U2 tracks disappear from YouTube

A Dutch U2 fan on holiday in France overheard, and recorded, four tracks from the new U2 album and stuck them on YouTube. The fan was walking on the beach when he heard the music blasting from a window of Bono's villa. He recorded them on a mobile phone and later put them online. The tracks were available on YouTube, but seem …

[Anonymous Coward]

Just "happened" to be walking by, did he?

Stalking, more like. Poor bastard.

And let's spare a moment for all those other poor bastards^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H U2 fans who will be firing up Youtube this morning agog at the prospect of hearing these tracks, but by this evening will be heard complaining that they still couldn't find what they're looking for.

Mine's the one with Bonio in the pocket.

[Anonymous Coward]

PBL

Hope Bonehead has a Public Prodcast License, or failing that, I hope the fuzz kick his door in and slap an ASBO on him for playing his music too loud (oh please, please dear god, shut the self righteous prick up)

[andy]

Bet they were good quality

"... blasting from a window .... recorded them on a mobile phone and later put them online.

Distance + phone + compression: Oh, the quality!

Did anyone actually hear these? Could be another one of Bono's "let's all have a go at something" campaigns.

[amanfromMars]

Lord protect us from poor little rich kids and precious spoilt brats?

"U2's manager Paul McGuinness is likely to be unimpressed. He has been highly critical of companies like Apple and ISPs which he described as providing "burglary kits" which allowed people to steal music."

That is somewhat pretentious of Mr McGuinness. No working class hero there, that's for sure.

One could be unkind and say that poncing about on a world stage and being totally ineffective is less than worthy of adulation...... so best not to mention it, eh.

Quite comfortably off now does I suppose dull the revolutionary edge considerably. Although if they're Irish at all, then they have the capacity to amaze and surprise. That would be nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

well

I'm highly critical of Paul McGuinness for managing a shit band full of wankers iconic of the pap that is spat into the western music scene.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Andy

I heard them. The audio was very poor quality, and the sound of the sea, mopeds, and people walking by often drowned it out. You could still get a feel for the songs though.

[Pat O'Ban]

They've pulled this stunt before

A CD went "missing" just prior to the release of Vertigo.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/jul/17/arts.netmusic

Pathetic.

[Joe]

Wouldn't surprise me if.....

The bloke with the mobile phone was on the U2 payroll. Any publicity is good publicity, and if it involves youtube then bonus points for involving pop culture. Wouldn't be the first time reverse marketing was used.

Not quite sure which icon to use for this one - can we have more to choose from please ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Youtube develops taste?

removes U2 from site, is this permanent or will people still be able to suffer a full audio assault complete with video of the worlds largest egos?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You could still get a feel for the songs though."

That "feel" being that they are overblown tat, presumably?

[Dave Edmondston]

Would it be cynical to suggest...

...that this was hype in promoting a band who used to be a cash cow for the label, but are long passed their sell-by date?

[Robert Ramsay]

Cui bono

who profits?

[Neil]

Paul McGuinness

"U2's manager Paul McGuinness is likely to be unimpressed. He has been highly critical of companies like Apple and ISPs which he described as providing "burglary kits" which allowed people to steal music."

Criticising an ISP for music sharing is like blaming the inventor of automobiles for bank jobs using getaway cars. Lets blame Alexander Bell for facilitating prank telephone calls.

[Robb Dunphy]

@Stu Reeves

ASBO? Now sorry what would that be? France doesn't have those worthless pieces of paper that do nothing.

[socialmediamojo]

The sound quality must've been awful

Not something for audiophiles then....

Firstly they were recorded via a mobiles phone, and then the idiot uploaded them to youtube which has rubbish 32kbit audio and needs it to be in video format. I guess if he'd been smarter he could have uploaded them to imeem.com as audio files and had the low quality cellphone audio delivered in pristine 128kbit mp3.

Normally it annoys the hell out of me when people use youtube to share music because there's a popular music only alternative in the form of imeem, it seems silly to see people wrapping their audio into video files so that youtube will accept it when you can just upload audio to imeem. But this probably sounded like crap before it was uploaded.

[Anonymous Coward]

My two favourite quotes about U2

"If Bono's for it then I'm against it." - Joe Lyons

"[U2] are rubbish and then some. That guy walks like John Wayne. Any guitarist that calls himself The Edge and wears a hat because he's gone bald deserves to have stuff thrown at him." - Mark Kermode

We really need a "complete tossers" icon for U2 stories.

[Anonymous Coward]

the man is mentally ill

Why the rope everywhere? why the plastic fruit?

