Beastie Boys Respond to DRM Claims 581
An anonymous reader notes that the Beastie Boys have responded to claims that their new album is DRM-crippled; their response is that the US and UK versions aren't crippled, and the DRM software is only installed in RAM, not on disk. See our previous story for background.
Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:5, Insightful)
B) Check install.log on your hard disk for details.
Haha.
*weep*
Remember Rule #1 (Score:0, Insightful)
salesmen lie (especially multi million dollar ones)
So What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Vaporware? (Score:2, Insightful)
Since when was anyone accusing them of using software that doesn't exist? Wouldn't we all be happy if all new spyware turned out to be vaporware?
This is not a cd then (Score:5, Insightful)
haha (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh... do they even know what vaporware means? I love press releases like this, they should just how little the PR goons know about anything related to this technology.
Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting.
Re:This is not a cd then (Score:3, Insightful)
As such, calling it a CD - compact disc - is fine, since it's a disc that's smaller than a record. I think the trademark is "CD-Audio" and the logo.
It worked (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:So What? (Score:1, Insightful)
Care to tell us which law they're breaking? Or perhaps you meant to say "I think it should be illegal."
Re:Just Another Reason For News (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Server is to Busy: Here is the Text (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, it sucks. I like the Beastie Boy's, and I was going to buy their CD. I picked it up, and started walking to the register. But as soon as I saw that it was protected, I put it back.
I will buy CD's. I won't buy things that look like CD's, but aren't.
Re:Server is to Busy: Here is the Text (Score:3, Insightful)
These details can be verified in the 'install.log' file in the computer's root directory.
and
This Macrovision technology does NOT install spyware or vaporware of any kind on a users PC. In fact, CDS-200 does not install software applications of ANY KIND on a user's PC. All the copy protection in CDS-200 is hardware based,
So, if everything is hardware protection, why do they touch some "install.log" in the computer's root directory?
"This Macrovision technology does NOT install spyware or vaporwaere..." of course not. We call this mandatory DRM protection over here at EMI; not "spyware."
Re:So What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Malware, maybe. Virus/Worm/Trojan? Nope.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Err, Redbook != WMA (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one who sees a strange contradiction between the following lines in the press release?
The copy protection system used for all EMI/Capitol releases including "To the 5 Boroughs" is Macrovision's CDS-200, which sets up an audio player into the users RAM (not hard drive) to playback the RED book audio on the disk.
Vs.The technology does activate a proprietary Macrovision player in order to play the CD on a PC, and that player converts WMA compressed files to audio on the fly.
So, which is it then? A Redbook audio cd, or a data CD with WMA compressed files? Am I reading this right?
Norton isn't so innocent (Score:3, Insightful)
Broadcast Flag (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just Another Reason For News (Score:1, Insightful)
And let's face it; even if it was necessary to convert to analog at one stage, the drop in quality is likely to be fairly small compared to the drop caused by someone using a ropey encoder at 128kbps. Most people aren't *that* bothered.
Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:3, Insightful)
And as a recent article showed, data in swap can remain there for many years, unoverwritten.
Re:You gotta fight for your right (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it debuted at Number One on the Billboard Album Chart [billboard.com], so somebody must care.
What is most distressing is that the Beasties are the second DRM CD to hit the top of the chart. Boroughs displaced Velvet Revolver's Contraband at #1. Contraband is also DRM "protected."
This should open the floodgates. If record companies were ever shy of DRM, now they'll know people will buy their defective wares, anyway.
I'd like a copy of Velvet Revolver. But I won't buy it until I can find a copy on the used market. If the entire Slashdot world quit buying CDs, it would hardly make a dent (not that Slashdotters *always* pay for their music). But it's the principle of the whole thing.
My main bitch with DRM CDs is that it might make it more difficult to rip legally purchased music to my hard drive. I don't even own a standalone CD player these days, and I want to be able to load my library on an iPod. All perfectly legal activities, but Big Music wants to dictate how I listen and store my music. In the owrds of our Vice President, f*ck them.
And f*ck artists who go along with it. Maybe I don't need that Velvet Revolver CD, after all.
The confusion of copy protection/DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
Now junk like this is adding the same confusion to purchasing a CD. The logical result? "I think I'll just download a pirated copy".
When you have to post a 'response' to a new thing on an old thing that used to just work, you have by definition created confusion. People will go for the simpler option: piracy.
Good thinkin' record people!
Re:Err, Redbook != WMA (Score:1, Insightful)
I think it's a matter of attrition -- see how many people proceed if you make the task just slightly more difficult. The object isn't to win as much as it is to dissuade enough of the population.
