ArtistBlog.ME

There have been some negotiations between ZKB and me with proposals to change certain things on my site so the trademark ZKB won’t shine thru that hard. The proposal has been accepted and the final paperwork is done to have a good end for both parties.

First of all I wish to thank everybody who have helped me by sending me all these support mails, advice, signing the petition, sending letters and much more. Again .. thank you!

proposals
I have sent some proposals to the ZKB and I am supporting them in all degrees. Some changes will be done on the site so the ZKBOI name will not look the same as the ZKB trademark anymore.

what to do?
I wish to ask to all people to not send any letters to ZKB anymore, and, for the news-publishers reading this, to change their article so everything comes to a good end. This is required because of the agreement made between both parties.

disclaimer:
There are certain sites/weblogs and petitions on the web that are created by others. Be sure not to add any comments to these weblogs/sites/petitions since I cannot remove them all.

If you get to one of these sites and want to leave a comment, please leave a comment to this article. This article is directly linked to http://www.zkboi.nu/zkb.

things that will change:

• My name on the sites will be from now on “zkboi“, ZKBOI or any other form not similar to ZKB.
• No more letters will be sent to the ZKB.
• The amends will be invalidated and the court costs will not be claimed. Thanks to a close friend for helping me with the costs of the lawyer.

things already changed

• There won’t be any use of “ZKB” on my sites in any way.
• There are no metatags with “ZKB” on my pages.
• There is a distinctive difference in the logo so there is no “ZKB” reference anymore.
• All ZKBoi references are changed to ZKboi.
• The logo’s are changed to ZKboi.

things that won’t change

• I will be able to keep my name!
• I will be able to keep my site!
• I will be able to live and eat the same!

three double hurray!

Links to the old articles
The links to the old articles have been removed because the agreement told so.

keynote
Again, thank you for the support and to all the people reading this I wish to say: Never give up!

According this article the RIAA (record industry) tried to have a hacking-authorization against all music swappers. They want to “get the law back” by breaking the law?

This is a follow up to this article (Napster down, others to follow!).

It seems nothing is too weird anymore on this world. Go imagine yourself files being deleted from your PC without your knowledge!

I still have a lot of hope with the ZKB though I have to note that the verdict from the court has been signed what means I should loose my identity and all my projects and drawings (on the Internet). It has been signed on 03 October 2001 and has been received by me.

Obsolete costs for me …

A letter was sent before to the lawyer of ZKB with the question to not sign the verdict to limit extra costs… alas .. the costs HAVE been made!

This step of letting the verdict be signed by the official authorities was completely obsolete because if I go to higher court (or the proposal was accepted) this verdict would become expired as the new verdict would be decided by higher court.

Honest proposal to the bank …

As I do not have such cash-flow as ZKB to settle such case in higher court I already sent a proposal to change my logo’s so my name does not look similar to the ZKB name.

I have been talking to the guy at ZKB who started the case and I had a lot of good hope that the case could be settled in such way because years of court wouldn’t be a good business for both parties.

Proposal rejected?

To my deepest regrets I did not have a answer from ZKB and have received the signed verdict, which means more costs and which means that I should loose my nickname, projects and websites.

I still hope for a positive answer from the lawyer or the bank themself and I hope for a very humanite response.

Pressure …

I feel very bad that I am getting pressurized this way and persuaded to loose my own identity on the worldwide network because I do not have the same cash-flow as the other party has. Not only I do feel bad but I feel like a ball-in-a-game.

Ironically, I am fighting against a “monetary reserve” called a bank.

More information:

• court order to shutdown site
• all information about the case
• Article in “De Cursor”
• Article on Kuroshin

Thanks go to:

• namelijk.nl
• ESC

Help !?!

Anybody who can help me with this matter, please, do so, because I am not seeing the light very clearly in this matter if it does not stop very soon!

Thanks to the people who are supporting me in the first case, I would already have lost my mind without them.

My pride …

I am who I am, my name “ZKboi” describes a lot of me and I do not want to be forced to be stopped using the name I have for HALF my life!!

Anybody having comments? Please leave them here. Thankyou.

ZKBoi
Fighting for my name!

Last Update: 07 Oct 2001 19:27 (updated links)

According to this story the RIAA is going to sue the dutch company Kazaa together with Morpheus and Grokster. This internal memo show the record label’s findings and strategy to battle P2P networks. There is also a letter from the RIAA president to the industry leaders about this matter.

This is not the only problem, the problem extends to even copyrighted CD’s, lawsuits and the lack of ability to spread your own productions on the public media because of the stress made on these companies.

Music for the rich?

It seems you need to be rich to have the freedom to listen the music you want these days. Not only rich though …

What’s my deal in this?

I am diskjockey myself and buy regularly CD’s and vinyl. As a DJ I need new music. I am very selective about my music I play. This is not only because I want the best-of-the-best but also because I do not have the cash to buy every new CD that comes on the market. I would need to be millionaire to afford one year of buying all new techno-cd’s that are new on the market!

P2P or MP3’s usefull?

Here is where these P2P (mp3) networks come in handy. I can relax in my own officechair on my own volume and hear whatever is (un)usable and (no)good. If I like a certain song, I will search it on CD or search a CD set with such numbers on them. Finally I always end up buying the CD.

It has happened too many times to me that I bougth a unusable record or CD (set) in a hurry because I liked one or two good numbers on the SET (which seemed to be on another CD I bought a short time later). That is for about 25 euro thrown away AND a unusable CD!

Not only are networks like Napster, Kazaa and others useful for this, but they are also useful to spread your own artistic productions! Whenever I make music I want people to be able to use and listen to my music. My world is partially based on music; Mr. RIAA and others cannot take that musical freedom and expression away!

Copyprotection on CD’s

It does not stay with this though. The RIAA is also protecting cd’s so they are unable to be played in a PC and DVD players! Hello?? Some people do USE their PC to play CD’s!

Whenever I am in my office I want to be able to listen to my own-bought CD’s ya know? Not only I want to listen to them but I also want to be able to backup the CD’s I like (and use, professionally and in my car!). These protections have been bypassed almost faster than they come out.

Next to that it would be easy for the mainstream “kiddies” to copy a CD to mp3 files by just running a cable from the CD to the (digital) input of their soundcard and put it online on the major P2P networks.

Fair use

What did happen to “fair use” of these media, so you can make (backup) copies for your own usage?

In the USA they also have the DMCA what makes it theoretically illegal to copy such CD, even for own use, because you are circumventing the copy protection and therefor breaking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

If I would not make backup cd’s then I would end up every year with atleast 5-10 CD’s with minimally two tracks failing because of scratches and (carefull) handling!

Final note

All these “protections” are to protect the record-industries more than to protect the authors of the music. It is still very expensive to buy a CD in Europe which makes it hard to “just buy what you see” unless you have hard cash.

There are also people listening (and using) music they buy! I buy all the music I like on vinyl and CD, though I do not want to buy music I dislike!

There have been discussions going on internally what could mean that there is a settlement between ZKB and ZKboi.

More information will be released later.
Probably the name will have a small change “in looks” but will stay the same meaning.

As I do agree to change the “look” of the name it would be a good case for both parties to get this settlement done.

The court order would be invalidated then and the references to ZKB will be removed from the site.

I will release details in the next couple of days.

ZKBoi 
Fighting for my name!