No Rock And Roll Fun

EVERYTHING CUT EXCEPT THE MARGINS: You've gotta love the record industry - people are turning their noses up at the thought of buying CDs from traditional stores because the mark-up is so huge. So, does the record industry decide to cut its margins? Nope, it invents a No Frills CD instead. We're not making this up, sadly:

"The no-frills version will look virtually identical to a pirate copy, with only the title printed directly on the disc. It will cost €9.99 - about £6.70. The regular version will cost €3 more. It will include a cover and lyrics. A "luxury" version with additional material and video clips will cost €17.99."

We wonder if the 'genuine' pirate will come complete with a hastily scrawled inlay card, written with a Sharpie and containing at least two basic mistakes. This isn't something we can see spreading beyond Germany, to be frank; apart from anything, creating an official version that looks like a pirate version is surely going to make it harder for people to tell the difference between legitimate and knock-off versions.