#36 is absolutely right, it's simply stands for European Community (in french, one of the official languages) and is merely a sign for product safety. And the producer has to make sure it does himself. No committee involved, I'm afraid. So could someone update the headline to something like "Imperial pint glass declares to be safe to use, expensive"?

I would say fake. Either they exchanged the tangled one against an untangled cord (numerous opportunities) or it wasn't as tangled as it looked in the first place.

@Stefan Jones:
It's called Personification :P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personification

Music labels and the bands should start seeing downloaded music as cheap marketing, at least partially. With low to no costs, it finds a much wider audience and IIRC concert and merchandising revenues are rising lately.
And by adding value to their downloads (e.g. DRM-free mp3s, suggesting music based on your taste, informing you of events like concerts etc.) they can even earn money with it.
Radiohead's experiment will prove me wrong or right, but I believe by making listening to their album affordable for virtually everyone, they will sell a lot more diskboxes, concert tickets, t-shirts, posters, etc.