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Did EMI Say OK And Give OK Go A Pass On This Too Shall Pass?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on March 3, 2010 by admin in Music

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

The band OK Go complained about their label blocking the band’s videos on YouTube recently, and now their latest release – This Too Shall Pass – is shareable. But none of the others are. A victory over the label? Or a Rube Goldbergian marketing scheme?

Were the band Ok Go’s recent complaints about EMI’s YouTube sharing policies just part of a sneaky, low-key marketing campaign? Who cares. The band’s new brilliantly Rube Goldbergian video below is way too much fun to quibble about it. More thoughts after the clip.

While taking a look at the RIAA’s peculiar paranoia about Canadian pirates recently, we mentioned how Damian Kulash Jr. of the band OK Go had expressed his frustration about not being able to embed his own band’s YouTube videos because of EMI’s “Embedding disabled by request” deal in a NYT editorial. He sounded like a real rebel, sharing the straight dope about how stupid his own label was being about video sharing as promotion. Well, OK Go’s latest video, This Too Shall Pass is featured above, and is suspiciously embeddable. But none of Read the rest of this entry »

So It’s Canadian Pirates vs. The RIAA, eh?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 20, 2010 by admin in Music

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Not content with suing dead people, old ladies who don’t own computers, and their own artists and distibution channels, the record industry is going after those archvillains of the arctic, CANADA.

In their never-ending quest for most absurd litigation to make its way into the apparently oblivious judicial system, the record industry is stepping it up a notch. No, it wasn’t enough to steal from their own artists and corrupt the legal system, or to sue a single woman for $80,000 per allegedly pirated song (oh wait, it got reduced to a mere $2,250!), or sue dead people, people who don’t even own computers, and the entire radio industry. No, now they’re taking on the country that – as we all know – is home to the most ruthless criminal networks of the Americas. You know, Canada. Who knew that aside from being a country full of pretty nice people whose greatest crime may be occasionaly finishing sentences with “eh?”, Canada is also a hotbed of profit-robbing music piracy? As far as I knew, the only threat that Canada had brought to the established music industry recently was a really awesome indy scene, but the RIAA sees things a little differently. Fortunately, this may be one of the last times that you’ll have to endure wingnuts like me ranting about this; dinosaur labels like EMI are soon likely to be laying about in massive heaps gasping for their last breaths like their metaphoric counterparts at the end of the Jurassic period, as they continue to blame their $2.7 billion losses on piracy rather than their failure to adapt to competition. I tend to get a little over-the-top when I discuss this topic; for a much more sane overview from an artist’s point of view, check out this New York Times piece by Damian Kulash Jr. of the band OK Go, in which he calmly describes how EMI’s disabling of the “embed” feature on YouTube has probably lost them exponentially more than what they made by “protecting” their property.

More Mashups: Girls Aloud Allowed, But EMI Goes GooGoo Over Gaga

[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 28, 2010 by admin in Music

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Will major labels ever figure out the equation of rights management versus free exposure?

We’ve touched on mashups before, but hadn’t realized how deeply they’d been cross-infected with mainstream pop culture, and hadn’t considered the daunting task they bring to record labels operating with a Jurassic attitude toward media distribution and rights management. First of all, let’s look at an example of how not to do a mashup, and then take a look at an example of why issuing takedowns to mashup artists is probably not all that productive. So how not to do a mashup? Fox TV’s Glee “got hip” and jumped on the mashup train by taking the Police song “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and Gary Puckett’s “Young Girl”, and having one of the stars of the show sing them as a mashup. The result was predictably horrifying. The problem? The music was obviously licensed, played by studio session players, and badly dubbed over by the actor. The net result is comparable to watching your friend who majored in drama but ended up being an MBA singing “Halo” at karaoke night. If anyone should get sued in the world of mashups, it’s the producers of Glee. On the other end of the spectrum, we have situations where a label like EMI issues a takedown when the repurposing of their property would probably do them more benefit than harm. The piece just linked to explains why EMI issued a takedown for NirGaga, the Lady Gaga Vs. Nirvana mashup. What’s wrong with that scenario? For me, the mashup made me remember Nirvana, who I hadn’t thought of in ages, and exposed me to Lady Gaga, who I would otherwise not go out of my way to listen to. In either case, it’s doubtful that the free distribution of the mashup would dent EMI’s profits, and in spite of EMI’s takedown, the video and song remain “in the wild”, and fairly easy to find, as evident with the YouTube link above. Another example of reaching a new and unlikely end-user (i.e.: me) is a series of mashups of Girls Aloud, the British reality TV superstar girl band that’s made millions and that I’d bet a million that – like me – you’ve never heard of before. Below are examples of Girls Aloud and a few other mashups (Devo vs Souljaboy, Lady Gaga vs Eurythmics) that – at least to my ears – make the unlistenable fairly listenable. I doubt major media companies will ever get this property management vs exposure equation, and will continue throwing the baby out with the bath water until they’re bankrupt. If you want a quick roundup of some of last year’s best mashups, check out CultureBully’s list, or Best of Bootie 2009. Read the rest of this entry »

Danger Mouse – Dark Night Of The Sales

[ Comments Off ]Posted on May 17, 2009 by admin in Music

Sunday, May 17th, 2009

The new Danger Mouse release Dark Night Of The Soul is being blocked by EMI, so he’s cleverly releasing the package with a blank CD-R inside so you can burn it yourself.

In the record industry’s bizarre ongoing pursuit of its own demise, the release of Dark Night Of The Soul (the new Danger Mouse collaboration with Sparklehorse) has been blocked by EMI. Not to worry though; for the time being NPR is streaming the whole thing, and it’s also pretty easy to find as a bittorrent. The release was originally to include photography by David Lynch, so Danger Mouse is cleverly selling the package as designed, except with a blank CD-R, and the notice “For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will“. The obvious implication being that you can download the music for free, buy the retail package, and burn it yourself. We’ll leave that up to you; the book and poster version with blank CD costs fifty bucks and they’re already taking orders prior to the May 29 release date. We’ve only given this a quick first spin, but it sounds promising. No standout singles or dance tracks; instead some well-crafted moodiness, with appearances by an eclectic variety of vocal talent including Suzanne Vega, Iggy Pop, Frank Black, Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, and others. See the full track list below. Read the rest of this entry »

Viva La Jaydiohead – Jay-Z Meets Radiohead

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on April 23, 2009 by admin in Music

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

DJ Minty Fresh Beats’ Amazingly Listenable Mashup of Jay-Z & Radiohead

What’s black and white and comes in rainbows? A pair of brilliant mashups of Jay Z’s Black Album. If you missed Danger Mouse’s 2004 Mashup The Grey Album, try to get a copy (Illegal-Art.org has a torrent link). It’s a masterful mashup of The Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album. The legal fuss that EMI created  at the time probably only served to promote the release, as did the clever Grey Video that repurposed original black-and-white footage from a 60′s Beatles concert. Since then there have been a few other attempts at mashing up Jay-Z, like OJAYZIS (Jay-Z vs Oasis)  or Viva la Hova, a mash with Coldplay’s Viva la Vida. But none have been quite as listenable as this year’s Jaydiohead produced by NYC DJ Minty Fresh Beats (who’s apparently since re-branded himself as Max Tannone). Hail to the Thief!

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