Decoy Robbies

The long-awaited new CD from ex Take That star Robbie Williams hits the shelves today, and Bernhard Warner of Reuters takes the opportunity to look at how record companies are fighting music piracy. Instead of trying to ban the file-sharers, they are simply flooding the networks with Robbie Williams MP3s that are either silent, or which fade out after 30 seconds. Smart stuff. They might be playing dirty on the quiet, but these tactics are a lot more net-savvy than their heavy-handed attempts to silence the file-sharers in court. And, I expect, they will be a lot more effective too.