"What the hell is Terre's problem?!!"



Please don't let this happen to you!

Terre Thaemlitz kindly asks you not to upload her releases - including into YouTube, SoundCloud and other social media sites. To understand the specific reasons why (which are not about copyright claims), click here.

Did you know:

• YouTube, SoundCloud and other sites only allow registered users (or Gmail account holders) to leave comments and send messages to one another.


• YouTube, SoundCloud and other sites refuse to forward friendly messages from non-registered users such as Terre to registered users. (Yes, she has spoken to YouTube and SoundCloud at length about this. At this time, both companies refuse to implement open communication between registered and non-registered users.)


• Because Terre is not registered with any social media sites, nor Gmail, he has no way of directly sending you a friendly takedown request. (For those wondering why Terre doesn't just make burner accounts with those sites, it is in active protest of those corporations' attempts to force all individuals - even those who are unaffiliated - to assume the cultural burdens of their policies which are overwhelmingly rooted in greed and censorship. In fact, SoundCloud literally suggested that Terre "do what anti-piracy agents do" and create an account with a name that does not immediately betray his identity - to which Terre responded that it was offensive for her or any person to be required to act like an "anti-piracy agent." To do so is less a solution and more a normalization of corporate policies, all of which are strategically designed to keep end users in the dark about the reactionary cultural restrictions underlying those corporations' practices.)


• Even if you write on your YouTube or SoundCloud page, "Hey artist, I'm a big fan! Contact me if you want this taken down!" the corporate policies of the websites you are using prohibit Terre from contacting you.


• Therefore, with no way to contact you directly, Terre's only option is to file a 'copyright claim' - which he hates doing! Anyone familiar with Terre's work knows she has always been critical of copyright, authorship, originality, creativity, and any other ego-claims to production processes. That has not changed! This situation makes him incredibly stressed, frustrated and sad. The ironies and hypocrisies of the situation cut deeply!


• ...So do angry emails received from YouTube and SoundCloud users after their uploads are removed, and 'strikes' have been placed against their accounts. Please realize your problem is not with Terre. It is with the communication policies of YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. Those policies, in combination with your actions, are forcing Terre's hand. This is truly regrettable for everyone.

Many people confuse Terre's attempts to keep his works offline with an anti-digital or analogue-fetishist outlook. This is clearly mistaken, as the majority of her works are produced digitally and released on physical digital formats (CD, DVD, SD card, etc.). These offline practices started with an unfortunate six year struggle (from 2003-2009) against major online music distributors including iTunes, Juno Download, eMusic and others who were selling his works without license or permission. That extremely negative and lengthy experience resulted in an ethical inability to ever work with any of those major online distributors - none of which offered as much as an apology, let alone financial restitution. (For further details click here). That was the beginning of Terre's emphasis on what she has come to refer to as "offline digital culture." Please understand, today's attempts to keep works offline are not about some arbitrary aesthetic choice or artistic stance, but a socially grounded and experience-based struggle against systemic corruption among major online distributors, streaming platforms, and the exploitative cultural climates they promote.

Terre wishes to keep 'queer' audio and media functioning queerly, contextually, and with smallness.

Populist social media engines that blast media 'globally' to as many people as possible may be appropriate for corporate pop music, but they function contrary to everything Terre believes about cultivating and protecting the hyper-specificities of 'underground' and minor situations. Indiscriminate file sharing, YouTube and SoundCloud grant too much exposure with too little precision.

Clearly, many of you disagree. However, please be sensitive to the fact that uploads into YouTube and SoundCloud enact an explicitly anti-social situation that prohibits open communication between you and non-registered users such as Terre - the very people you are likely trying to 'support' through your uploads!

Such uploads display no specific concept of audience, and take no responsibility for who has access to the content. It is no different than dumping a box of 100,000 CD-R copies of your favorite track at the largest shopping mall in town, and just walking away. You are placing (at times rather delicate) materials into the hands of homophobes, transphobes, religious zealots, anti-pacifists, anti-Marxists, anti-feminists, corporate anti-sampling lawyers and their legions of content scanning spider-bots. (We realize that for those people only familiar with Terre's house music this may all sound over-the-top and paranoid, but Terre's electroacoustic and video projects that are more blatant in their cultural critiques have at times resulted in harrassment of Terre personally, and more disturbingly of her collaborators living in regions where public involvement with issues such as queerness, transgenderism, atheism, etc., remain taboo. Please understand that uploading results in unintended yet real repurcussions on real human beings.)

Content scanning bots are also a major reason people should never list audio sample sources in website comment fields, or websites/apps like Discogs, WhoSampled, etc. Remember, many countries do not have the legal category of "fair use." This includes Japan - where Terre lives. While the average end-user who lists things on such sites is preoccupied with a false sense of freedom of expression rooted in fun, it is on the production level that one is always aware of the risks and liabilities of cultural content development - particularly with collage-based media.

For example, notice how someone's December 2020 upload of the full album "Midtown 120 Blues" into YouTube was automatically scanned by bots, with audio samples being identified and listed in the uploader's comments section as well as instantly reported to major labels and legal representatives (the uploader's name and bot-identified data has been blurred):



In this way, each and every upload of minor audio unwittingly serves major industries, while offering zero counter protections for minor producers wishing to limit distribution or keep works offline (in Terre's case, for the sake of cultural and contextual specificity). One can plainly see how bots automate sample identification within any and all uploads on behalf of major labels. Meanwhile, it remains entirely up to fringe producers like Terre to independently undergo the time consuming labor of identifying and requesting removal of unwanted uploads. Uploads that carelessly place minor content produced under tremendous cultural restrictions into major platforms built on greed and exploitation.

As a result, Terre considers indiscriminate uploads and file sharing to be a risk to her cultural praxis on multiple levels. Although his views on uploading may be contrary to everything you have been taught to believe, please understand, in some instances NOT UPLOADING shows greater cultural support and understanding than uploading.

It should go without saying, but of course feel free to mix in live DJ sets or sample in the construction of new works. Regarding including tracks in online mixes, which many of you email about, Terre strongly prefers you not include her tracks in mixes that can live online indefinitely, usually in the archives of corporate social media. (She personally stopped doing online mixes years ago.) While he has never tried to get any such mixes be removed, if you're going to do a DJ mix then do a fucking DJ mix. ;) Posting an unmixed playlist falls back into the category of file sharing unaltered works, which can result in a takedown request.

Your awareness and restraint are greatly appreciated. Solidarity, sisters.

Protect the unusual and minor!