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Music Media Your Rights Online

Beastie Boys Respond to DRM Claims 581

Posted by michael from the didn't-do-nothin' dept.
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.
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Beastie Boys Respond to DRM Claims More

Beastie Boys Respond to DRM Claims

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  • Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Defiler ( 1693 ) * on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:34PM (#9538618)
    A) No software is permanently installed on your hard disk.
    B) Check install.log on your hard disk for details.
    Haha.
    *weep*

    • Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pimpin apollo ( 664314 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:41PM (#9538677)
      Yeah exactly, this is utterly insane. It's not about stopping internet 'piracy', it's pretty clear that ripping the disc is feasible; it's about making it a pain to put into itunes or whatever... so then you buy it off itunes instead of messing with it. It's like rebuying all of your records on CD. The record industry didn't forget that this is the only reason they stayed afloat in the 90s. Perhaps that's an indication that there's a bloated supply side?

      • Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by krel ( 588588 ) <krell&mac,com> on Saturday June 26, 2004 @06:08PM (#9539412) Homepage
        Yes, this is RIAA stupidity, but it has nothing to do with making people buy their music again if they want to play it on their computers. The RIAA doesn't recognize that there are people who legitimately want to play music on their computers, and they're feebly trying everything they comprehend to stop real piracy.
        Online music is mere peanuts to the record industry; the suits want to stop piracy, even if they don't understand how to.

        • Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by pimpin apollo ( 664314 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @06:48PM (#9539582)
          They do recognize that people want to play music on their computers. That's why they build players into these cds, which is the point of this entire topic. The recognize that where there's demand there's a market but the market is unforunately (for them) blocked by that pesky Constitution. The betamax case created legitmacy for time/shape shifting and now the goal is to roll back what amounts to competition.

          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:5, Interesting)

            by maximilln ( 654768 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @10:22AM (#9542332) Homepage Journal
            I think the end goal is to create a new business model around pay-per-play
            Absolutely. They've realized that all of us entering our 30s aren't going to buy many new CDs and they're still trying to milk us for every last drop they can get. We were the ones that loaded up on import singles from England at $25/pop over the last ten years. The new generation of teenagers doesn't care about remixes because they already have a million of them (kindly supplied by us). We were the generation that put the money into the remix movement. What thanks do we get for it? None. Only the proposition to BOHICA.

            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
            I've been saying this for years. Not just about the RIAA, but about any powerful political entity from individual senators up to entire governing bodies. I usually get shouted down for being a paranoid hippie freak.

      • Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Graff ( 532189 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @06:53PM (#9539609)
        it's about making it a pain to put into itunes or whatever... so then you buy it off itunes instead of messing with it. It's like rebuying all of your records on CD.

        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:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by usrusr ( 654450 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @08:05PM (#9539926) Homepage Journal
          "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?"

          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:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:4, Informative)

            by Graff ( 532189 ) on Sunday June 27, 2004 @12:19AM (#9540743)
            i trust my cd shelf a little bit more than i trust my computer? ...
            then comes all the hassle in case you some day feel like you want some "alternative-ipod"

            iTunes has a way to archive your music fairly easily. Create a playlist with the music you want to archive and burn a data CD or DVD with it. It will burn all of your files to a CD or DVD as AAC files which you can then put in a safebox somewhere.

            As for the alternative music players you can easily convert the iTunes AAC files to some other format by burning a music CD and re-ripping to the format you want or by using one of the open source converters that have popped up. It's fairly simple and then your music is in whatever format you need.

            Sure, its a bit of a hassle as you mentioned but then again it's cheaper than buying both a CD and the iTunes songs as the parent poster was talking about.
            • That's all fine and dandy if you don't mind having to buy/.burn it again in a few years...

              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:3, Interesting)

          by Ilgaz ( 86384 )
          Tell me how do I buy from iTunes music store as a guy from Istanbul?

          I guess you are american. CIA unearthed an amazing conspiracy, http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

          See? There are indeed other countries than USA on planet. :)

          I am already mad to RIAA not Apple since they don't allow a worldwide shop. Its amazing...

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:54PM (#9538756)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Cognitive Dissonance? (Score:5, Funny)

      by ringbarer ( 545020 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @04:03PM (#9538801) Homepage Journal
      You've gotta FIGHT!
      For your RIGHT!
      To Ppprrrroooo-fit!

    • RAID meta-data ? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I wonder if the beasties and company would pay for Ontrack to recover RAID table meta-data, as writing DRM information to hidden disk sectors will fail some RAID arrays. Remember TurboTax!

