You know I love you back, right? Well, it’s true! Muah!

Good luck!

And thanks, glAMOURpuss. I hardly know me, either, so that makes two of us.

Were you just trying to be funny, or are you really that stupid? Does it hurt?

This record is more akin to Mrs. Miller than anything else. Next time, though, I’m going to mash-up two mash-up records. That should be a riot.

Or else I’ll write a mash-up novel: The Diarrhea of Anne Frankenstein.

Thanks for listening, douchebag, and please go flatten the musical panorama some more. I don’t think it’s completely dead yet.

Cheers to everyone else!

EMI is not the party that should be preparing to sue you but if I were Sir Paul or Brian Wilson I’d hire a virtual hitman because it’s not really a parody, that is if your definition of a parody amounts to something different than a flagrant assassination of a piece of art.

The record companies are desperate because they know that distribution has changed and they really can’t control anything nor can they rob us anymore.

I would love to hear a copy some time.

Dear Capitol/EMI:

I am writing this letter today in protest of the recent legal actions you have initiated against Clayton Counts.

My collection of Beach Boys records, and consequently my contributions to your bottom line, could best be described as enormous and nearly completist. I have purchased every re-issue of Pet Sounds in the past, on both vinyl and CD. I’ve also purchased nearly every Beach Boys product Capitol Records has ever released, including a few several times over. I say this only to point out the fact that by any stretch of the imagination, I represent the best type of customer Capitol could possibly have. I have endured countless retreads of mostly the same old product, and throughout have remained a loyal customer.

I find your legal threats against Mr. Counts and his “Beachles” mash-up to be completely baseless, as no one hearing “The Beachles” would forgo purchasing either Pet Sounds or Sgt. Pepper’s because they had already heard it via Mr. Counts’ work.

Aside from the fact that I find your attacks on the little guy distasteful to say the least, I find it highly ironic that you would pursue such an action mere weeks after yet another re-issue of Pet Sounds, especially one that includes virtually nothing that a moderately astute Brian Wilson fan hasn’t already purchased and seen or heard elsewhere before.

Frankly, Capitol Records would be much better served spending their time putting together worthwhile packages of material that fans have not heard before, instead of suing artists that are spurring interest in your existing products.

Pet Sounds is my favorite album of all time, but how many more times can you re-release it? I have not yet purchased the 40th anniversary re-issue of Pet Sounds, because it’s largely material I’ve seen and heard before, and already own. The fact that you refuse to offer a commercially interesting product while attempting to sue art out of existence is utterly baffling to me. Mr. Counts is not your enemy, but whoever decided to rehash the same material again and again and again, with very little added content certainly is.

Give me something worthwhile to buy, and I’ll gladly buy it. In the meantime, let artists be artists.

I’m a huge Brian Wilson geek, and have gladly paid over and over and over for various permutations of Pet Sounds. I’m also a big fan of artists getting paid, and I respect that, but this just reeks of corporate greed.

Maybe they should spend more time putting together some new Pet Sounds product we haven’t heard before, and less time threatening the little guy.

Assholes!

Also, I want to briefly address some concerns that I’m deleting negative feedback from my comments. Well, truth be known, I have no interest in keeping comments that read, “Dute – y 4 u no meka sumthin’ kewl like Da Gray Albumn?!”

This is my digital real estate, so if you have nothing constructive to offer, get the fuck bent. There’s a whole wide World Wide Web out there. Go get ‘em, Tiger! Although it should be noted that I have accepted some unflattering reviews here, and they all have one thing in common: they are polite.

Get a clue, you whining little bitches. I never said this record was even remotely listenable, but some people obviously think it is. Take it up with them.

¡¡¡ Saludos, compañero!!!

Desde Chile, solidariza otro plunderphonic artist como tú, Clayton.

Hace un par de días reproduje en mi blogg el presente post – que pretendo traducir al castellano dentro de esta semana, y también enviaré a EMI /CAPITOL un mail en apoyo a tú gestión y en repudio a este nuevo atentado a la libertad de creación, producción y difusión artística.

Cuenta con todo mi apoyo

[English version]

Greetings from Chile, Clay.

I’m also a plunderphonic artist myself, so count on my total support.

I’ve also reproduced your Beachles post here on one of my bloggs – i’ll translate it to Spanish during the week. I’m also writing an e-mail to EMI /CAPITOL which I’ll also post here.

