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Danger Mouse Releases Blank CD-R To Spite EMI
An anonymous reader writes "DJ Danger Mouse famously fought with EMI over his Beatles/Jay-Z mashup, 'The Grey Album,' and now seems to be battling with the label again. Rather than release his latest album and face legal issues with EMI, Techdirt is reporting that Danger Mouse will be selling a blank CD-R along with lots of artwork, and buyers will be responsible for finding the music themselves (yes, it's findable on the internet) and burning the CD."
It's a 100+ page BOOK of David Lynch photography.
Here's a direct link to listen to the music:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104129585
Or to download it use this torrent:
http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/1922583/2325666/
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Wow. You really missed the point. The victory is not superficial. Quite the opposite. He can actually make money off this tactic. Every sale of his blank CD and artwork is revenue. Cash in hand. If he is getting money, it's a little hard to classify that as superficial.
As for justice being bought, that is also where this victory is far from superficial. It will be very hard to demonstrate a link between this blank cd, original artwork, and an act copyright infringement against EMI's intellectual property. In order for justice to be bought, there *still* MUST be some sort of existing legal framework in which to prove damages occurred. I think you underestimate the resilience of his strategy and how will it could stand up to legal asshattery.
Now as for the legislature, what law could you possibly create to stop this? You can't sell blank CD's with original artwork? The law would have to be so vague and subjective that it would hardly stand up to legal standards.
I understand your cynicism and apparent bitterness, even share some of it, but this is still not that easy to stop, even assuming the whole weight of a corrupt and broken system behind it.
The strategy deserves a little more applause and credit than you are giving it.
Didn't Greenday already do this like five years ago?
Well I did say, "maybe or maybe not" quite a few times. That was the point. The whole thing is "implied", and that implication is quite vague at best.
The strength of his tactic is that the sale of the blank CD and artwork is never directly linked with the allegedly unauthorized derivative work.
You can have all the implications that you want, a judge is still going to want to see an act of distribution associated with that sale. At best, EMI can claim he created the work and allowed it to be distributed, but that is actually quite different from selling it.
Since there is no act of distribution with monetary gain, it would have to be pursued by EMI differently. Of course judges and juries can be fickle, but it would by no means, be as a strong of a case had the CD not been blank and contained the actual music.
Actually, he might just get sued by whoever now hold John Cage's copyrights
Regardless of whether the act of distribution occurs on a physical medium, or a digital download the legal "issue" is copyright infringement.
From what I understand, EMI is claiming that DJ Danger Mouse produces unauthorized derivative works (or flat out straight copies) of their intellectual property.
It did not *have* to go on the CD. In fact, the whole point, is that the CD is specifically blank. He is not actually putting the music on the CD or selling it online. His whole strategy relies on the fact that you are paying him for something that is only connected to the music in the loosest sense possible. Legally it would be like nailing jello to the wall.
When the Dead Kennedys released "In God We Trust, Inc." on cassette tape (remember those?), they left the B side blank, with the following note: "Home taping is killing big time entertainment industry profits. Therefore side two of this tape has been left blank for your convenience."
Sure you did. It's the DJ / producer behind Gnarls Barkley,that made the song "Crazy" some time ago.
He even collaborated with the band "Gorillaz", which you "may" have heard in some iPod ad.
Oh, he even took part to the documentary "Good Copy Bad Copy". He's not new to such statements.
If there is brilliance here, it belongs to who Danger Mouse (true to form, I'll give you that) copied from, namely Green Day.