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Danger Mouse Releases Blank CD-R To Spite EMI

Posted by Soulskill on from the vengeful-rodents dept.

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."

15 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. I know its for a legit reason... by mc1138 · · Score: 5, Funny

    But doesn't this seem like the height of laziness?

    --
    The musings of just another geek and his junk.
    1. Re:I know its for a legit reason... by AC-x · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Looks more like an extremely clever political statement to me. Surely the hight of laziness would be to do nothing at all, rather than sticking it to the man??

    2. Re:I know its for a legit reason... by MrNaz · · Score: 5, Funny

      They haven't because they can't. They'd get sued by Simon and Garfunkel.

      --
      I hate printers.
    3. Re:I know its for a legit reason... by EdIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But doesn't this seem like the height of laziness?

      Actually, it's the height of fucking brilliance. Super Genius even.

      Think about it.

      1) He gets the money. He is only selling a blank CD-R which is 100% legal. Fry's electronics does the same thing. There is artwork provided, which are original works (AFAIK).
      2) He is *actually* delivering a license to the customer, in a very indirect fashion :)

      What he is basically saying, is that you paid me for this. So IF I did have a copyright to the work, that you may or may not find on the Internet someplace, you would be granted (by Danger Mouse) the right to use it. Or, in other words, I would not pursue you for copyright infringement in the event I ever actually get a copyright for the works you find, that may or may not be created by me.

      Nobody really knows.

      It's not laziness at all :)

      He is selling you an item that may exist in the future, with no guarantees that it will even exist at all.

      It's totally cool, well thought out (we will have to see what legal attacks are brought against this), and I entirely support it.

      If you thought it was lazy because he was not getting into a legal battle with EMI over this, look at it another way: He just thought outside of the box and accomplished everything he wanted in way that he can't be immediately stopped from doing.

      It will be one impressive fucking scum bag lawyer that can argue that sale constitutes copyright infringement. David Copperfield lawyerin' in the courtroom.

      This was the most entertaining Slashdot article in months!

    4. Re:I know its for a legit reason... by the_womble · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, he might just get sued by whoever now hold John Cage's copyrights

    5. Re:I know its for a legit reason... by multisync · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm listening to it now.

      I'll buy this CD, and I hope others do as well. It sends a good message to the public that the **aa-types are wrong when they content people won't pay for music if you give it to them on their terms. Same with In Rainbows. I'm also really interested in the David Lynch artwork.

      The irony is I rip CDs to my media server as soon as I buy them and put them away for safe keeping, so burning the album to a blank will be a purely symbolic - and ass-backwards - gesture on my part.

      --
      I don't care why you're posting AC
  2. +1 by jeffhenson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    +1 Insightful to Danger mouse for finding a way to stick it to EMI.

  3. I'm buying two. by downix · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:I'm buying two. by rHBa · · Score: 5, Funny

      The irony is that it will be worth more to collectors WITHOUT the music on it!

  4. Re:Crumbs, chief! by gregg · · Score: 5, Funny

    Penfold, shush.

  5. I hope this catches on, big time by Mathinker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  6. not just "lots of artwork" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's a 100+ page BOOK of David Lynch photography.

  7. Hype. Awesome. by DavidChristopher · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  8. Re:Handbag Music by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Funny

    And don't get me started on debuggers.

    We can't - you shipped with symbols stripped.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  9. The Dead Kennedys did something similar. by 1729 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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."