Keep resisting!

Arvo

Saves me a lot of money which will be spent elsewhere !

“Hello,
I just thought I’d offer my support for Clayton Counts, the creator of the Beatles/Beach
Boys hybrid electronica project The Beachles. Considering we both know that his works
that take samples from Capitol artists falls within the legal range of smapling from
other materials that collage artists and electronic musicans have operated under for many
years one can only assuem you’re attempting some sort of chilling effect against people
who promote – and make no revenue from – the music you sell. Somehow the legal
departments of the major labels have duped the label suits into believing that free
advertising and promtion of their artists on the internet will lead to total financial
ruin. Sitting around scared that a largely-unlistenable-to-the-majority-of-people track
of 2-second clips from Eleanor Rigby is going to cost you a cent is preposterous – nobody
is going to forego purchasing a Beatles album because the have an almost-wholly unrelated
song that makes use of a tiny piece of a song from it, if anything it will spark interest
in the source recordings. This cease and desist, however, will lose you money – probably
not much, but this ongoing belligerence towards the music listener will continue to erode
the major labels’ already failing connection to the discerning music buyer.

I encourage you to drop any legal actions regarding the Beachles recordings, and to take
a moment and consider the ramifications of what both this artist and your company are
actually accomplishing.

Sincerely,

Morgan King
Yer Bird Records
http://www.yerbird.com“

I’m sending this info to Future of Music and Downhill Battle, im sure they picked up on it already.

If youd like to come to Nashville, we’d love to have you as a speaker, compensate you for hosting a seminar. Regardless, we support you!

I’m form Caracas, Venezuela and I downloaded the Beachles stuff just for my musical pleasure and without paying a cent. Am I guilty ?. Will you sue ?. Will you send a SWAT commando in order to arrest me or maybe a Scotland Yard commitive to investigate such a crime ?. Thanks for the laughs and good luck with your chase,

Lucio Cammarata (aka AldouxHuxley)
Caracas, Venezuela.

so clayton do I understand this correctly that EMI wants to get you because they don’t like the “quality” of art you produced here?

If that is the case, do you know by any chance if SCOOTER or SUPERTRAMP is under contract with EMI?
If that would be the case I fear if they somehow get the word what

-compared to your really FUN ARTwork(!)-

diletantic work I have created in July they will not simply send me a PM with a C&D letter, but will directly send some assasin to get me
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3503614/

”
I have just read the reports of your pitiful attempts to curb the distribution of the Sgt Pepper/Petsounds mashup. By all means reply and convince me that this in any way infringes your copyright of these two original works or, and I guess this is more critical from your pov, affects sales of your product. On the contrary, it is more than likely that exposure to this separate unique creation will direct listeners to the original recordings. Along with just about every family in the known universe I already own copies of both works in multiple formats so you have more than had your money’s worth from me. I will now make it my mission to obtain a copy of the mashup even though the chances are that at the age of 57 I am unlikely to view it as an improvement on the superb originals – that said I still rate Revolver as the definitive Beatles album. Or, a further thought occurs to me. Is this just sour grapes that your company didn’t think of the idea first. Whoa, a missed opportunity there. Memo to self – must be more creative…

Regards

Dave”

Chris Odell

one more reason to not ever buy another national record ever.

way to alienate your customer base EVEN MORE.

best luck.

keep resisting!

One word, PARODY. The unique United States fair use defense.

1. You were making a social commentary.

2. On the Beatles and the Beach Boys.

3. It was a use that was unlikely to be licensed because it is a commentary on the music itself.

Go talk to a a first amendment attorney.

Dear EMI Legal Staff,
I LISTENED to a few of the cuts of Clayton’s Beatles/Beach Boy’s mash up of Pet Sounds and Sgt. Peppers. If you’d like to file suit against me for listening to this work, my contact info is included below.
Please don’t bother my ISP as I have a dynamic not and static connection and they have much better thing to do than try to find out who I am for you, so you can, in some sort of “barking male dog bluster” threaten legal action, to scare off a few artist types from making mash-ups by making examples of them. I doubt this strategy would work anyway.
Please send any legal action documents to me as I will be more than happy to forward them to my legal staff. I will make you pursue this matter to prove that I did indeed download and keep the said electronic item that you say violates copy write law, with the intention of copying and distributing it, and most likely file counter suit. As I truly have nothing better to do.

