This ruling is foolish, counterproductive, counterintuitive, and shows an egregious lack of understanding of what sampling actually IS: A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that rap artists should pay for every musical sample included in their work — even minor, unrecognizable snippets of music. Lower courts had already ruled that …

David is still large and in charge, 17 feet tall, the most famous sculpture in the world, ever strong and youthful: Michelangelo’s famous sculpture David is celebrating its 500th birthday in Florence, where it was first unveiled on 8 September, 1504. The Italian city will showcase nine months of festivities …

And now New Orleans musicians will have one: She rode to the lounge in a pink limousine, cradling the box that held her husband’s ashes. Inside the bar, under a ceiling of paper stars, she placed the box on a table that would serve as a shrine: There were candles, …

Can a U.S. president “create” or “lose” jobs in the private sector? From the campaign rhetoric you’d think the leader of the free world has merely to focus his mighty brow upon the issue and jobs can be summoned from clay or a rib like Adam and Eve (“Watch yourself …

Being a real, actual, functioning, living-in-a-fart-filled-van band is not glamorous, jolly, or lucrative, but if that’s what you want to do, then that’s what you have to do. Engine Down (audio here), who have a brand new rockin’ record out on Lookout Records, just got spanked in the worst way. …

Killer dancehall and reggae photographic exhibition at Eyejammie Gallery in NYC: “Riddim Driven: A 25th Birthday Salute to VP Records and Dancehall Reggae” will open at the Eyejammie Fine Arts Gallery, 516 W.25th Street, on Friday, September 10, 2004 from 6 to 9pm. The group show will use photography to …

by Ray Olsen Part 1 is here. Part 2 Preliminary games of both the Women’s and Men’s Beach Volleyball were on the very first day of Olympic events. A great way to start. Although it is a luck of the draw as to who you see in the prelims, the …

My intrepid, certified Olympics-nut father has returned from Athens, and this is what he has to say: by Ray Olsen, Part 1 So, how was the sixth Summer Olympics experience in Athens? In one word, wonderful, with a big bonus of enjoying it during a first trip to Greece. As …

At what point – or perhaps the question is, IS there a point at which all this smoke indicates the presence of an underlying fire which must be actually extinguished rather than simply contained? Can all of this really be the result of parasites, gold diggers, and misunderstandings? I find …

Last weekend was the bittersweet goodbye to James Doohan as Scotty, who at 84 is just too old and sick to carry on with his appearances at conventions and so forth. Coincidentally, Trekkies 2, a documentary about hard core Star Trek fans was just released on DVD: Once wasn’t enough! …