Topic summary
Grey Tuesday
Extracted from the Wikipedia article The Grey Album.
Legal repercussions
The hype around The Grey Album caught the attention of Beatles' copyright holder EMI, who ordered Danger Mouse and retailers carrying the album to cease distribution. Music industry activist group Downhill Battle responded by coordinating Grey Tuesday, an electronic civil disobedience event held on 24 February 2004. Participating websites posted copies of The Grey Album for free download for a 24-hour period in protest of EMI's attempts to prevent distribution of the mashup on the grounds that sampling is fair use and that a statutory license should be provided in the same manner as if an artist were to perform or record a cover version of a song. Hundreds of websites publicized the event with 170 hosting the album for download. Over 100,000 copies were downloaded on that day alone. The legal repercussions of the protest were minimal; a number of the participants received cease and desist letters from EMI, but no charges were filed in connection with the event.