by Lloyd Kaufman

Bid farewell to the liberties of the Internet. The corporate scum have slipped our constitutional rights a rufie and they're getting ready to violate them. The first major defeat for information in cyberspace has been announced.

The elimination of Napster is an outrage and Team Troma is disgusted by the attempts of the establishment to limit the flow of free information, art and ideas. Once again the institutions of the state have dropped down to their knees to fellate the corporate phallus. In the eighties they overturned the Monopoly Laws that kept major studios from owning theaters (making it impossible to see a real independent film in Middle-America) - and now this! The message is clear - "you are free to consume, but NOT free to choose what to consume!" What's next on their hit list? The library?

The Napster ruling was obviously influenced by the conglomerates and their endless efforts to control every bit of information that makes its way through the Internet. This is a major assault on the previously unregulated, therefore untainted, World Wide Web. It is also the first step for the corporate syndicates to be able to decide what you can and can't hear. They'll let you absorb twelve hours of Backstreet Boys on MTV, but God forbid you should try to find a song by the Loose Nuts on the 'net.

The Napster ruling is woefully ironic in that it comes so soon after Independence Day. The corporate control of art is a violation of what Jefferson and his buddies stood for in 1776 when they demanded freedom. Now our liberties are threatened by whole new breed of colonist - one that seeks to pacify us through our imaginations in order to sell us blatantly shitty products.

There are a few of us left however to challenge their reign of terror. Napster is gone, for now, but you and I remain to take on the conglomerates with fiercely independent art and thought. Spreading truly alternative music like AMP's Hard-On for Tromaville and films like Terror Firmer! As long as we are here there will be a cog in their catastrophic plan. As long as there is Troma!

Lesbians: one of the few joys left on the Internet