IN THE MEAN TIME...
MESSIAN DREAD UPDATE AUGUST 22 2014
the midi files
After kind of rising from my online slumber earlier this year, I discovered a new feature at my web hosting provider. I can watch in real-time what happens on the dubroom.org servers, and I do that a few times a week. This helped me tremendously, because I learned that the Midi Files we've released during the early years of this website back in 1997 were way more popular than I thought.
Truly, I thought it was more a thing people would go to for old times sake,
and an "occasional" producer/visitor of studio.dubroom.org.
How wrong I was.
I knew about "Skream", the Dub Step producer that has used our material for his commercial releases without even crediting us. I knew about some other people who used the midi files for non-commercial reasons, but I was absolutely unaware of the enormous popularity. Yes, that page is visited 1000's of times each week.
All these people who have been visiting that page, have been reading the copyright notices. Notices which basically prevented honest people from spreading the stuff. And so, thieves like Skream got away with it. If these files would have been released in the Creative Commons domain, he would just have been the next to use that particular file.
I discovered this year, that the Dubroom is visited every day by much (many?
dunno my inglish there) more producers than I previously thought. I really
thought that studio.dubroom.org got like a few visits a day but that is
absolutely not the case. From all over the world people are visiting the studio,
reading the tutorials. Even from places you don't expect.
Gradually, things dawned and I started to see connections.
And so I re-released all the midi files into the creative commons domain.
I pick my battles and ketching vampires like skream is much more of a worldly,
carnal thing than I care to deal with actually. I mean, this is a guy who works
in a scene very much comparable with Dancehall and Techno, meaning cokane and
dollars using immorality and pompous behavior. He's making his fortune doing
these things. To be honest I do not want to have one cent of that fortune. So
why am I putting so much energy in this whole dead-bury-dead culture, and why do
i not realize that of course vampires are there sucking from the source of life
by sucking from Jah people.
Yes, what's new? Hm.... It's not like stealing my Inspiration. It's showing lack
of contact with the Source of life.
I see that so many people visit the midi page. Skream is not the only one, I am
sure of that. None of them want anyone to know about the Midi file, obviously.
So this is the best way to counter these parasites without giving them one more
minute of the time that Jah gave me to do things.
you tube
While "everyone" was downloading and -hopefully- listening to my new releases, myself I was diving deep back in the Dubroom's archives, re-discovering some track I totally forgot about, recalling some precious moments and just having a basic good time with these old tracks.
I wasn't playing the mp3's on my VLC player's play list, though. I was uploading them all to You Tube, but not at the official Dubroom Channel.
You Tube has this nice feature called "Video Editor". Everyone can make their own video using music that is published under Creative Commons on You Tube, or use video material published at You Tube under Creative Commons. I used the last possibility for the official Dubroom video releases I did in the last time, and I thought it would be nice to give something back.
Throughout the years, people have uploaded some of my Creative Commons releases to You Tube and this gave me the inspiration to open my own personal You Tube channel (called "the Dubroom Dread") and start to upload all music that the Dubroom released under Creative Commons. I've loaded each track in Windows Movie Maker, added some information on the screen, and subsequently uploaded the results to my You Tube Channel at www.youtube.com/dubroomdread.
In essence, I'm providing a complete catalogue of well over 300 tracks to the You Tube community. Nicely sorted in play lists, each one with a download link in the description. Music by Sure Dread, Heartical, Jah Roots, and myself, everything nicely sorted with play lists. Yes, still under construction and therefore not yet "officially anounced", but that will come later.
It's not even the reason why I write this update, even though it can be quite an interesting piece of information for some. Everyone with a You Tube account should be able to click on the "remix this video" button and start using the music on their own account.
an incredible engagement
Then, when I was uploading my tunes, I saw that one of them was flagged with a copyright notice.
Yes, that drove my attention.
I clicked on the link and saw this:
I pressed play and, yes, that was my music. It was during a rather dubbed out piece where I use a specific effect.
