Backlash as EMI Hunts Down the Grey Album

An anonymous reader writes "DJ Danger Mouse's The Grey Album, a remix of Jay-Z's Black Album and the Beatles White Album has become a online music sensation, even getting reviewed in Rolling Stone though only 3,000 CDs were ever made. Now EMI, which controls the Beatles copyright, is trying to shut the album down. They've sent cease and desist letters to Danger Mouse, a handful of record stores, and websites that have hosted the songs. Wired News is reporting on the backlash that has ensued, led by anti-music industry group Downhill Battle, who insists that the major record labels are stifling creativity."

Comments

How stupid

[jrl2]

Why don't EMI sign the guy, or at least come to some kind of arrangement to get commission from the sales?
From the reviews (and prices on eBay) the albums been getting they could certainly make a good profit.

Seems these days the first response is always intimidation rather than considering other possibilities.

Take these words of wisdom...

[LostCluster]

Under the original 14 year copyright length, the Beatles recordings would all be public domain by now, and therefore this whole thing would be in the clear. However, since the copyright timespan keeps expanding, it seems like nothing created past Steamboat Willie is ever going to hit the public domain.

So yeah, EMI is stifling creativity, but it's their right to under the present laws. It's a great case to highlight what could be if the copyright laws were different. But since they're not, it's illegal and this is gonna get shut down. If it ever is mass released, EMI will be getting more profits than the original author. Sorry, Danger Mouse, Penfold can't get you out of this one...

Re:Take these words of wisdom...

[kfg]

I can live without public domain Mickey Mouse too, and I'm a fan of classic Disney. I only own nine DVDs, and two of them are pre WWII Disney. Had they been in the public domain I still would have payed for the Disney discs anyway. Only they could provide the extra materials.

See how that could work? Public domain, and yet they'd still be making money from it by leverage the work.

But I'll tell you what I can't live without. Public domain Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, Jelly Roll Morton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Huddie Ledbetter, Woody Guthrie.

All long dead. They don't need any money. But corporations are still making money from them, and the corporations would keep renewing, and renewing and renewing.

And suing, and suing, and suing.

Disney can have Mickey, but music is something eveyone gets directly involved with, even if it's only whistling your favorite tune, and music is a group cooperative art. Every generation builds its own musical identity on the foundation of the previous generations.

Only under current law music is protected unto the seventh generation. People in high school today will be dead of old age before the music of Nirvana would become their public property.

And that's death to musical arts.

No. Copyright needs to expire automatically, and it needs to do so within a reasonable fraction of a single human's life.

KFG

What is "the Progress"?

[tepples]

If DJ Danger Mouse wants to create his own music he's perfectly entitled too. However if he does not have the permission of EMI to use the Beatles music in this manner then that's not allowed to, and reasonably so.

And if EMI refuses to give DJ Danger Mouse such permission, then EMI has impeded "the Progress of Science and useful Arts" by preventing a work from being created. What's the constitutional goal of U.S. copyright law again?

Re:Sounds like a corny idea in the first place

[Anonymous Coward]

" I think that the freedom to edit and reproduce music is important but i think that it is a corny idea in the first place. But none the less I feel i must stick up for the albums right to express freedom."

So if I decide I don't like the terms of the GPL, I can just take their software and violate their copyright?

Princeton senior thesis on sampling & copyrigh

[soullessbastard]

My obligitory Google searching turned up a rather unexpected thing...a PDF version of a Princeton undergraduate thesis (warning...336K PDF) on sampling in the recording industry. It's actually been an uninteresting read thus far (quite unlike my undergraduate thesis, that is, unless you like reading about graphical interfaces for Fortran namelists).

It starts off with an interesting history of the development of folk music in this country and how new words were put on standard melodies or lyrics were appropriated into new songs. Continues on to give an overview of the history of sampling. Best quote I've seen thus far: "the current system of copyright misrepresents the creation of music, considering it a purely original act rather then an event in a cultural tradition".

The thesis goes on to propose that fair use laws should be revised and a compulsatory licensing system put in place for sampling similar in structure to current "cover" style licensing to help avoid just the kinds of lawsuits while constructing a creative artistic environment. The application of copyright law in the US is so twisted these days that perhaps a system like this is needed. We really as a country should start some serious rethinking about how old concepts should apply to the modern world.

ed

Go 99 Tigers!

Way to original thinking

[Skyshadow]

If they were smart they'd sign the guy. If they were *really* smart, they'd try to stomp on the album after it got good reviews, provoke a lot of press and buzz and *then* sign the guy and release the album.

Just for the record, I don't think anyone at EMI is really that smart.

Just finishing up downloading the first couple of tracks, and it's actually pretty good. I'm thinking that I'll burn a couple of copies for some folks in my office who share a similar taste in music. I don't like screwing artists so I don't usually do that sort of thing, but in this case I figure I'm just screwing some rich asshole music executive. That actually makes me feel all sort of warm and fuzzy inside...

Re:Sounds like a corny idea in the first place

[iminplaya]

If corporations have rights, why not albums? or rocks and dirt for that matter? Everything except humans.