Slashdot Mirror
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."
But doesn't this seem like the height of laziness?
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
+1 Insightful to Danger mouse for finding a way to stick it to EMI.
It had to be said.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
One to burn, one to keep on a shelf to then sell to some eccentric collector in 50 years. Retirement, here I come!
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Frankly, I think that the idea is rather ingenious. I already sense a horde of lawyers sniffing the judicial currents, wondering if this could be prosecuted as encouraging copyright infringement. That should be an interesting case.
Offhand, I'd guess it hinges on whatever public statements have been made by Danger Mouse on this topic.
Another legal issue I'd be interested to come to court would be if the mashup as provided on the net didn't actually include any material under copyright, i.e., it was just a bunch of editing instructions which could be used by a computer program to which the user provides The White Album as input. It might be hard to prove that that is still clearly a derivative work of The White Album if the program would produce output (even gibberish output) given other music as inputs.
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?
Damn, I wish I thought of that.
I'm quite surprised that nobody here can see through this 'protest' to it's true nature, that it's an excellent marketing gimmic. Danger Mouse has shown already that he's very good at marketing. Want great press? Fight a record label. (Even early in his career, he would wear a mouse costume - because he was to shy/stagefrightened to show his face - and then took the name dangermouse. Great hook right there. ) He's most definitely talented - having collaborated and produced some very cool artists (Gnarles Barkley, Gorilliaz) as well, each well marketed in it's own right - but this marketing ploy... I'm beside myself at it's simplicity and beauty.
Give out blank CDs. ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT. He's already getting amazing free press over this, and there's more coming for certain. I was reading through the replys to just this article here on slashdot, and found more than a couple of readers vowing to by multiple copies of the release just to show support. Multiple copies. Of A Blank Disk.
I envy him.
http://www.bistolas.net
And don't get me started on debuggers.
We can't - you shipped with symbols stripped.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
If they used his work as a component in yet another derivative work? I'm sure he'd be just fine with it.
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."
...use the system and gain what you want legitimately, instead of trying to sidestep it like a teenager.
The problem being that it can be fairly argued that the system is corrupt, owned by those interests with much much larger reserves of wealth. In a system in which you get as much justice as you can afford when it's working relatively normally & well, then adding in the additional corruption, the chances of the average non-wealthy, non-lawyer individual coming out ahead against said wealthy interests in court are slim.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.