So, today is Grey Tuesday. For those not in the know:

DJ Danger Mouse created a remix of Jay-Z’s the Black Album and the Beatles White Album, and called it the Grey Album. Jay-Z’s record label, Roc-A-Fella, released an a Capella version of his Black Album specifically to encourage remixes like this one. But despite praise from music fans and major media outlets like Rolling Stone (“an ingenious hip-hop record that sounds oddly ahead of its time”) and the Boston Globe (which called it the “most creatively captivating” album of the year), EMI has sent cease and desist letters demanding that stores destroy their copies of the album and web sites remove them from their site. EMI claims copyright control of the Beatles 1968 White Album.

So today many, many sites are posting the Grey Album for download. I think this is the right thing to do, but I don’t have the bandwidth to do it and I’m sharing it for today, enjoy. I have heard the Grey Album and while I’m not a huge fan of rap and hip hop I do find it intriguing. That EMI thinks they can stifle such innovation that appears to be legal under the fair use clause of our copyright code is just deplorable. What do they have to loose? How many people that would purchase or download that album are now going to not buy the White Album? Zero. Could someone that hears the Grey Album go on to buy the White Album? Possibly. Ah, retarded corporate culture strikes again. While looking at downhillbattle.org, the folks that created Grey Tuesday and a music activism site, I found a cool interview with Ian MacKaye from Fugazi and Dischord. Great stuff, specifically this quote:

When people who are songwriters say ‘That’s my property and if you give it away for free then I’ll lose my incentive,’ then, well, good riddance.