    • Cache (Score:5, Informative)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @04:13PM (#9538876) Homepage
      Google Cache [216.239.41.104]

      1. There is NO copy controlled software on US or UK releases of Beastie Boys' "To the 5 Boroughs."

      2. The disk *IS* copy controlled in Europe - which is standard policy for all
      Capitol/EMI titles (and a policy used by ALL major labels in Europe).

      3. The copy protection system used for all EMI/Capitol releases including "To the 5 Boroughs" is Macrovision's CDS-200 [macrovision.com], which sets up an audio player into the users RAM (not hard drive) to playback the RED book audio on the disk. It does absolutely NOT install any kind of spyware, shareware, silverware, or ladies wear onto the users system.

      You can find more information on the technology used here:
      http://www.macrovision.com/products/cds/cds 200/ind ex.shtml

      This is what EMI has to say about it:
      Reports that "spyware" is being included on the Beastie Boy's CD, 'To The Five Boroughs' are absolutely untrue.

      While the Beastie Boys CD does use copy control in some territories, there is no copy control on the Beasties Boys discs in the US or the UK. Where copy protection is used, it is Macrovision's CDS-200 technology; the same technology being used for the past several months around the world for all of EMI's releases in those territories. 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, meaning that it is dependent on the physical properties and the format of the CD. None of the copy protection in CDS-200 requires software applications to be loaded onto a computer.

      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. It also temporarily installs a graphic "skin" for the player. Nothing is permanently installed on a hard drive. These details can be verified in the 'install.log' file in the computer's root directory.

      • Re:Cache (Score:5, Insightful)

        by John Courtland ( 585609 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @04:18PM (#9538901)
        That doesn't make any goddamn sense. Vapourware? Who ever wrote that article must not know what the fuck they're talking about.

        • Re:Cache (Score:5, Funny)

          by TWX ( 665546 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @04:28PM (#9538947)
          I've thought of drafting a letter to them, something like the following:
          Dear Beastie Boys:


          Stop trying to debate technical matters regarding the software your new CD tries to run with people who know far, far more about the details than you do. From our perspective it's like trying to have a duel with an unarmed man. Relax, your regular mindless fans won't know the situation anyway, and probably won't even be aware of the damage that you are illegally causing to their PCs, assuming that there are any people left who were fifteen the last time you had a release who still care to listen to you.

          Normally I wouldn't have cared either way about your new CD, but in light of recent developments, I'll keep an eye out for it on the Internet.

          Sincerely,
          Random Techie

      • Re:Cache (Score:5, Funny)

        by bgeer ( 543504 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @05:42PM (#9539301)
        This Macrovision technology does NOT install spyware or
        vaporware of any kind on a users PC.

        What a relief, we can only imagine what disastrous effects it might have if Duke Nukem Forever were to be surreptitiously installed on the defenseless hard drives of innocent beastie-boy fans.

      • Re:Cache (Score:4, Funny)

        by Teun ( 17872 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @09:32PM (#9540201)
        1. There is NO copy controlled software on US or UK releases of Beastie Boys' "To the 5 Boroughs."

        2. The disk *IS* copy controlled in Europe - which is standard policy

        Oh, you mean the UK is not Europe?
        Yep, the next sentence proves this guy doesn't have a clue about geography.

        the same technology being used for the past several months around the world for all of EMI's releases in those territories

        Love to hear what else there is between 'around the world' and 'those territories'.

  • So What? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cr0y ( 670718 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:36PM (#9538637) Homepage
    I don't care where its installed. If I am not notified when its installed. Its illegal. I think Symantec should start lumping this crap in with viruses and trojans.

    • Re:So What? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Scoria ( 264473 ) <{slashmail} {at} {initialized.org}> on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:43PM (#9538687) Homepage
      If computer viruses are released by a well-funded, "reputable" organization, then they become recognized as benevolent anti-piracy software.

      Interesting.

      • Re:So What? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by That's Unpossible! ( 722232 ) * on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:54PM (#9538755)
        I wasn't aware that this program installs itself, then replicates by copying itself into other programs.

        Malware, maybe. Virus/Worm/Trojan? Nope.

        • Re:So What? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Lord Kano ( 13027 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @04:04PM (#9538810) Homepage Journal
          Virus/Worm/Trojan? Nope.

          Trojan, yes. All that is required for a trojan is that it masquerades as something else (music) and causes an undesired effect (enforcement of DRM).

          This is definitely a trojan.