For the fans who are going to buy the CD anyway, this isn't going to matter much.
For those who haven't heard of the Beastie Boys and wish to hear/own some of the tracks to judge the band's worth...um...welcome to planet earth. Point is they're not exactly an indie band trying to become popular.
Conversely... (Score:1, Insightful)
Everyone has different musical tastes. Why is it "better" to like some indie band over, say, Britney Spears? If person A gets the same enjoyment from listening to Britney Spears as person B does from listening to Indigo Girls, what is the fucking problem? People like what they like, even when it is what the RIAA tells them to like.
Re:Does it work on Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You gotta fight for your right (Score:2, Insightful)
While you and I arent running out to buy the new beastie boys album, many people are. They have the right to fair use. The beastie boys and the labels are dnying that right.
I know I'm just complaining without offering a solution, but no matter how crappy we think the state of music is just not buying it is not the solution.
Re:Cache (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:5, Insightful)
They think loaded = installed
everyone else thinks loaded = run
Re:Damn Straight. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No "vaporware" is installed? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cache (Score:0, Insightful)
If it's DRM'd then it clearly isn't Red Book is it? Sigh, fucking technical illiterates.
Re:You gotta fight for your right (Score:5, Insightful)
The new album has some very good songs. The beasties are perhaps a little more innocent in style compared to todays "i'm a big rich mother fucker driving a bentley" rap. Frankly that stuff is so sickening. The fantasy world the fans of that shit live in, is simply put... tragic.
The Beasties are as real as it gets and so what they have an older style.... Its still pretty dam good. They leave the audience feeling good, rather than worshiping the $ like a false god, only to go home to their lower-middle class lives, pretending that they're jay-z. Yeah that gets you far in life.
As for outkast, i never got how people love those guys. Someone in the record industry gave me their latest cd and i felt like a fag listening to it
The second disc is more of the same, except for a song or two.
I give Outkast credit for being differernt... but from an audience point of view... the music's really fem.
Re:Does it work on Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
Would turning off the autorun feature in Windows prevent stuff like this from happening? I keep it turned off since I find the windows automatically popping up to be an annoyance, especially if I just want to explore the files on the CD.
Re:So What? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a Trojan.
What they need to do to come clean is pop up a dialog when you insert the CD that says "Click OK to install Digital Restriction Management software on your computer. This is required to play the CD on your computer. Click Cancel to quit without playing the CD"
Re:Question (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Uh...no (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure that we will all agree that the DVDCA informed the public that DVDs were encrypted so that their content could be controlled. I'm also sure that most of us will agree that it was a bad thing when they invoked the DMCA to prevent people from developing a Linux DVD Player.
DRM is evil. It's an attempt to control when, where and how you can enjoy the content that you've paid to access.
LK
Most importantly... (Score:4, Insightful)
Those marketing-drones really have no clue what they are talking about... vaporware can, by definition, not be installed.
Re:PREPARE TO BE MODERATED DOWN! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Most importantly... (Score:2, Insightful)
Which means that indeed no vaporware is installed. The droids are obviously right.
Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:4, Insightful)
Online music is mere peanuts to the record industry; the suits want to stop piracy, even if they don't understand how to.
Re:So What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even that would be a lie. If it plays in a CD player, it will play fine in a CD-ROM drive in analog mode.
Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the end goal is to create a new business model around pay-per-play. This is how they already view their 'property'. The fact that it's physically contained on DVDs and CDs is a messy necessity. But as we become more intellectually divorced from that view of property we start to see it as their intellectual property and not our physical property. Blocking the main competition through the DMCA DRM combo is hand in hand with this strategy.
don't kid yourself into thinking the riaa just doesn't get it... what's scarier than them not getting it is that they do get it and they're using that against us
Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, if you are buying the album and you're going to rip it to iTunes why not just buy it from the iTunes Music Store in the first place? Then you only need to buy it once.
The real reason they are doing this is not to encourage you to buy your music multiple times or in a certain place. They are doing this to make it a pain for casual users to copy and distribute the songs. Sure they won't stop the hard-core techs from ripping the songs but they probably figure that if they stop the majority of people from being able to trade music then that's good enough. One problem with that notion is that it only takes 1 tech person to rip an album, the rest of humanity can leech off of the tech's efforts and download like crazy.
It's not enough to make it difficult to rip music and trade it. You either need to make it impossible to do or forget about stopping it. To me it makes much more sense to just make it insanely easy to get cheap, legal music. That way the free music isn't so much easier of an option than the bought music.
People will buy their music as long as the price is right and the barrier to obtaining the music is simple enough. Just look at the success of the iTunes Music Store. Keep lowering the prices of the songs there and continue to make buying simple and the music purchases will continue to grow.
