Dear Friends, and dear Visitors, and also dear UN-friendly people,
A “few” words for you all together:
I started these blogs of mine exactly one year ago, on the 20th November 2009. Since then, many things have happened, many troubles but also many satisfactions. Whom ever of you liked to follow the chronology (real good friends like Fabio, Peter, Gurnemanz, Nikos, Ellen and Christina) know exactly what I mean.
Since last December, after I opened this new Pilot Blog, the Countess Vanessa’s Castle, things had started to develop much better, without the continuous and extremely disgusting messages of schizophrenic people, (the top of them was this one named “Maeshyfryd”, you can still read all his attack-of-delirium-tremens scribbled stuff on my first blog:
As a final-solution enterprise (which he was extremely proud of), as you can read, in his lust-of-might agony, maeshyfryd reported my blog as an abuse-blog, and as a consequence, I decided to close it. Right after, I re-opened these new ones. The fact is that some other people – if not him again – must have followed his example. In coins, I have received FIVE mails from DMKA, the text is always the same, and you can read it here:
**********************
Blogger DMCA takedown notification
support@blogger.comBlogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium C... 28 ott
Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog is alleged to infringe upon the copyrights of others. As a result, we have reset the post(s) to "draft" status. (If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement, regardless of its merits. The URL(s) of the allegedly infringing post(s) may be found at the end of this message.) This means your post - and any images, links or other content - is not gone. You may edit the post to remove the offending content and republish, at which point the post in question will be visible to your readers again. A bit of background: the DMCA is a United States copyright law that provides guidelines for online service provider liability in case of copyright infringement. If you believe you have the rights to post the content at issue here, you can file a counter-claim. For more information on our DMCA policy, including how to file a counter-claim, please see http://www.google.com/dmca.html. The notice that we received, with any personally identifying information removed, will be posted online by a service called Chilling Effects at http://www.chillingeffects.org. We do this in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). You can search for the DMCA notice associated with the removal of your content by going to the Chilling Effects search page at http://www.chillingeffects.org/search.cgi, and entering in the URL of the blog post that was removed. If it is brought to our attention that you have republished the post without removing the content/link in question, then we will delete your post and count it as a violation on your account. Repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account including deleting your blog and/or terminating your account. If you have legal questions about this notification, you should retain your own legal counsel.
Sincerely, The Blogger Team
[I was unsure what colour to choose, if grey or dark brown.. this probably fits better.... ;)]
****************************
I actually suggest you all to skip it, because we are here for the love of MUSIC, of the ART, not for a trainload of recited codes, or for a list of organized punishments, not for the love of DESTRUCTION, but rather for the sake of CREATIVITY, to gift as a present it to the posterity, as integral as possible.
And throughout - possibly - the centuries to come.
You may say: "It's the law and it must be respected".
Respected yes, but also changed if it doesn't work.
What I see is that this is fundamentally a bad-composed law, a bad-engineered law.
What I see is that the only laws "respected" are the ones where no toil at all is supposed to be done.
Difficult is to have real criminals locked up.
Let's not forget Robert Schumann and his piano cycle against the Philistines.
Let's not forget how many masterpieces we received from grandios MEN like Wagner, Verdi, Mozart, Bruckner, Bizet, and many more, but they had to pay the price, they had to struggle all their lives against bigotism, obscurantism, financial problems, official "critics" who wrote continuously acid and insutling reviews, only full of PURE POISON against the musical geniality of an Artist, and so on.
Where are today those CENSORS, those bigots???
What positive influence have they casted on SOCIETY, on HUMANITY?
Where is their incredibly important, seminal, contribution that they left us as a precious heritage, for the purpose of saving humanity from the apocalypse?
Did they leave any trace in the evolutive history of humanity?
Or did they rather just do their best (aka worst) to suffocate, to kill any innovative, modernist, spirit?
Today we are lucky to have Wagner, Verdi, and many more, and we get HUMANIC LYMPH from them, they gave us jewels and values that are ETERNAL!
The reason why humanity could make steps forward, instead backwards to the cavern age, it's ALSO thanks to great musical spirits like those I mentioned.
If you take away the human side away from the functionment of our body and soul, well, it remains only the animal, the beastly component.
You may tell me, with a grin on your face, that these things used to happen centuries ago, nowadays things go much better...