          LK

        • Re:So What? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Corydon76 ( 46817 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @04:10PM (#9538856) Homepage
          Virus/Worm/Trojan? Nope.

          Actually, Trojan is exactly right. A Trojan Horse is a program which has an unintended payload and may or may not contain self-propagation code.

          Any program which installs itself on your computer without your consent would, in fact, be a Trojan, by definition.

          You are, of course, correct in that it is neither a virus nor a worm. People seem to forget that the reason there are three names is that these are three distinct classes of malware.

    • I like my recycle bin the way it is, painfully microsoft, I don't need it painfully microsoft and horribly symantec at the same time. Try and walk the average home user through disabling it over the phone. . . well then, my mother has always been the hardest person for me to give tech support for. . .. too much swearing knocks me out of the will.

    • Re:So What? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Cryogenes ( 324121 )
      How can a program notify you of anything before it even loads itself into RAM?

      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.

  • No "vaporware" is installed? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:37PM (#9538638)
    Installing Vaporware? Good to know that the person who wrote that article has no clue what he/she is talking about.

  • Does it work on Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thenextpresident ( 559469 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:37PM (#9538639) Homepage Journal
    I live up in Montreal, Canada, and I was actually at a store yesterday, and went to buy their CD, until I noticed the big text on the CD saying it was copy-protected. Anyways, I looked on the back, and it said it only ran on Windows or Mac. So, in the end, I didn't buy the CD because of that big text saying it was copy-protected.

    Will the CD play on Linux? I am all for buying their CD, but I will NOT buy a CD I can't play at work or at home.

    • Re:Does it work on Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Epistax ( 544591 ) <epistax@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:48PM (#9538720) Journal
      Did you know that you can take your CD Rom, only plug in the power supply (no IDE), and if the cd rom isn't crap (if it has more than one button, unlike my current one, and has a headphone jack) you can play the CD? Again, that's without the connect to the computer at all. I did this back home for fun since I had an extra power supply. (The supply didn't require a motherboard connection to turn on.)

    • Re:Does it work on Linux? (Score:4, Informative)

      by TwistedSquare ( 650445 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @04:08PM (#9538842) Homepage
      I recently bought a CD labelled as copy protected. When I inserted it into a Windows PC it installed its own little player. Fine I thought, and just ripped it to mp3 (no point making the CD-ROM spin all day). Then as an experiment I copied the CD. I also played it fine in my hi-fi. I fail to see quite how it was "copy-protected".
      • I'm not really down with music cd's automatically downloading stuff to my computer. I have many other audio players that will play the CD fine, thanks!

        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. :P
    • Yes. Yes it does.

      On my Gentoo box, I ran Grip 3.2, and everything extracted flawlessly. There's no static, skipping, or any other hijinx going on here. It rips and encodes fine.

      If you're asking "will it play under a cd-playing app instead of a ripping app," then I couldn't tell you. I go straight to rip'n'archive mode.

      There is a data track on the CD -- perhaps there's some other goodies on it like wallpaper or whatever that you can only get to on a Win/Mac, but I'm not in it for that. I just want the tun

  • No vaporware! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mold ( 136317 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:37PM (#9538643)
    This Macrovision technology does NOT install spyware or vaporware of any kind on a users PC.

    I'm so glad they're not installing vaporware on my machine! Phew! I was worried for a bit there.

  • So.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:38PM (#9538651) Journal
    Are they admitting themselves that the DRM is totally crap and easily by-passed and that most rippers will easily be able to get this on the P2P networks thus defeating the entire purpose of the system because now only clue-less users will be stopped by it and its mainly these clue-less users who wish to honestly copy the CD for fair-use reasons?

  • This is not a cd then (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cove209 ( 681558 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:38PM (#9538652)
    Can they call this a cd then? Does it conform to red book standards?
    • I don't think you can trademark an abbreviation, or common noun - hence George Eastmasn couldn't trademark "film" and Intel couldn't trademark processor numbers.

      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.
      • I don't think you can trademark an abbreviation...

        HP [hp.com] might disagree with you on that one. Since hp is their logo, and their logo is trademarked, it wouldn't be wise to go into a computer related business and refer to yourself as "HP".

    • Re:This is not a cd then (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MP3Chuck ( 652277 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @06:46PM (#9539566) Homepage Journal
      From the Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]: "Philips have stated that such discs, which do not meet the Red Book specification, are not permitted to bear the trademarked Compact Disc Digital Audio logo."

  • haha (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wankledot ( 712148 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:39PM (#9538657)
    "This Macrovision technology does NOT install spyware or vaporware of any kind on a users PC."

