There are a few high profile concerts happening with big name acts (Beck, Ozzy, The Eagles) the day before the Grammys. The goal is to raise a ton of money for this organization, which sounds like a cross between a trade union and a lobby group.

Their goals, in short:

- establish that recordings are not works for hire (which the record company owns) but works licensed to record companies.

- strict enforcement of copyright law. they are not pro-napster.

- record companies are taking songs online, into their own online retail services, without permission, and are paying far below what they should be paying.

- pass sb 1246. See

http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/news/newsPage.cgi?news03200

for more information.

Quick analysis of these guys:

- this is the first lobby group for creatives in the music biz, an industry that's larger than film and video games. napster, hackers, and courtney love appear to have shaken musicians from their collective dank-induced haze, and maybe they'll vote or something this year.

- they aren't a fan's best friend, but they are more likely to side with the small guy than the record company.

- some individuals within the coalition are pro-file-trading.

- overall, this is a big push in the general direction of "author's rights" which assert that the first and last owner of a copyrighted work is the author. incidentally, this is the general position of the IMC on all work posted to this (and afaik all) website - the copyright is retained by the owner.

- so, if you wanted to see the shows, it's politically correct. it's not "radical" but it's consonant with the original spirit of copyright law (a legal invention that commodifies information).

- where the hell are the rappers? aside from a few geniuses in the rap game, i think most rappers are probably getting screwed.