Dead Kennedys remind us of the first time that piracy killed music DEAD?

[NeophobiA 1,503]

 

When punk group The Dead Kennedys released their EP In God We Trust, Inc tape in 1981,

 

side one had all eight songs; side two contained a POLITICAL STATEMENT.

Here’s a clear image of that tape so you can see the sellotape over the top left-hand corner:

Which - for those of you who weren’t around for the good old cassette days -

meant that the write-protection notch was covered, allowing the blank side of the tape to be recorded over.

Cheeky.

 

Side two of In God We Trust, Inc was a reference to “Home Taping Is Killing Music”,

 

the slogan for the 80s campaign to stop copyright infringement.

The music industry’s concern that people would record music from radio and copy albums,

thus harming sales, led them to create a now-infamous logo consisting of a tape and crossbones:

 

The whole thing worked really, really well, and everyone has taken it completely seriously ever since.

Well, sort of.

No, not really.