Oh, really???
Why, what did they do with John Lennon? Has any of you seen that documentary "The USA vs Lennon"?
Well, first SEE it, and then let's see what you have to say.
Critics, spies, censors, inquisitors...
THERE WILL NEVER BE A "CRITIC" THAT BECOMES A STAR!
Same things for bigots and all those honoured cathegories..
One glorious exception was John Peel, originally a Disc Jockey and a critic as well, who, after noticing how many great musical talents were obstensively neglected, not able to find a major label, after seeing how blind and abstruse the discographic industrial system was, he suddenly decided to do something, himself, for these people, and opened a new label, the Dandelion!
Great people were also those men who were running Radio Caroline, based on a ship, transmitting tons and tons of fabulous music, while sailing offshore on the British sea, in extra-territorial waters. The new generations are too young to know it, but I remember at the time, these news made "furore"!
Oh you can be sure, for them they DID change the law, they found RIGHT AWAY a trick to dismantle the whole task, to order their death...!
THESE are people who gave music a chance, and not only to music- a chance to progress, in general.
While certain laws, in last analysis, work only for the people-of-law, not for the artists.
The main problem for me is that I wish I could understand WHO protects WHOM from WHOM.
To shield the rights of those who own a copyright, you say?
OK, very noble, I agree!
But have you seen for example that great video on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I&feature=related
Give it a look, it's very recommended!
where these 3 fantastic guys from Oz make a charade of songs, many of them became worldwide hits, all songs constructed on four chords, ALWAYS THE SAME four chords?
So where is the protection against those who keep stealing melodies from others?
Who was the very first composer, who used these 4 chords?
Why didn't anyone make anything to avoid that these successful 4 chords were eternally copied afterwards, in order to make "new" hit parade numbers?
Who protects the very first composer??
Why dores the law privilege only SOME people?
It takes ART to make ART.
It takes CULTURE to make CULTURE.
It takes PROGRESS to make PROGRESS.
It takes MUSIC to make MUSIC.
Not OBSCURANTISM.
Not a cathalogue of organized punishments.
We are supposed to destroy in order to RECONSTRUCT something better.
Not destroying for the sake of giving death to the forms of ART we love.
It's a law that doesn't work, doesn't bring new lymph neither to the artists nor to the audiences.
An artist needs support, publicity, airing, etc, otherwise he/she is doomed to remain unknown.
And in my modest opinion, laws that don't work in the right direction are supposed to be changed.
I still have somewhere an interview - I guess from 1976 - where Jimmy Page used to insist that no matter how many albums you can sell, without the CONCERTS, all this (referring to all his properties, including his wonderful country house, etc.) would never ever exist.
And if you want the people to come to see you live in concert, you must let your music be spread around!That's why I conclude, the law is wrong. Must be substituted.
************ Back to our dmca, it all got started with the bootleg of Captain Beefheart, they removed it from the server, then it was the turn of other albums, and then things went on and on…
Now, I don’t want anymore to receive stuff like that. This must be the last time! I have a lot of other things to do, to follow my work, lead a normal life with the woman who is my Lady, but most of all I need my sleep at night, troubles are not lacking in my life, I really have no will to increase the number. Maybe I'm too old (I have already passed the half-century of age, small secret that at this stage I have no problems to reveal), or maybe too annoyed, really, but the task is not worthy anymore. As you all know, I did all this not for my personal incoming, I am fundamentally a purist, I never gained a coin from all this (I even refused to apply any kind of publicity to my pages!), but I did it rather for the huge love I bear to the music I love, and for the pleasure in sharing it with other real music lovers.
So, in short, I'm closing, and this time for good.
The only Blog that I think I will keep opened is the “Diary”, because it doesn’t hold entries related to posted albums.
Of course, Friends remain Friends, I deeply cherish the marvellous contacts I have with them. Thanks to the activity of my blogs, I had the chance to get in touch with new wonderful people, in some cases there are oceans separating us, nevertheless with a few of them we even met in person! …. But for the others, what else can I say, other than “I’m sorry, but the Inquisition stroke again”… ?
"Malleus Maleficarum slaughtered and tortured" - evergreen lines, by Peter Hammill.
Thank you all for your presence, happy to know that it was a magic time for you as well as it was for me.
Your COUNTESS VANESSA