    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.

  • "Where did Duke Nukem Forever come from?!" (Score:3, Funny)

    by loyalsonofrutgers ( 736778 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:39PM (#9538658)
    The newspost on the Beastie Boys website also includes the denial that the CD installs any vaporware on the user's PC. This has clueless manager written allllll over it.

  • Server is to Busy: Here is the Text (Score:3, Informative)

    by thenextpresident ( 559469 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:40PM (#9538676) Homepage Journal
    1. There is NO copy controlled software on US or UK releases of Beastie Boys' "To the 5 Boroughs."

    2. The disk *IS* copy controlled in Europe - which is standard policy for all
    Capitol/EMI titles (and a policy used by ALL major labels in Europe).

    3. 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. It does absolutely NOT install any kind of spyware, shareware, silverware, or ladies wear onto the users system.

    You can find more information on the technology used here:
    http://www.macrovision.com/products/cds/cds 200/ind ex.shtml

    This is what EMI has to say about it:
    Reports that "spyware" is being included on the Beastie Boy's CD, 'To The Five Boroughs' are absolutely untrue.

    While the Beastie Boys CD does use copy control in some territories, there is no copy control on the Beasties Boys discs in the US or the UK. Where copy protection is used, it is Macrovision's CDS-200 technology; the same technology being used for the past several months around the world for all of EMI's releases in those territories. 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, meaning that it is dependent on the physical properties and the format of the CD. None of the copy protection in CDS-200 requires software applications to be loaded onto a computer.

    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. It also temporarily installs a graphic "skin" for the player. Nothing is permanently installed on a hard drive. These details can be verified in the 'install.log' file in the computer's root directory.

    • 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 vaporwaer

  • Ill Communication (Score:5, Funny)

    by barcodez ( 580516 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:48PM (#9538723)
    Looks like their server has some Ill Communication they had better get their root down

  • Torrent (Score:5, Interesting)

    by barcodez ( 580516 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:55PM (#9538759)
    The first torrent of this album was uploaded to the most famous of the torrent sites on the 4th June. This DRM thing is obviously pointless. What's the point DRMing in one market and not another - the Internet doesn't respect physical boundaries.

    If I was feeling cynical I would think they are just doing this for publicity.

    • Re:Torrent (Score:4, Interesting)

      by alphaseven ( 540122 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @06:34PM (#9539520)
      What's the point DRMing in one market and not another - the Internet doesn't respect physical boundaries.

      This'll have no effect on internet piracy, though i think the point may be to make it harder for regular people to burn a copy for a friend or to get people who use portable MP3 players to buy the album again from an online service.

      The fact that they're doing it in some markets and not others probably means someone will be doing some research as to how it effects sales.

  • Err, Redbook != WMA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by murderlegendre ( 776042 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:56PM (#9538765)

    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?

    • Although their guy got it wrong (the player does not play the redbook audio it plays WMA files) it does sound to me like this is simply a multi-session CD.

      A PC will always play the last session, and an audio player will always play the first session. In this manner you can put both data and audio on a CD and have them easily accessable to both types of players.

      In Windows, all you have to do is hold down the shift key while mounting the CD. It will load the first session on the disc instead of their cr

  • Bought it, ripped it, stored it (Score:4, Informative)

    by snillfisk ( 111062 ) <mats.lindh@no> on Saturday June 26, 2004 @03:58PM (#9538774) Homepage
    .. and all that were done in Europe (where the CD actually contains a "Copy Controlled"-marking, which I didn't see anything about when ordering it on the web), under Windows 2000 (with Auth-play disabled). The OGGs came out perfectly fine without any problems. Yes, the CD should be perfectly playable under linux (unless someone has implemented insertion notification and auto-run and automagical installation and implementation of windows drivers into the kernel. ;)

    And this also goes for all other current protection systems that I've had my hands on during the last months.. No idea why they even try.

  • The confusion of copy protection/DRM (Score:4, Insightful)

    by flinxmeister ( 601654 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @04:12PM (#9538870) Homepage
    I was trying to explain the workings of the various online digital distributors to someone at the office. After a couple minutes she said "I think I'll just buy the CD and rip it".

    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:The confusion of copy protection/DRM (Score:4, Interesting)

      by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @04:59PM (#9539126)


      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.

      I've made a simular comment before.

      If you want your data in a widely usefull format, you're going to have to know how to do some kind of hack. These hacks will become more and more complex. So the easier route would be to turn to your favorite source of illicit data and take advantage of someone else's work.