Re:I don't mind too much (Score:2, Insightful)
First they came for Rap
and I did not speak out
because I did not like Rap.
Then they came for Pop
and I did not speak out
because I did not like Pop.
Then they came for Country
and I did not speak out
because I did not like Country.
Then they came for my favorites
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Re:Uh...no (Score:2, Insightful)
As a matter of fact I'm going to start shooting everyone I see. You see, it doesn't matter what I'm actually doing, it only matters why I'm doing it. Shooting everyong I see is an attempt to enforce, empower, and maintain my rights as a car owner to prevent my rights being trampled on by car theives. If car theft weren't so rampant, this wouldn't be an issue. And blaming me for shooting people is a baseless copout.
If they want to "enforce DRM" against copyright infringers (car theives), well OK. But they have no more right to "enforce DRM" against innocent and non-infringing people than I have to shoot people who are not stealing my car!
-
Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:2, Insightful)
Uh, if you are buying the album and you're going to rip it to iTunes why not just buy it from the iTunes Music Store in the first place? Then you only need to buy it once.
Because he wants the CD contents and all, and have the option of listening to it on a lower resolution computer based format.
Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:4, Insightful)
erm, maybe because i trust my cd shelf a little bit more than i trust my computer? i trust my computer a lot, but since any event that would fukc up my cd shelf would kill my computer as well, and the opposite is not true, i know where my preferences are.
and then comes all the hassle in case you some day feel like you want some "alternative-ipod" even if it is just itms taking all your legitimately bought songs hostage to make you buy a possibly over-priced future generation ipod. just look at what sony does with their mem-stick. in case of a cd that is compatible with a cd player i know at least that i can get proper copies with all the hassle, getting past a drm solution either involves software more illegal than an spdif cable (or good converters..) or recoding, or both.
(on the ceap&legal point, i certainly agree with you. but honestly, i don't see that anywhere, do you?)
Re:So What? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nearly every game or application CD for Windows loads a program into RAM the moment you put it in the drive. I never heard of any company being sued for this.
Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:3, Insightful)
My name's mike D and I demand respect (Score:2, Insightful)
Your RAM and CD drive are what I expect
and lets not forget other great momments such as:
I did it like this, I did it like that, I DRM'd and shoved it up your ass hat so.....
And..
Macro Vision.. that funky VISION! Cop's got my gun, I'm on the run, and right about now I'd like to have some fun... fucking those geek slash dotters.
WORD
Re:I don't mind too much (Score:4, Insightful)
Then the RIAA came for Good Music
and I did not speak out
For I died of shock
Re:Seems like a limitation (Score:3, Insightful)
Out of all the CD's I do have, which isn't TOO many but probably around 30 or so, not a single one is even 60 minutes, nevermind 70. Almost all albums have around 12 - 14 songs, some less some more. There's exceptions, but not enough to worry about the extra space required for the psuedo copy protection that this Beastie Boys album has.
The other crappy part about this whole thing is that these WMA files won't sound as good as your standard 44.1Khz, 16-bit *uncompressed* audio. I mean, they could sound just about as good, but in my experience these DRM music files are usually encoded at something like 128Kbps, and will especially be so if the album is larger then normal.
The above points aside, the whole DRM thing in it's current forms depend on technology that changes too much. I don't want my music CD to be unusable in six years because Windows 2010 won't run the application. Or the required libraries are no longer available. Or I'm running a different processor platform, or not Windows at all.
CD's eventually took over because they worked with every CD player no matter what, no exceptions. This DRM crap works on no CD Players and there's no single DRM standard that everyone is using.
DRM will get between a person and his or her music. It won't stop music from being copied (Haven't they learned anything from the last three decades of trying to copy protect software?) and it will simply cause law-abiding citizens their time and money.
Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:3, Insightful)
Current burnt CDs have a shelflife of about 2-3 years (I'va had some go after a year). A pressed CD lasts 20+ years (I have 18 yr old pressed CDs that still play flawlessly). SO the burning scenario just doesn't cut it.
Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why? Because maybe I don't want a file that has the iTunes (or Napster or MusicMatch or whatever) restrictions on it. I just want a 256kbps MP3 file to go along with the other 50GB of 256kbps MP3 files that I have on my harddrive.
Re:So What? (Score:3, Insightful)
They most certainly should. But somehow I don't think they are going to do that. So what can you do about it? If you have legally purcased Symantec Antivirus (or whatever their product is called) and a trojaned CD, then maybe you should inform Symantec about their product not warning you about the trojan. And stop buying Symantec's products, if they don't want to fix it.