Home Taping Is Killing Music

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The original logo

"Home Taping Is Killing Music" was the slogan of a 1980s anti-

compact cassette, also included the words "And It's Illegal". The campaign was officially launched by then-BPI chairman Chris Wright on 28 October 1981.[1][2]

An early proponent of home taping was Malcolm McLaren, who was at the time managing the British new wave band Bow Wow Wow. In 1980, the band released their cassette single "C·30 C·60 C·90 Go" on cassette that featured a blank B-side on which the buyer could record their own music. However, the band's record label, EMI, dropped the group shortly afterwards because the single allegedly promoted home taping.

In the 2000s, the campaign experienced a revival, as the Norwegian branch of

IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) launched a new campaign named Piracy Kills Music. The campaign has exactly the same message, same name and similar logos. The campaign won the Norwegian 2008 Gulltaggen
award for "Best Internet Strategy" with much controversy.

Parodies

Example of a parody of the original logo
DJ set in a nightclub with a slipmat
having the imprint Vinyl kills the mp3 industry. (2014)

The slogan was often parodied, one example being the addendum and it's about time too!, used by Dutch

Workers Playtime featured a notice reading "Capitalism is killing music – pay no more than £4.99 for this record".[4] Mitch Benn
also comments "Home taping isn't killing music, music's dying of natural causes" in the song "Steal This Song" on the album Radioface. In Poland during the mid-1980s, some (PRONIT label) vinyl pressings of certain albums contained a parody stamp labeled "Home taping... is much fun".

One cassette version of the

In God We Trust Inc. had a blank side, printed with the message "Home taping is killing record industry profits! We left this side blank so you can help."[5]

During the 1980s, rock group the Beat sold blank cassette tapes as merchandise at their live shows. The band frequently encouraged fans and concert patrons to record their live performances instead of illegally copying their studio albums. The group's leader, Paul Collins, believed this practice would satisfy a need for instant gratification while preventing the sales of their albums from diminishing.

La Route du Rock biannual music festival in France uses the tape image as part of the event's logo.[6]

The Pirate Bay logo with cassette and crossbones

More recently, the pro-

BitTorrent website The Pirate Bay uses the logo of a pirate ship whose sails bear the "tape and bones." Additionally the Pirate Party UK has a version of the tape and bones with the logo "copyright is killing music – and it's legal" and the Swedish Piratbyrån
is using the same tape and bones as their logo.

Similar rhetoric has continued; in 1982

CD burning is hurting music sales.[7][8]

In March 2010,

Madonna, George Michael and Adam Ant lip-synching to the song.[9][10][11]

See also

References

  1. ^ Annie Zaleski (25 October 2016). "35 Years Ago: The U.K. Launches the 'Home Taping Is Killing Music' Campaign". diffuse.fm.
  2. ^ Nick Robertshaw (7 November 1981). "U.K. Industry Fights For Blank Tape Tax". Billboard. p. 1,71,74.
  3. ^ "[Sonic Youth T-shirt]". Archived from the original on 17 December 2012. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
  4. ^ "Music Review: Billy Bragg Volume II". Community Care. Archived from the original on 24 July 2008.
  5. ISBN 9780199858224
    .
  6. ^ Hervaud, Alexandre (1 September 2009). "Rock & Pirates à Saint Malo #1 : introduction" (in French). Libération.[permanent dead link]
  7. OCLC 163587594
    .
  8. ^ "CD-burning threatens music sales". Cincinnati Post. 16 August 2005 – via Newsbank.
  9. ^ "Home Taping is Killing Music, by Dan Bull". Youtube. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  10. ^ Heaney, Andrew (12 March 2010). "Dan Bull takes us back to the 80s when "home taping was killing music"". TalkTalk blogblog. Archived from the original on 21 December 2014.
  11. ^ "TalkTalk gets musical with digital economy bill opposition". cable.co.uk/. Retrieved 13 April 2022.

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