“All this while O’Rourke was becoming perhaps the world’s greatest authority on the thought processes and the personality of the octopus. He knew how to outmaneuver them, to outflank them, and to outthink them. He knew full well, many years ago, what today’s octopus wrestlers are just beginning to learn—that it is impossible for a man with two arms to apply a full nelson on an octopus; he knew full well the futility of trying for a crotch hold on an opponent with eight crotches.”

H. Allen Smith for True magazine,1964.

GEMA and the threat to German nightlife: Luis Manuel Garcia examines the ongoing controversy in the country’s club scene.

“Really, it’s going to close? Isn’t there something we can do to stop it?” This quote comes from the documentary film Bar 25: Tage außerhalb der Zeit, when a clueless attendee finds out that tonight’s party will be Bar 25’s last. Many readers were probably thinking the same thing back in July 2012, when rumors spread that Berghain, Berlin’s most popular club, would be closing its doors in 2013 due to GEMA’s new set of music licensing fees. If you are reading this from outside of Germany, chances are that this media shitstorm was how you first heard about GEMA. Soon, international media outlets were generating a flurry of reports on the impending demise of Berlin’s club scene. But these left a lot of questions unanswered: what is this highly publicized battle between GEMA and Germany’s nightclubs really about? How did a conflict about music licensing fees become an existential threat to large swathes of German nightlife? What the hell is GEMA, anyway?

Even if you live in Germany and you know all about GEMA, you might have been surprised at the intensity of the anti-GEMA protest movement as it coalesced over the summer of 2012. Nobody took to the streets when similar changes in fee structure were introduced for live concerts a year ago. And there was only a mild media buzz two years ago when clubs across Berlin ran into trouble with Berlin’s tax authorities. What made the GEMA-Tarifreform such an emotional issue? Throughout 2012 and early 2013, there was a lot of confusion, distortion, misinformation and partisan rhetoric surrounding GEMA and its new licensing fees. And so, it seems like the time is right to look back and set the record straight.

http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1757