Strange Bedfellows

George Bush's Audiobook Confused With Protest Album

Erik Hayden 12 Views Dec 29, 2010
When you import an audio CD into a program like iTunes, an online database (usually Gracenote) reads the information and then sends back a list of track titles, album artwork and liner notes. Sometimes, annoyingly, your album gets mislabeled with tracks from a similar artist or genre. Other times, bizarre album art returns from a completely unfamiliar artist. And--if you happen to be a divisive former President who's just released a surprisingly popular memoir--there's other times when you import your audiobook and the chapter titles mistakenly read "Weapon of Fear," "Bush It," and "Innocent Children Die."

To explain: yesterday, Talking Points Memo discovered a prank/unfortunate mix-up that occurred when George W. Bush's recently released audiobook, Decision Points, was imported into a Windows Media Player database. Apparently, there was a 2007 protest album titled George W. Bush and the audiobook has picked up those song names for chapter titles. Random House publicist responded to the incident with this statement emailed to TPM: "The bottom line is that the hacker has taken advantage of the open source environment that is a part of all internet based media libraries. We cannot control the internet nor Microsoft policy."


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