the letter u and the numeral 2

It's the story of U2's record company (without U2's real involvement) nearly suring Negativland out of existence for extensively sampling "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," combining it with a semi-famous heisted track of Casey Kasem cussing out his staff between takes, and selling their single with cover art that made it appear to be a new U2 single (real big U2, real small Negativland). The cool thing about he book is that it's told through memos, letters, lawsuits, radio interviews, etc that went back and forth. Really interesting, and it calls out a lot of people in the music industry. Also, there's a pretty cool sound montage Negativland CD tucked in back, called "Dead Dog Records," I think.

All of this does nothing to resolve or aid the MP3 debate, but Negativland would probably have a lot to say about all this at www.negativland.com, their interesting li'l website, which I haven't looked at in a long time so it might not be all that interesting anymore.

When I regularly made cassette copies of albums as a teenager, I ended up advertising for the bands, getting lots more people to hear their music(s), and usually spending cash on the band in one way or another.

I was turned on to Over the Rhine because my friend Heidi had "If I'm Drowning" on a mix tape. Even if that tape had been given to her by someone else, it would still have made them plenty of money. Cash money. Word.