Respectfully,

AE.06
atomicelroy
CHAOS Studios
802 N. Weber St.
COS CO. USA 80903
http://www.atomicelroy.com
AE blog- http://aetrinitypro.blogspot.com/
CHAOS blog- http://chaosartspace.blogspot.com/
NEODADA blog:http://neoantiblog.blogspot.com/
719.634.5429

“without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible” FZ.

If everyone downloads it, give ‘em the IPs. Good luck to EMI in identifying and pursuing HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of individuals all over the world for downloading a piece of art that will have no effect on sales of the original albums, nor will it make any money for its creator.

Tilting at windmills, EMI. Your time is coming to a close.

But SOMETHING has to be done – this is getting out of hand

The lawyers who composed that cease-and-desist letter know full well that what they’re threatening is largely a bunch of baloney, but they’re forced to issue it anyway because of the way the law is set up.

Just quickly poking around their website I found these:
London
Corporate Communications Department
EMI Group plc
27 Wrights Lane
London
W8 5SW
Tel: +44 (0)20 7795 7000

New York
Corporate Communications Department
EMI Music North America
150 5th Avenue
New York NY 10011
Tel: 212-786 8000

but if you have something more specific, please let us all know. I’m going to call the number in new york and badger them when they open on Monday.

The economic gap between the suits and the people they steal from is already huge, why would they want to put themselves further on the douchebag side? Also, since they own the licensing and rights to the music, maybe they could have come up with a more creative solution – pay you for the production of the album, then release the tracks on one of the many digital music services where consumers are going to!!! Holy shit, THERE’S an idea. (I bet people would have paid for it, because people DO pay when something is worth paying for…)

But no, whitey has to strongarm creators and listeners because when they can’t figure out a way to get their Little Piggy fingers on money, they all gather in their Little Piggy shed and snort about until they only solution they have is piss people off.

EMI could have played the whole thing to their advantage. They could have gotten behind something creative. They could have understood the distribution platform of the internet and how consumers use it to find new and exciting artists. But instead, like all suits, they act like spoiled rich kids who think they should be the only ones who get to have nice things.

Doesn’t surprise me. And I bet one of the white men involved in this at EMI used to actually believe in music and had a dream of finding new and exciting artists.

Now all he thinks about is what’s for lunch.

pJ

Linked your remarks off me feeble blog and offered anyone who wants the Beachles to mail me and ask. We’ll play Spartacus in yer honor. They canna prosecute us all.

thanks EMI! i probably never would have heard about this without the publicity your lawsuit generated.

corporations are slimy. we need to destroy even the very idea of a corporation beyond the powers of memory to recall that it ever existed.

Maybe the EFF? I know Cory over at BoingBoing used to be on their board or something. I’ll bet he could hook you up, seeing as how he’s sympathetic to the cause.

Fuck EMI, fuck the RIAA, and fuck anyone else who thinks that there should be ANY overlap between ‘law’ and ‘art’.

Anyhow thanks for the brief period of entertainment that wasn’t entrainment, and keep up the good fight. If you ever get that defense fund setup, I’ll donate whatever pittance I can currently afford.

Joke ‘em if they can’t take a f**k. I mean, if anything, it will result in sales for both bands that wouldn’t have ever happened otherwise.

The press they’re going to get from their response is not going to be good… What were they thinking?

As for the confidentiality of their email… I’m not a lawyer, but as far as I know you never signed anything agreeing to any terms of confidentiality. You’re well within your rights to post it anywhere you so desire.

the great prophet hicks would be proud of you

i’m an atheist, so i don’t pray, but my prayers will be with you, even though i won’t be praying.

sincerely, all the best to you!!

I’m definitely downloading some Beachles now… I want to hear what they want to suppress, and turn it up real fucking loud!

P.S. Suport our troops in the middle-east by sending backup…

http://www.thefirstamendment.org/

Could be worth looking into.

But hey, leave Robbie out of this…I like him! =)

I mean, everyone loves the happy accident thing, but if they happened all the time, they wouldn’t be special, would they?

And I loved this little experiment. Good stuff.

http://www.autistici.com/petsounds.htm

A good thing to check out to complement this is Hippocamp Ruins Pet Sounds. A very fun re-engineering of Pet Sounds done by some good, obscure artists.