The man is mentally ill - I've seen him eat a plastic pie!

[Steve Anderson]

Bono must be livid...

... this has happened and yet the world just keeps turning...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah

A bunch of nerds who have virtual sex in SecondLife criticizing Bono - how cute! He must be doing something right then!

[Donal Gavin]

One for 20 against

hahah second life what you talking about. thats one for U2 and about 20 against so far.

An Anonymous Coward nerd who has virtual sex in SecondLife supporting Bono - how cute! He must be doing something wrong then!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bono is a star

He was afterall in my favorite episode of South Park, More Crap... AC because work mate worships Bonio

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh?

So the irritating leprechaun plays his music at full blast in public does he? He could have kept it private, perhaps using a set of (suitably small) cans.

This smacks of a publicity stunt gone wrong. Any chance there were, purely by coincidence, a few music "journalists" (ahem!) within earshot who could be counted on the report that they'd "overheard some tracks form the upcoming U2 album, and they rock"? Or am I being too cynical. After all "viral marketing" is where it's at these days. Sending out preview CD's to journalists is just so twentieth century.

Maybe said pirate was a plant who uploaded them to get the viral marketing campaign started. Or maybe he was somebody who got wind of a cynical marketing stunt and recorded it.

[anarchic-teapot]

@ amanfromMars

You feeling alright, mate? That message is totally comprehensible and contains not a single 42. And everyone's agreeing with you, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

@anarchic-teapot

I think amanfrommars is off his meds. His last 3 or 4 posts that I have seen were all 75-95% coherent.

BTW, U2b is the IT angle and U2 rules. As the man said: if you don't like it, don't buy it.

--Pete

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: Bono is a star

That thing must weigh like 9 and a half Courics!

[Steen Hive]

Dead musician at the pearly gates..

Hey, St. Peter! Who's that with the shades - is it Bono?

"Nah that's god, he just thinks he's Bono"

[yeah, right.]

@amanfromMars

quit your impostering. That's not the real amanfromMars. The comment was vaguely comprehensible and almost sensible. Did you let your turtle walk on the keys again?

[David Barr]

Is it illegal to serve an inappropriate DCMA takedown order?

We're seeing these DCMA orders being sent out right left and centre these days. I appreciate there's a lot of piracy going on, and guys like Bono and Metallica etc are probably on the breadline. But we're also seeing a lot of them for frivolous reasons, where any lawyer aware of fair use would know it'd be frivolous or wrong, and even where there's clearly no infringement at all, companies use them as a Shut Up command that implies guilt without proof. ISPs and content hosts do not as a rule protest these orders, they simply comply.

I'd like to see a couple of things, first of all people having a go at the content providers for being pussies - but there's fat chance of that. For example, no matter how much people get angry at phorm it'll have almost zero effect on companies. The vast majority of the public don't give a crap beyond what's the cheapest.

But I'd like to see cases where it was certain the DMCA was wrongly used for a judge to rule against them with punitive measures. Has that happened yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Pete McPhedran

I think amanfrommars is off his meds. His last 3 or 4 posts that I have seen were all 75-95% coherent.

Or just maybe , just maybe, a loved one convinced him to take his meds or the docs finaly found the right combo, Of course another possibility is a comfy 72ºf 22c with clear skies and cute lads on the beach.

Oh well we still have Webster. IH8 APPLE.

[Daniel B.]

U2 in U2b

Because the IT angle is that U2 was in U2b.

[Rich]

Pay your tax Bono!

Does Paul McGuiness provide "tax-evasion kits" for people like Bono to avoid paying?

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2006/08/20/100/

(also, if U2 didn't use Windows the problem wouldn't have happened...)

[Wayland Sothcott]

U2 were great in 1981...

...in the bath on new years day with a hangover listening to U2 New Years Day.

Little did I know that a time travler from the future was outside my window with an advanced mobile phone recording the track, later to be shared over a global communications system unimaginable to my primitive 1980's mind.

Unfortunately Bono traveled back in time and murdered the time traveller's parents before he was born and now the track has vanished from U2oob.

[Steve]

The Edge sucks

He doesn't play guitar, he plays a delay pedal.

[C. Fuhrman]

@Peter Lee (Close the windows next time!)

Well, if I were a member of U2 and rehearsing new tunage, I would not be doing it in a place that others can hear it.

They can afford to rehearse in a Swiss atomic shelter (every building has one of those in Switzerland). You can't hear jack when the 2' door is closed.

Paris, for the brilliance of leaving the windows open when you're rehearsing new material.