Hackers Have Field Day with Madonna Decoy

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow" <geoff () beat net>
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 13:56:15 +0200
To: "Dave E-mail Pamphleteer Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: Hackers Have Field Day with Madonna Decoy

Hackers Have Field Day with Madonna Decoy
Sun Apr 27, 3:55 PM ET

By Chris Marlowe

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Anyone who thinks they can control the
Internet received an object lesson during the past week.

It all started when Madonna (news - web sites) literally lent her voice to a
popular antipiracy technique. Warner Music Group had audio files purporting
to
be her new songs uploaded onto peer-to-peer file-sharing services. Anyone
who
downloaded the decoys, however, heard nothing but the pop star swearing at
them. But since then, the pithy profanity has taken on a life of its own.

Some observers thought Madonna was smart to fight piracy with its own tools.
Others perceived a thrown gauntlet -- hackers soon defaced Madonna's Web
site
with an equally profane retort along with several downloadable files of the
then-unreleased songs. The defacement also carried a marriage proposal to
Morgan Webb, an associate producer and on-air presenter at TechTV who had
nothing to do with the prank.

A third group saw a creative opportunity. "What the f--- do you think you're
doing," Madonna's now-infamous phrase, is turning up in dozens of remixes
and
the computer-aided musical collages known as cutups or mashups.

Independent music community DMusic is now hosting a competition for the best
Madonna-based track, with the first prize being a "boycott-riaa (news - web
sites)" T-shirt and stickers.

Links to other related tracks are being put together at
http://www.iriXx.org/madonna/ and other sites.

"Madonna was trying to put one over on the kids ... and they in turn wanted
to
let her know that she's not in as much control as she thinks she is," Webb
said, adding that "coke, anger and boredom" were also possible motivators.

Madonna's "American Life" was released Tuesday and is predicted to enter
Billboard's charts at No. 1, albeit with sales considerably lower than that
for
her previous album "Music."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030427/en_nm/music_madon
na_dc

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geoff.goodfellow () iconia com * Prague - CZ * telephone +420 603 706 558
"success is getting what you want & happiness is wanting what you get"
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/01/biztech/articles/17drop.html
http://www.tapsns.com/members-bio/geoff-goodfellow.shtml



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