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Grey Tuesday | February 24, 2004

For the next 24 hours, I will be hosting a .torrent file you can use to download The Grey Album. Time’s up, try illegal-art.org.

The Grey Album is a remix of Jay-Z’s Black Album and The Beatles’ White Album, put together by DJ Danger Mouse. The Boston Globe called it the “most creatively captivating” album of the year, and Rolling Stone praised it as “an ingenious hip-hop record that sounds oddly ahead of its time.”

Record label EMI, claiming ownership of the 1968 Beatles samples used on the Grey Album, is doing everything it can to censor this work of art. It served Danger Mouse with a cease and desist letter, and demanded that record stores around the country destroy all copies of the album in their inventories.

Copyright law was intended to be a means of profit, not a means of control. Tunes are subject to compulsory licensing laws; the copyright holders can’t dictate who plays or covers their music. They can only negotiate to recieve a fair royalty for each such use.

Sampling, however, is not subject to the same protection. EMI is using this loophole to stifle a legitimate and highly-acclaimed album. They are literally turning away customers—probably millions of dollars in royalties—to cling to the reactionary idea that a music label should have absolute control over the way its works are used and listened to.

Grey Tuesday is “a day of coordinated civil disobedience” in protest of EMI’s recent actions as well as the larger phenomenon of the “big five” record labels using their power to stifle creativity and keep new and innovative artists out of the picture. As I am writing this we are 23 minutes into Grey Tuesday and there are already 181 sites which have agreed to host the Grey Album for a 24-hour period. Many have already recieved cease and desist letters from EMI. (Update, 12:50pm: myself included.) Downhillbattle has an excellent response:

Despite your letter, Downhill Battle will be posting the Grey Album on our website tomorrow. Your efforts to suppress this music stifle creativity and harm the public interest; we will not be intimidated into backing down. Downhill Battle has a fair-use right to post this music under current copyright law and the public has a fair-use right to hear it. Opposing EMI’s censorship campaign is precisely the purpose of Tuesday’s protest and we won’t waver from that goal.

The current legal environment allows the five major record labels to dictate to musicians what kind of music they may and may not create and allows them to prevent the public from hearing music that does not fall within their rules. For people to make an informed decision about whether the major record labels and existing copyright law serve the interests of musicians and the public, they need to be able to hear the music that is being suppressed. The Grey Tuesday protest is about ensuring that this music is widely available so that the public can make informed decisions. Copyright was created by Congress to “promote the progress of science and the useful arts.” Your actions violate that purpose. Any lawsuit against us will bring more attention to both the protest and the need for serious copyright reform, and we expect to win any case on fair-use grounds.

Our posting of the Grey Album on Downhill Battle is a political act with no commercial interest and fits well within fair use rights. Lawyers have advised us that we can ignore your demands number 2, 3, and 4 that are listed at the bottom of your letter. EMI has no legal right to make these demands and we will not comply with them. Furthermore, if EMI attempts to disrupt our protest by sending takedown letters to participating websites, ISPs of participating websites, or any upstream ISPs, we will file a counter-suit against you. We consider any attempts to stifle this protest to be an abuse under section 512F of the DMCA.

I’m not a big fan of hip-hop, but I have downloaded the Grey Album and am proud to be participating in today’s protest. I hope that you will do the same.

Further reading:

Posted 12:18 AM
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The First Four Songs I Ever Played on Guitar | January 10, 2004

  1. Brown Eyed Girl
  2. Leaving on a Jet Plane
  3. House of the Rising Sun
  4. Puff the Magic Dragon (Thanks Hannah)

Progress is possible.

Posted 4:09 PM
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Endless Dream | January 8, 2004

An Endless Dream. Composed by Alex, performed by me. Fun.

Posted 12:57 PM
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