Def Leppard covers own songs to get digital revenues

(Credit: DefLeppard.com Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Pour some acid on me.

Some musicians refuse to come to terms with the terms that digital downloads offer.

A few, such as Garth Brooks and AC/DC, have refused to allow their music on iTunes.

Def Leppard, the English rock band that some people rather like and others fail to comprehend, is another that just isn't amused by the digital age.

Now the band has leaped on a new, radical strategy to get a better deal for its music: it's covering its own songs and releasing them themselves.

As Billboard hums it, the Leppards and Universal Music aren't fond of each other. The band believes it deserves far more for digital downloads, so it has walked away.

Frontman Joe Eilliott told Billboard: Our contract is such that they can't do anything with our music without our permission, not a thing. So we just sent them a letter saying, "No matter what you want, you are going to get 'no' as an answer, so don't ask." That's the way we've left it.

The solution is to replace their old songs with "brand-new, exact same versions of what we did."

Brand-new, exact same. That's how every loving relatio... [Read more]