Here’s the exceptionally long press release.

tl;dr Ben Folds Five is getting back together for a one-time show to be broadcast on Myspace.

LOS ANGELES- September 3, 2008- MySpace, the world’s premier social network, today announced the exciting launch of its newest music program, “Front to Back,” celebrating iconic albums that have helped shape the MySpace Generation. MySpace kicks off this program by reuniting beloved alt-pop band Ben Folds Five with an exclusive one-time live performance of their final studio album together, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, in its entirety. The concert will be the band’s first performance together in nearly ten years and will take place in the band’s former hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina on September 18, 2008 at the UNC Memorial Hall. The show will be rebroadcast on the “Front to Back” official MySpace profile in October http://myspace.com/fronttoback <http://myspace.com/fronttoback> .

We are honored and excited that Ben Folds Five is helping launch this new music program,” said Josh Brooks, VP of Music Marketing for MySpace. “‘Front to Back’ is about connecting and re-connecting the MySpace community, fans and bands alike with some of the most acclaimed and inspirational albums ever produced.”

“Front to Back” asks leading artists to perform one of their own seminal albums, from front to back, in a live concert that is then later aired on the site. The airing of the event includes interviews with the band as well as artists who were influenced by the album.  Presented by Nowwhat.com, tickets to the Ben Folds Five “Front to Back” taping will go on sale to the public through etix.com on September 8th at 10 AM EST. Additional “Front to Back” performances will be announced by MySpace in the coming months.

Piano-based rock trio Ben Folds Five formed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1993. Comprised of Ben Folds on vocals and piano, Robert Sledge on bass and backing vocals and Darren Jessee on drums and backing vocals, the group quickly became heroes in the world of indie alternative-pop. The band, well-known for their hit single “Brick” from their platinum-selling 1997 album Whatever and Ever Amen, was together seven years before disbanding amicably in 2000, at which time Ben Folds began his esteemed solo career while Darren Jessee went on to form the band Hotel Lights and Robert Sledge went on to play in the now defunct International Orange. Folds’ third solo studio album, Way to Normal, releases on September 30, 2008. The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner was released in April 1999 and was the fourth and final album from Ben Folds Five. It cracked the Top 40 of Billboard’s Album chart and reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Top Internet Albums chart.

“When MySpace approached me about doing this gig,” Ben Folds said, “I misunderstood and thought they wanted us to play Purple Rain front to back, so of course I said yes. But we’re happy to do The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner instead. Of our three albums, this one brings back the most vivid memories.  It was actually written to be one song of many movements, which is why there are motifs that appear throughout the album. That should make Reinhold a natural to be played front to back.”

The proceeds from concert will benefit Operation Smile: Changing Lives One Smile at a Time.  For more information, please go to operationsmile.org.

Privacy Advocates? Win! Viacom, parent company of MTV and BET, recently sued Google, owner of YouTube, for copyright infringement, demanding that Google submit users’ information so they can be tracked down and beheaded for watching Linkin Park and Hanna Montana videos for free. Google’s response: PISS OFF.

From BBC:

Viacom ‘backs off’ YouTube demand
Google
Google bought YouTube in 2006

Viacom has “backed off” from demands to divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched a video on YouTube, the website has claimed.

Google had been ordered to provide personal details of millions of YouTube users to help Viacom prepare its case on alleged copyright infringement.

Google, owners of YouTube, will now hand over the database but without data that could identify users.

Viacom has a $1bn (£497m) copyright infringement lawsuit against Google.

A class action by other organisations including the English Premier League has also agreed to the new terms.

“We are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users’ viewing histories and we will not be providing that information,” said a statement on the YouTube blog.

The decision will be welcomed by privacy activists, many of whom expressed concern over a US judge’s order for Google to provide the data in early July.

Continuing battle

YouTube, which was bought by Google in 2006, is in battle with Viacom, which owns MTV and Paramount Pictures, over alleged copyright infringement.

Viacom alleges clips from its programmes have been viewed on YouTube without its consent.

When it initiated legal action in March 2007, it said it had identified about 160,000 unauthorised clips of its programmes on the website, which had been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.

Following the launch of its billion-dollar lawsuit, YouTube introduced filtering tools in an effort to prevent content that infringes copyright from appearing on the site.

Viacom had said it wanted the log data to “compare the attractiveness of allegedly infringing video with that of non-infringing videos”.

But privacy activists argued in response that the original order “threatens to expose deeply private information” and was in breach of a 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act, which was passed after the rental habits of a Supreme Court nominee were publicised.

The new ruling means that Google will still have to hand over the data logs but in an “anonymized form”, meaning YouTube can swap user logins and IP addresses with other random signifiers

An earlier Viacom request that Google be forced to hand over the source code of YouTube has already been denied by a US court on the grounds it is a “trade secret”.

Despite Tuesday’s agreement, the companies are yet to agree the process of information disclosure regarding viewing of YouTube clips by employees of YouTube and Google. This is expected to be settled in the coming weeks.

The cases are expected to come to trial in 2009 or 2010.

So being that I actually have a life, not to mention a job, I was unable to camp out overnight outside of the local AT&T store to get a newly released 3G iPhone today. But maybe that’s a good thing, after all, the new software Apple lauched for all iPhone to coincide with the new release, doesn’t work:

NEW YORK (AP) - The launch of Apple Inc.’s much-anticipated new iPhone turned into an information-technology meltdown on Friday, as customers were unable to get their phones working.

“It’s such grief and aggravation,” said Frederick Smalls, an insurance broker in Whitman, Mass., after spending two hours on the phone with Apple and AT&T Inc., trying to get his new iPhone to work.

In stores, people waited at counters to get the phones activated, as lines built behind them. Many of the customers had already camped out for several hours in line to become among the first with the new phone, which updates the one launched a year ago by speeding up Internet access and adding a navigation chip.

A spokesman for AT&T, the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the U.S., said there was a global problem with Apple’s iTunes servers that prevented the phones from being fully activated in-store, as had been planned.

Instead, employees are telling buyers to go home and perform the last step by connecting their phones to their own computers, spokesman Michael Coe said.

However, the iTunes servers were equally hard to reach from home, leaving the phones unusable except for emergency calls.

The problem extended to owners of the previous iPhone model. A software update released for that phone on Friday morning required the phone to be reactivated through iTunes.

“It’s a mess,” said freelance photographer Giovanni Cipriano, who updated his first-generation iPhone only to find it unusable.

As far as I’m concerned, if you’re camping outside a store overnight to buy a fucking PHONE, you kind of deserve something like this. I mean, fuck, maybe I’ll just wait another year until they’re like $99.