Do you see what Snoop Dogg has done there?

It's not so long ago that newspapers campaigned to keep Snoop Dogg out the country because he was "a sick bastard". Now that he's spoofing Slumdog Millionaire with Snoop Dogg Millionaire - for all the world like a closing number on the Two Ronnies - he's asking to be turned back from Heathrow on grounds of taste.

It's major versus major

EMI are reportedly weighing up joining a class action against Bertelsmann because of it's underwriting of Napster. This, of course, should be viewed purely on its own, and not mulled in the context of the oft-mooted BMG/EMI merger rumours.

Interestingly, it could be argued that Bertelsmann would be able to launch a much stronger case against EMI, suggesting that one of that companies, Robbie Williams, appeared to encourage the 'theft' of its copyright material in widely-reported remarks last month. Go on, the quiet Germans... give us all a laugh.

Meanwhile, the stakes in file-sharing wars have been upped with both the new Madonna and White Stripes records having duff spoof versions loaded into the main file swapping systems in a bid to undermine them.

Too late, guys. We wondered in this space why Metallica didn't do this back at the start of their battle with Napster; it might have been effective then, killing off the reputation of file-sharing as the Place To Go To Get The Tracks at its birth. But in 2003, it's not going to have the same effect, is it? People have built up a collection of tracks, and know that Not Everything Out There is rubbish; they'll also have micronetworks of trusted sources to try first by now. And with the faster speed of computers and connections spreading out - so you spend a couple of minutes downloading a track, and its not genuine? No real loss, just try clicking on another in the list. It's no worse than downloading a recommended track and finding it's shit. Indeed, all spoofing is going to do now is put off the casual sampler - "is the white stripe band I keep hearing about any good? Oh, this is a spoof track. I shall sample Def Leppard's wares instead." And a Madonna .mp3 which is one idea repeated over and over again for three minutes? How would that be different from the official release?

One last thing: If the record companies are using the networks for spoofs, how does this affect their legal relationships? Presumably they don't object to the system swapping their spoofs - if they did, they'd have to prosecute their own IT departments for uploading them in the first place - so they're merely increasing the amount of legitimate material zapping from machine to machine, which is going to make it harder to get the networks shut down. A massive own goal caused by moving way too slowly, then.