THE ABSURDITY OF COPYRIGHT, PART 377

There's a massive, multiplayer Star Wars Galaxies game available online at the moment, with everything you'd find in a real world except the smell of sex and parking tickets. Oh, and music.. There are bands, and musicians playing the slitherhorn and the nalargon (it's Star Wars, remember), but they can't be used to play any recognisable tunes:

"If we allowed someone to play anything they want, they could play a song by Madonna and then we'd have licensing issues," said Julio Torres, a producer for Star Wars Galaxies at LucasArts. "We don't want to give them the option to try, because the bottom line is, if we open that gate, they will go through it," he said.

The heartbreaking truth, of course, is that he's right - the RIAA probably has its own clone army ready to search the star systems for people tootling Like A Virgin on their omnibox.

There is also meant to be a more honorable reason behind the ban on proper tunes:

Torres said the company also wants to keep the game consistent with the Star Wars environment. "To have a player in our game create a song that is Jon Bon Jovi or Metallica would throw people out of the fantasy," Torres said.

Yeah. Let's not even start to chat about the Very Star Wars Christmas, shall we?

music copyright star wars