Wednesday, March 26, 2008

DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album and the Grey Video

The Grey Album, Part 1:

The Grey Album, Part 2:


From Illetgal Art:

THE GREY ALBUM LEGAL BATTLE SUMMARIZED

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, but Stay 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, check out:

EFF's overview of the Grey Album case
Grey Tuesday (protest organized by Downhill Battle)
New York Times on Grey Tuesday
Rolling Stone's review of the Grey Album
Boston Globe's review.

DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM

Grey Album .torrent courtesy of Bannedmusic.org. You will need Bittorrent software to download this.


From Wikipedia (links omitted):

The Grey Video is a music video made in the autumn of 2004 by directing team Ramon & Pedro, that is Swiss directors Laurent Fauchere and Antoine Tinguely . . . to promote the single "Encore" from The Grey Album.

The video, which is entirely in black and white, features clips from The Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night, and footage from a Jay-Z performance. It uses new footage and computer generated imagery to create scenes that involve John Lennon breakdancing and Ringo Starr scratching.



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