EDITOR'S NOTE

Dear Readers,

For long-time followers and newcomers alike, let me assure you that all is well. HT took an extended break these past few months for reasons both personal and practical.

If you are a frequent consumer of music blogs like this one, then you're surely aware that, in the wake of the Megaupload take-down, Mediafire has been pruning itself of accounts that host copyrighted material. Many excellent blogs have suffered as a consequence. We hoped that by laying low and not adding new material, HT could avoid such a fate. Alas, this strategy proved naïve; Mediafire eventually suspended the account.

We are currently exploring alternative file-hosting sites, with an eye for something more secure, discreet and stable - if that is at all possible. It may take some time, but this site will eventually be back up, furnished with new links for old posts, and of course many new posts as well. In the meanwhile, let us refer you to the blog roll to the right of this column, and to the Boston Hassle.

We live in an exciting yet precarious time. Operating in a legal (and perhaps moral) grey area, we charter paths through unknown terrain amidst a dense fog generated by the meeting of new, evolving and revolutionary social media and unclear, often outmoded conceptions of personal property and copyright. SOPA was ill-formed and so deserved its fate, but it was conceived for real, weighty reasons. Digital technology and the internet have rendered our historical conception of copyright obsolete, and we must define a new version for our new age, together - or else we may lose everything.

Each time you download a file, we implore you to take a moment to consider the weight of your actions. Consider how amazing, how bold, and yet also how precarious this phenomenon truly is. If you care at all about what we do here, 'sharing' files and such, you have a responsibility and a duty to dwell on the principles operating behind these actions, and to form an opinion about this big, anomalous thing in which we all participate.

Until next time,

c