Grey Tuesday, online cultural activism and the mash-up of music and politics (originally published in October 2004)

This paper is included in the First Monday Special Issue: Music and the Internet, published in July 2005. Special Issue editor David Beer asked authors to submit additional comments regarding their articles. I write this introduction on March 29, 2005 , the day that Internet file-sharing finally made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in MGM v. Grokster – for a full overview of the case see the EFF website, www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/ . It is a moment long-anticipated by the content industries and the resistive coalition of “copyfighters” – high noon in the nation’s highest legal institution. From this vantage point it would be premature to speculate on the case’s likely long-term impacts on the music industry – on and off-line – and technological innovation. What is certain is that more people are participants in the musical world than at any time in history, and a Supreme Court decision cannot arrest that tide. The mash-up aesthetic has spread since the Grey Album cast it into the public consciousness, from dedicated national radio shows to the 47th GRAMMY awards, which opened with an attempted live mash-up of six acts. Cease and desist letters remain a genuine threat to remix DJs and websites even as the scene’s emerging stars are courted by major labels. Meanwhile, Downhill Battle continues to develop creative and attention-grabbing activist projects centered on copyright and fair use issues. The lifespan of the mash-up genre cannot be predicted, but the combustible mixture of music and politics is perennial. In 2003, a little–known DJ by the name of Danger Mouse created a "mash–up" album that remixed the music of the Beatles’ White Album and hiphop star Jay–Z’s Black Album to produce a new record called The Grey Album. The swift and draconian legal reaction to the online dissemination of this technically illegal but culturally fascinating artifact gave rise to a "day of digital civil disobedience," organized by music activism group Downhill Battle. Grey Tuesday, as the day of action was known, marks a potentially new site for a blend of online political and cultural activism in the highly charged realm of intellectual property expansionism. This paper examines emergent examples of musical and Internet activism including a detailed look at Grey Tuesday itself; considers the cultural significance of the mash–up genre and the value of the musical "amateur;" and concludes with a brief consideration of "semiotic democracy" and the new mix — or, if you will, mash–up — of culture and politics that has emerged as a consequence of the rise of digital networks

Grey Tuesday, online cultural activism and the mash–up of music and politics

In 2003, a little–known DJ by the name of Danger Mouse created a "mash–up" album that remixed the music of the Beatles’ White Album and hiphop star Jay–Z’s Black Album to produce a new record called The Grey Album. The swift and draconian legal reaction to the online dissemination of this technically illegal but culturally fascinating artifact gave rise to a "day of digital civil disobedience," organized by music activism group Downhill Battle. Grey Tuesday, as the day of action was known, marks a potentially new site for a blend of online political and cultural activism in the highly charged realm of intellectual property expansionism. This paper examines emergent examples of musical and Internet activism including a detailed look at Grey Tuesday itself; considers the cultural significance of the mash–up genre and the value of the musical "amateur;" and concludes with a brief consideration of "semiotic democracy" and the new mix — or, if you will, mash–up — of culture and politics that has emerged as a consequence of the rise of digital networks

Evaluation of prognostic risk models for postoperative pulmonary complications in adult patients undergoing major abdominal surgery: a systematic review and international external validation cohort study

Background Stratifying risk of postoperative pulmonary complications after major abdominal surgery allows clinicians to modify risk through targeted interventions and enhanced monitoring. In this study, we aimed to identify and validate prognostic models against a new consensus definition of postoperative pulmonary complications. Methods We did a systematic review and international external validation cohort study. The systematic review was done in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. We searched MEDLINE and Embase on March 1, 2020, for articles published in English that reported on risk prediction models for postoperative pulmonary complications following abdominal surgery. External validation of existing models was done within a prospective international cohort study of adult patients (≥18 years) undergoing major abdominal surgery. Data were collected between Jan 1, 2019, and April 30, 2019, in the UK, Ireland, and Australia. Discriminative ability and prognostic accuracy summary statistics were compared between models for the 30-day postoperative pulmonary complication rate as defined by the Standardised Endpoints in Perioperative Medicine Core Outcome Measures in Perioperative and Anaesthetic Care (StEP-COMPAC). Model performance was compared using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROCC). Findings In total, we identified 2903 records from our literature search; of which, 2514 (86·6%) unique records were screened, 121 (4·8%) of 2514 full texts were assessed for eligibility, and 29 unique prognostic models were identified. Nine (31·0%) of 29 models had score development reported only, 19 (65·5%) had undergone internal validation, and only four (13·8%) had been externally validated. Data to validate six eligible models were collected in the international external validation cohort study. Data from 11 591 patients were available, with an overall postoperative pulmonary complication rate of 7·8% (n=903). None of the six models showed good discrimination (defined as AUROCC ≥0·70) for identifying postoperative pulmonary complications, with the Assess Respiratory Risk in Surgical Patients in Catalonia score showing the best discrimination (AUROCC 0·700 [95% CI 0·683–0·717]). Interpretation In the pre-COVID-19 pandemic data, variability in the risk of pulmonary complications (StEP-COMPAC definition) following major abdominal surgery was poorly described by existing prognostication tools. To improve surgical safety during the COVID-19 pandemic recovery and beyond, novel risk stratification tools are required. Funding British Journal of Surgery Society