There was a button that enabled me to respond to this really bizarre claim. And so I wrote them about the track and showed them the proof that if in fact the recording was used by the claimer, that claimer had violated mine.
I went on to search for this particular artist and the track he released. I discovered it was all over the Internet, at Itunes, Amazon, all the big names had the track for sale.
Time to actually listen to the track, I pressed play at Amazon.com and to my utmost surprise I discover that this was my tune indeed. It even had my voice, it was the Dub that I released and here and there a little thing was added. Even Skream had done more work than this particular individual. I wrote a review that basically said what the track was and my advice not to buy it. The comment was approved by Amazon within an hour.
During that hour, I had discovered that this particular artist was trying to make a name for himself in that industry which I have exposed in two books and countless of other publications. Yes, the Christian Industry. His particular track was released a few years back. I discovered a trail wherein this person, year after year, pretended to have produced this track and received one compliment after the other. He was all over the Internet receiving good comments about "his" track, compliments which he responded to with "Thank you".
A righteous anger awoke.
This was no longer a copyright issue caused by a notice of one of my tracks at You Tube.
This was Jah showing me what these blasphemers had done, once again. Stealing the real thing, "sanctifying" it by totally renaming the track and not giving any indication whatsoever about any other source than their own "inspiration", offering it for sale to an audience that is trained into believing that the Most High orders them to only listen to "sanctified" music. Yes indeed, I have seen that before.
Just like the money changers in the temple, just like the one Peter described in the following scripture:
And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. (source)
Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; (source)
This guy made merchandise of not just me, but especially his audience. An audience, that believes they should turn to self proclaimed "Gospel Reggae" artists in order to get a blessing from Jesus. A paid blessing. Feigned words, saying he produced this thing. Feeding the flock of Jah, his audience, for filthy lucre.
What a shame.
What a blasphemy!
Blasphemy? Yes. I didn't mention how this particular artist's name included the Name of the Almighty. Everything he does, he does in the Name of the Most High. The stealing, the misleading, putting the thieved material up for sale, everything.
Of course that is not why I had made the track. That is not why I released it online for free, many years ago.
I didn't make it to get accused of being a thief, either.
After all, that was the factual situation. The thief, who stole that track from me, had officially registered his stolen good as his own intellectual property when he put it up for sale. When I then wanted to upload "his" intellectual property to You Tube I got accused for stealing his stolen good. A total reversal of the truth.
Even though everything was easily proven, the situation was far more serious and so I contacted the guy. What followed was a truly bizarre exchange of communication which I would like to share with you.
I confronted him with the spiritual truth that I just painted in previous paragraphs. Frankly, I asked him how he could maintain such a thing for years in a row and not be confronted with the law written in the hearts of all those that are truly born again. How can you claim to be born again and not be convicted in your heart? I advised him very strongly to consider the words in John 3:16, that quote our Lord saying everyone that believeth in Yesus shall have eternal life.
Initially, my worst fear seemed to materialize in front of my eyes.
He totally ignored everything, and was only interested in a practical work-out. Yes, he would write to all the sites and have them remove the track. Could he still offer it for free, though?
After pointing out to these specific, very serious things that the apostle Peter wrote about, after my plea for him to check out his position in Christ (if any!), my strong advise to go to the Father with this thing, all he wanted was to hold on to what he got. He could not let go of his stolen good. It was truly, truly painful to witness.
However, not all hope was lost. It took a while before he told me that he had prayed over it and it was his idea that the Lord indeed wanted him to remove everything. I hope he will do what Jah says. That's so much more important than anything else!
in the mean time
I updated the Net Label website and my Ifficial home as well. There are a lot new artist pages and several of them now include You Tube embed's. My Ifficial home now has the right copyright notice with every track, the one page from where you can download all my music is heavily updated as well. Things should absolutely be more clear.
I've got a lot of music to review as well.
Yes, let me do that.
One Love,
Messian Dread
