No Rock And Roll Fun

PLEASE PRESS 'STOP': Who knew that DataPlay, that rubbishy new format record labels had hoped to dupe us into getting so we could buy our collections all over again, again, would be a dead duck? Only it's gone now, so your chance to be the first kid in your street lumbered with the audio version of Video2000 has gone west.
What I find astonishing is that they ever thought it could work - the leap forwards in recording technology - vinyl, 33 and 45s, tape, CD, MP3 - they've all offered the consumer something tangible - portability, recordability, not being made from crushed-up bugs, the opportunity to ransack the back catalogue of EMI without paying. DataPlay was basing its entire business proposal on people being too daft to notice that they were buying a whole new load of equipment that wouldn't play their old stuff, and which would do everything their old stuff would do, except for the bits the labels didn't want them to do anymore. Yeah, all they needed was to add the words "lower than 50-50 risk of causing life-threatening cancers" into the advertising strap and they may just have had the perfect product.
I see David Crosby had been persuaded to investment in them. I thought he was straight these days?