If you'd like to join the Grey Tuesday protest, send an email to: greytuesday@downhillbattle.org.
Participating sites will post the
Grey Album on their site all day Tuesday, February 24. If you don't have a copy of the Grey Album, you can find it on
illegal-art.org.
In addition, we are encouraging sites to make their homepage all grey for the day. If you don't feel comfortable posting the album, and you still want to get involved, going grey is a great way to do so. Eric made
this javascript that will display your site in grey for everyone using Internet Explorer (85-90% of users)-- put it in your page all day Tuesday, and don't forget to explain why. You can also change the html and CSS to grey to cover other browsers (and if you're really psyched, change your images too). If you are planning to go grey, let us know and we'll add you to the list: greytuesday@downhillbattle.org.
Whether or not you run a website, you can help bring attention to this protest by encouraging sites to participate.
You can also call up radio stations on Tuesday to request the album. Independent stations are a good bet, and they might even mention the protest on the air.
Most of all, you can protest EMI's actions by downloading the
Grey Album on a filesharing network, from
illegal-art.org, or from one of these sites on February 24. And the music is really good too.
WIRED News Coverage of Grey Tuesday
Grey Tuesday Press Release
MTV News coverage of Grey Tuesday
p2pnet Coverage of Grey Tuesday
DJ Danger Mouse's Website
EMI's Cease and Desist Letter to Waxy.org
Downhill Battle - music activism
Compulsory Licensing (doesn't apply to samples)
WIRED News on Backlash Against EMI's Actions
Changing Copyright by Negativland
Jay-Z released an a capella version of his
Black Album to make remixes easier, and the
The Grey Album is just
one of many. Here's some others to look for:
9th Wonder - Black Is Back
DJ Lt. Dan -
The Black Remixes
Illmind - The Black & Tan Album
Kno vs. Hov -
The White Albulum
Kev Brown -
The Brown Album
Black Jays - The Black Jays Album
Will my server be overwhelmed with people downloading the album?
We don't think so, but we can't promise anything. We expect that enough sites will choose to particpate that no one site will be overrun. If you pay by the megabyte, you might want to be careful however, and if possible to keep an eye on your site's bandwidth throughout the day. If bandwidth is a very serious concern for your site, we'd still like you to be able to participate; consider posting the album along with a note that encourages people to come to this site to find a place to download it. The central goal of the protest is to make the album widely available and to demonstrate that there are many people who value music and musicians more than outdated copyright laws.
Today is Grey Tuesday
NOTICE: EMI has begun sent cease and desist letters to many of the participating sites in an attempt to stop this protest. This intimidation tactic has not stopped us. EMI's censorship attempts are the reason why we called for the protest, the reason why so many people chose to join the protest, and they’re the reason why the protest will continue. Please read the letter that Downhill Battle received from EMI and our response,
here.
Historic Online Protest
It's time for music fans to stand up and demand change from the music industry's copyright cartel.
Tuesday, February 24 will be a day of coordinated civil disobedience: websites will post Danger Mouse's
Grey Album on their site for 24 hours in protest of EMI's attempts to censor this work.
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 websites remove them from their site. EMI claims copyright control of the Beatles 1968
White Album.
Danger Mouse’s album is one of the most "respectful" and undeniably positive examples of sampling; it honors both the Beatles and Jay-Z. Yet the lawyers and bureaucrats at EMI have shown zero flexibility and not a glimmer of interest in the artistic significance of this work. And without a clearly defined right to sample (e.g.
compulsory licensing), the five major record labels will continue to use copyright in a reactionary and narrowly self-interested manner that limits and erodes creativity. Their actions are also self-defeating: good new music is being created that people want to buy, but the major labels are so obsessed with hoarding their copyrights that they are literally turning customers away.
This first-of-its-kind protest signals a refusal to let major label lawyers control what musicians can create and what the public can hear. The
Grey Album is only one of the thousands of legitimate and valuable efforts that have been stifled by the record industry-- not to mention the ones that were never even attempted because of the current legal climate. We cannot allow these corporations to continue censoring art; we need common-sense reforms to copyright law that can make sampling legal and practical for artists.
The Grey Tuesday protest is being organized by
Downhill Battle, a music activism project that has no affiliation with Danger Mouse.
Downhill Battle Press ContactYou can read more about this issue by following the links on the sidebar.
Sites Participating in the Protest
If your site is participating in the protest, send an email to greytuesday@downhillbattle.org and we'll add you to the list. More information is on the sidebar. This list will was updated at 11:30AM on Tuesday. The list is still changing quickly and we will continue working to make it as accurate as possible. At this point, we are receiving hundreds of emails from sites that are going grey and we simply can't keep that list up to date, but that support means a lot and we are thrilled that so many sites are getting involved. We will be focusing on the hosting list for the rest of the day. Nearly 400 sites are currently listed as participating in the protest. (If you sent us an email before this update, but don't see your site on the correct list, please send us a reminder.)
If you are here to download the Grey Album, please be sensitive to the fact that many of these sites have limited bandwidth and that a huge rush of downloads may cause them problems. Consider looking into another way to get the album, perhaps from friends or filesharing networks (
zeropaid can help you find a client for pc, and we like
acquisition for mac). If you use
bit torrent, you can find a torrent file at
seren.net. If you do choose to download from one of the sites listed below, try to pick randomly from the list of sites. That being said, enjoy the music and pass it along.
SITES THAT WILL HOST THE GREY ALBUM ON FEB 24
SITES THAT WILL TURN GREY ON FEB 24