aware of the lawsuit and had initiated it because he wouldn't have run to Island's attorneys without having first talked about it with the band.
Oh, okay. I follow the encounter between Mark and REM's manager, but I didn't draw that conclusion. Maybe I missed something.
There are a lot of things that happened around the time of the lawsuit (but not included in this video because they were not available, etc.) that clear a lot of that up.
For example there's the interview with The Edge mentioned here(they give a link and some background that's too long to repeat here) but they clearly state that they had no idea that Island Records had gone forward with a lawsuit(even though they had). For some reason they leave out the part where they(U2) pledge to help Negativland with the legal fees(and then promptly "forget" to do so) but that can be found elsewhere I think.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativland#U2_record_incident
Ahhh, that helps. Thanks!
On at least one occasion, The Edge went on record saying U2 had nothing to do with suing Negativland, it was Island Records who brought legal action. He claimed that U2 didn't even know about the lawsuit until it was in full swing and there was nothing they could about stopping it. Apparently, what's being alleged here is that's not true, the U2 WERE involved in the lawsuit and that The Edge lied about it.
@blastingcaps We're looking at the Oxford, OH area.. It's quiet but close to Cincinnati so I don't have to worry about the boredom. I thought about California back in the day but in the list of worst run states that was put out earlier this year, KY was #50(the worst) and CA was #49. I didn't like Oregon enough to move there and if I move to Washington State, I'd be too close to someone that I absolutely hate...(and I find most of the people in Seattle are just crazy)..
@ehrichweiss haha! thats funny, i love how clean cut he is but cusses a lot and causes so much trouble. Its great.
@blastingcaps yep, I have the whole thing but am having trouble finding the software I used to split it into pieces small enough for youtube.. I upgraded and the software became unusable..:( Let me see if they ever updated the software.. Remind me if you don't hear from me in a week or two.
@ehrichweiss Yeah that is a cool autograph. What city are you in? I am getting ready to move from Pittsburgh to the west coast somewhere in about a little more than a week. My flight is taking me to Portland cause i have heard a lot of good things about that city but i am not married to the idea of living there, just gunna check it out and see what's up there. Do you play music at all? That is the main reason i am leaving here, just cant find the right people. tried for ten years, thats enough.
@ehrichweiss oh man, i was just down in louisville over the holiday. Thats where my girl grew up and all her family is. well, georgetown. Shit, yeah i was just down there bored out of my skull. I can see why you would want to get out of there. I'll tell you what i dont know where you are going in Ohio, but i might suggest the west coast somewhere cause i am leaving the rust belt for just about the same reason you are leaving KY.
@ehrichweiss Right on. Pittsburgh and most rust belt cities are just full of really pissed off assholes. That has been my experience, and being one who has spent years in prison, i can get along just fine in this kind of environment, but artistically i found it devoid of creativity. For example, in Pittsburgh, there are a lot of people who play in bands who have no desire to break out of this city or to create a situation where the nation turns its attention to this city. very annoying.
Its annoying because say a good touring act is coming through the city. Well the bar owner or promoter will book one of the same three bands that are full of Pittsburgh elites. These bands wont be any better, and in many cases arent even as good as other bands, yet the nepotism wins. This results in many people just not going to shows after a while because nobody wants to see the same local band three times a month. And from what i can see, its the same in all the forms of art here.
Iyt's too bad we can't really hear what the REM manager guy is saying. Would have liked to have heard his side of the story.
Yeh, real stinker its missing