Grey Tuesday

I linked to DJ Danger Mouse’s album The Grey Album in “Finding Humor in Unlikely Places”, but I wanted to spotlight it in its own post. Also, I want to draw some attention to Downhill Battle’s Grey Tuesday protest. It appears that Danger Mouse himself won’t be getting in any further trouble, as the album was a limited-edition pressing, but, given how much play this is getting around the blogosphere, one can’t help but wonder if this particular episode won’t serve as a catalyst for some sort of change in the music industry.

On a related note, the RIAA was countersued today by a New Jersey woman; the plaintiff’s lawyers claim that the RIAA is violating federal antiracketeering regulations:

[B]y suing file-swappers for copyright infringement, and then offering to settle instead of pursuing a case where liability could reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the RIAA is violating the same laws that are more typically applied to gangsters and organized crime.

I have to say, I don’t know much about antiracketeering laws, but it’s pretty clear that the RIAA’s tactics amount to extortion, plain and simple. Whether it’s legal or not is, of course, an entirely different question.