New Laws Introducing ‘Cigarette Style’ Plain Packaging To Album Covers

The Federal Government are set to introduce 'cigarette-style' plain-packaging laws for album covers after a new study found that Australian youths are being “dangerously influenced” by the imagery.

Under the new laws all albums released or imported into Australia will need to feature a plain-white cover, with the artist and album title printed in 32-size Times New Roman font in the top corner. The albums may indicate the number of songs on the back, but they are no longer allowed to name them.

“While these measures may seem major they are completely necessary to protect the hearts and minds of our nation's youth,” reads a leaked internal memo from the Department of Information & Creative Kids.

“This new report confirms what we've known anecdotally for some time – that music contains confronting ideas and dangerous themes that are largely not suitable for anyone, let alone our precious under 18s.”

The memo indicates that the ban on album covers will extend to online retailers and systems are already in place to issue $50,000 fines to anyone caught hosting an album cover on their website and $10,000 fines for anyone visiting a page with an infringing cover.

Department head Michael Uppet declined to comment to SPA Confidential today but has previously gone on the record saying “Sydney's lock-out laws are a good start, but they need to be extended and spread around the world. Music is responsible for most of the world's uprising, by limiting live music to the hours of 1pm and 2pm on Saturday afternoons we can effectively control this disease on society.

A source close to his advisors – who wished to remain anonymous – said that the policy was likely to be rushed through parliament with minimal fuss.

“What they're really worried about is how quickly they can destroy all the existing albums in the country. There are plans for a major operation to have all the work done in 48 hours with midnight raids into record stores, but I think it may drag on for at least a week.”

SPA Confidential understands that a 'black list' of the countries 500 most prolific music collectors will be raided first, with priceless albums and record collections set to be destroyed to set an example.