DJ Danger Mouse remixed the vocals from Jay-Z's The Black Album and the Beatles' White Album and called his creation The Grey Album. He sent about 3,000 promo copies out, and was soon served with a cease-and-desist notice from EMI, who owns the rights to the White Album master. Danger Mouse complied with EMI's order, butStay Free! (sponsors of the Illegal Art Exhibit) and other fans and activists continued distributing the record over the Internet. EMI sent legal threats to many of us as well but later backed down. Next, SONY/ATV -- who owns the rights to the Beatles' compositions -- stepped in and sent our internet service provider a DMCA takedown notice (3/1/2004). We secured legal representation from the EFF, moved our website to the Online Policy Group (a free-speech ISP), and responded to Sony with this letter. Fortunately, Sony also dropped the case and The Grey Album remains safely online.
for more info and links see http://www.illegal-art.org/audio/grey.html
This is just proving EXACTLY what i said.
ReplyDeleteHis PROMOTIONAL COPIES were pressed onto VINYL, and subsequently 'ripped' to mp3 and shared through mIRC groups and channels.
As i said before, there has been a long standing culture of pressing Bootleg records in the hip-hop. I Think Dangermouse thought he could sell a couple of thousand records of 'the grey album' however once it got picked up by these mp3 groups, it got distributed way too quickly and thus got noticed by the RIAA and other agencies.
These groups are responsible for making unknown artists famous overnight in underground hiphop.
Everything you have said has been true, my only argument is that I know it came from a vinyl pressing initially. I know people who own it, people who sold it and record stores that stocked it, also i used to be quite involved in the whole 'scene release' stuff on mIRC and remember the whole story when it broke. However i thought it was a crap album, and have never liked the message that Jay Z has been trying to put out in hip-hop.
Hip-hop is dead, and people like Jay Z are ambassadors of its demise.
Here are some old links i just remembered to aid in looking for scene release stuff
http://www.mp3shitter.com/info/id100886.html
http://www.angelfire.com/hiphop2/doclarge/file/00-dj_danger_mouse-the_grey_album-2004-wcr.nfo
I still believe the initial rip was done by RNS FTD or SWE. But have not had time to find it
why are you posting on the blog when you should have been at what was a very useful essay writing workshop on Tuesday? Perhaps more important than our debate here however interesting it is...
ReplyDelete