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Mysterious (Starbucks) Lawyers Shut Down REVBILLY.Com

"Virtual Sit-in" May Go Forward As Scheduled, from Midnight April 15th to Midnight April 16th as part of Reverend Billy's Spring Revival, the last show --
EAST VILLAGE FRANCHISE FREE ZONE (Starbucks Wants Williamsburg)
8 PM 45 Bleecker Theater (near Lafayette), New York City
Box Office 212 529 4530

In the hours before a global attack on the Starbucks Corporation's website - in which large numbers of people were to have used "hacktivist" software available on REVBILLY.COM - an Internet Service Provider (ISP) pressured the Reverend's server to pull the site from the net. The ISP, NYC Webs, refused to identify the source of the pressure, but the local New York server "el. NET" of 59 Franklin Street, host of REVBILLY.COM, was threatened with the "blackholing" of all its websites.

The virtual sit-in is still scheduled for midnight after the final performance of the current Reverend Billy series on Sunday the 15th, extending for 24 hours to midnight the following night of the 16th. Interested participants should go to REVBILLY.COM later in the day on the 16th. Producers of "The Church of Stop Shopping" are hoping to find a new host for the website so that the action can go forward as scheduled. Invitations have gone out to tens of thousands of people throughout the world. Among those posting the "call to action" were the RTmark organization.

The offending software was designed by the Electronic Disturbance Theatre, which is identified with the cyber-zapatista movement. At the Sunday performance EDT representative Ricardo Dominguez will describe the action and explain how to participate. The "virtual sit-in" software slows down Starbuck's ability to reply to its internet customers by overtaxing the sites system.

The comic church service this Sunday has the theme THE EAST VILLAGE FRANCHISE-FREE ZONE" and especially honors the small businesses of East 9th Street in the village. Shopkeepers in that neighborhood live with the spectre of the Astor place chain stores. The prospect of doubling and tripling rents as the heavily financed transnational corporations offer landlords much higher rental income is a motivating force in the performance and the internet action.

Reverend Billy is the creation of writer/actor Bill Talen. It features a 20 voice gospel Choir that sings anti-consumerist lyrics. Features of a church service are parodied, including exorcisms, baptisms and vespers. In the April 15th performance Habib of Habib's Place on E. 9th Street near Avenue A Street will be sainted. His rent was recently raised from $1100 to $3000.