November 3, 2003

A French windsurfer, Raphaela Le Gouvello, has completed the first solo crossing of the Pacific from Peru to Tahiti.
The 43-year-old arrived in Papeete Monday after traveling 4,455 miles in 89 days and seven hours, her Web Site reported. She has already completed solo crossings of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
She was escorted into Papeete harbor by a flotilla and met on the quayside by Tahitian local government leader Gaston Flosse.
“You have achieved something quite extraordinary,” he told Le Gouvello. She followed the route of the famous Kon Tiki expedition made by Thor Heyerdahl in 1947 in a papyrus vessel.
Her “home” for three months was a 7.80 meter board on which she slept. She contacted her back-up crew in Paris twice a day to report her position.
Le Gouvello completed the first crossing of the Atlantic by a woman windsurfer in 2000, taking 58 days to sail from Senegal to Martinique. Two years later she crossed the Mediterranean from Marseille to Sidi Bou Said in 10 days.
Source yahoo.com.

Two college students who thought they’d found a way to give their fellow students access to a huge music library without running afoul of copyright law hit a snag when the school shut down the service in the midst of a licensing dispute.
The “LAMP,” or “Library Access to Music” system officially went live Monday, pumping music into dorm rooms over the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s cable television network.
By sending the music over cable, rather than swapping files over the Internet, the system avoided making an exact copy of the music and was expected to face lower copyright law hurdles.
The students, Keith Winstein and Josh Mandel, said they had negotiated for the Harry Fox Agency, the mechanical licensing arm of the National Music Publishers Association, to grant a license to a Seattle-based company called Loudeye to sell the school thousands of MP3s for the system.
But even last week as the system prepared to go live, there was confusion. The Harry Fox Agency said no such license was complete, while Loudeye insisted it was.
On Friday, MIT issued a statement saying it was shutting down the system at least temporarily while it pursued clarifications with Loudeye and make sure the system was legal.
“We have taken it down temporarily to show good faith and because the whole point is to be very, very careful and obey the copyright law,” said Winstein, 22, adding he was confident the situation could be resolved.
In its statement, MIT said it was assured by Loudeye that the company was authorized by the record labels to sell the music. But after the service was launched, “Loudeye informed us that some of their assurances may have been mistaken,” the statement said.
A Loudeye spokesman said the appropriate company official to comment could not immediately be reached. Laurie Jakobsen, a spokeswoman for The Harry Fox Agency, said the agency’s position hadn’t changed.
“We have not issued licenses to either MIT or Loudeye,” she said. “We are continuing discussions with them.”
MIT said Universal Music Group, a record label, raised objections with Loudeye over the arrangement. MIT then began discussing the matter directly with other record labels, and decided to put the system on hold.
UMG, a division of Vivendi Universal, issued a statement Friday saying: “It is unfortunate that MIT launched a service in an attempt to avoid paying recording artists, union musicians, and record labels. Loudeye recognized that they had no right to deliver Universal’s music to the MIT service, and MIT acted responsibly by removing the music.
“MIT has now contacted us and apparently recognizes its responsibility to compensate creators for the use of their works. Universal looks forward to discussing how to make that possible.”
MIT said the school “continues to be committed to developing a fully licensed service.”
The students planned to share their plan with other schools, whom they said could emulate the project and give their students access to music while potentially sparing them from lawsuits like those being filed by the recording industry to try to combat illegal file-swapping.
Source cnn.com.

The backlash against the Rolling Stones at Canadian retail regarding the band’s exclusive deal with Best Buy for its upcoming “Four Flicks” DVD has spilled over the border into the United States.
Some U.S. retailers are protesting the move, saying they feel left out of the loop. For example, 24-unit Newbury Comics in Brighton, Massachusetts, is pulling the Stones’ deep catalog — about 32 titles — from its stores. “Obviously, retail isn’t important to them,” CEO Mike Dreese wrote in an e-mail to employees. “So much for good will in deep-stocking an artist just because you thought their stuff was important to someone.”
In Albany, New York, Trans World Entertainment executive VP Fred Fox says his chain will pull Stones catalog from its 940 units, trimming the 72 titles that Trans World stocks to about five albums and returning the product. “If the Rolling Stones elect to market their new product exclusively with someone because they are more important to them,” Fox says, “I would have to step back and question why I would offer the slower-turning, older catalog pieces when I am not afforded the opportunity to sell the newer pieces, which are in higher demand.”
And Circuit City, Best Buy’s main competitor, is pulling a Rolling Stones catalog promotion it had planned to run in November and December. “We are disappointed with the Rolling Stones’ exclusive arrangement with a single retailer,” Circuit City spokesman Jim Babb says. “We feel the arrangement not only damages other retailers who have supported the band for years, but it also damages the band because this product will be available to the public in far fewer outlets.”
Source cnn.com.

When Brian Bowe learned that Creem, a defunct rock magazine he’d read as a child, was making a comeback after 15 years, he sat down and wrote an E-mail to publisher Robert Matheu. As a music fanatic, the 31-year-old Laketown Township, Mich., resident wanted to work for the magazine in some way. After writing back and forth with Matheu for a while, Bowe submitted a few reviews and essays.
“I started writing stuff, and he liked the stuff I was writing,” Bowe told the Holland Sentinel. “He sent me some copy to edit, and he liked the way I was editing stuff.”
Less than a year later, Matheu asked Bowe, a spokesman for Grand Valley State University, to edit the new Creem. “When he asked me, I was floored,” Bowe said. “I couldn’t have been happier. To this day, it just, the very idea, blows my mind. I feel very honored, and I take it very seriously.”
Creem began in Detroit in March 1969 and ran monthly until folding in November 1988. A revival was launched in the early 1990s, but the publication largely lay dormant until fall 2000, when Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical movie “Almost Famous” was released.
Crowe wrote for Creem as a teenager under the editing of the late Lester Bangs, an eccentric, prolific writer who became synonymous with the publication.
The film renewed interest in Bangs and Creem, and Matheu decided to try to restore luster to the magazine’s name. He contacted the owners of the publication rights and obtained permission to bring it back. Currently a Web-only publication, Creem is expected be on store shelves in a print edition next spring, Matheu said.
Source billboard.com.

With tongue planted firmly in cheek, the members of Tenacious D announced today (Nov. 3) that they would begin a 45-day hunger strike at 5 p.m.
In a satirical move to promote the DVD “The Complete Masterworks,” due tomorrow via Epic, members Jack Black and Kyle Gass said they will climb into a seven-foot by three-foot by seven-foot glass box 50 yards above Times Square at the intersection of 45th Street and Broadway, where they will remain for the length of the strike.
The intersection is the location of MTV studios, where they are to appear on today’s episode of “Total Request Live.”
Actor/singer/guitarist Black said the strike would end early one three conditions: if “The Complete Masterworks” goes platinum, if “hunger is solved” or if there is peace in Middle East.
The duo made the announcement dressed in silver and white superhero costumes, with the letter “D” covering their barrel-shaped chests, white gloves on their hands and white capes tied around their necks. In addition to water and one red cell phone, Black quipped that they would bring one guitar into the glass box with them. “If we need extra nourishment, we will live off each others’ rock.”
When the pair was asked the longest duration either had gone without sustenance, Gass replied that one time he had gone eight hours between meals. Black said that once he slept for 12 hours, effectively spending 13 hours in-between meals. “It’s gonna test our will, but I feel confident we’re gonna make it,” said Gass.
Source Billboard.com.