      Not all illicit data sources are equal. Even before the various Media industry associations started hiring outfits to play shennanigans, getting a good quality RIP involved a fair degree of effort. Or money.

      Now, once you've gone through all the effort to get your illicit data... what's the incentive of buying a legal copy? After all, you're already vested in the data you just aquired. It's not like going to buy a copy from the store is giving you a whole lot. And neither is buying and downloading a sanctioned copy.

      The Music industry is making illicit data markets attractive.

      On a side note - it's interesting to watch this work in a completely open market. Back in the early 90's, I spent some time in Saudi Arabia. There were no copyright laws. There were entire stores devoted to cheap knock-off cassettes of the latest pop music. However, there were also stores that sold both the cheap knock-offs and the better-quality official products. They were competatively priced with advertisements extolling the virtues (higher quality, lyrics, etc) of the official products. In the stores that sold both, I saw a lot of customers walking up to the register with official merchandise (as well as those who went for price over quality).

  • Available at www.allofmp3.com (Score:5, Informative)

    by davebarnes ( 158106 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @04:30PM (#9538957)
    A wonderful music download site (www.allofmp3.com) has this new album available for download in the format and bit rate of your choice.

    Prices range from $0.03 to $0.30 USD per song.

    So much for DRM attempts.

  • The is divided into data and audio (Score:3, Informative)

    by Mustang Matt ( 133426 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @05:23PM (#9539223)
    The data side has an autorun and is loaded with some wma files.

    Just grab the audio side like normal.

  • Check Your Head (Score:3, Funny)

    by yoshi_mon ( 172895 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @05:33PM (#9539263)
    I want to say to Jimmy James that I'm rather mad at the "vaporware" that is not being installed on my box.

    My Funky Boss is not happy about it either because when I tried to listen to my new CD on my computer at work it hosed it up.

    I had to Pass the Mic to my admin who told me I needed to read /. more often so I would know these things.

    But I did have some Gratitude for other artists who take a stand with their recording companys unlike the BBoys are doing now apparently.

    Their website told me to Lighten Up but I still don't think they are being honest with me.

    Other CD's are Finger Licking Good because the are real but I guess they forgot that when they made this one.

    So Whatcha Want is a real CD and not this one.

    The Biz vs the Nudge was a grudge match between DRM and Fair Use, we are still waiting to see who will win.

    Time For Livin is right now, if you are real about your music BBoys stand up to your label and speak some truth.

    Something's Got to Give and it will; SCO will fall and MS will have to find a new shill.

    The Blue Nun does not even like the DRM on her box.

    Stand Together beacuse if we refuse these DRM crippled systems they will stop selling them.

    POW in your mouth for messing with us.

    The Maestro told me that I could disable this DRM by holding down a shift key but he was sent away for being a "terrorist".

    Groove Holmes also was suspect but he is told them he's voteing for Bush this year so they let him go.

    Live at PJ's was recorded and distributed via Kazaa, increaseing record sales, but the RIAA still sued them.

    I Mark the Bus with instructions on how to defeat the DRM on the new BBoys album so all my homies can see it.

    Professor Booty is working on a way to defeat people who "steal" all that music by singing on their own but I hear it's not going very well.

    In 3's, #1 damn this album has a lot of tracks, #2 I though I could respect the BBoys but I'm not so sure now, #3 if you have read all this your more wacked than Mike D.

    I had to bend over for Namaste so he could install the DRM in my...

  • Oh, vaporware that turned my PC into vapor ?? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by freaker_TuC ( 7632 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @06:36PM (#9539530) Homepage Journal
    The full comment what happened to my pc is available here [slashdot.org] and I am still not happy with it ....

    I wonder why I deserved my CD-ROM drive not to be working anymore because I have tried to copy my friends legal-bought CD to the Archos of him.

    I can't read anything anymore through the CD-ROM drive, no data and no audio cd's, nothing works since I have inserted the new Beasty Boys CD.

    I am really starting to get annoyed since this means a complete re-install of that PC which I do not have the time (or money) for. A lot of data is on backup but also a lot of data (my vinyl and protected CD's ripped to WAV format) will be lost after this re-install.

    These copyprotections are taking more time than I have; to be even more specific, certain CD's like Solid Sounds I need to rip manually to be able to USE this CD in my older car cd player and pro Denon DJ CD player!!! Since I am DJ and using vinyl and CD's a lot I find this unacceptable.

    Is this copyprotection a convenience only for the record company or should the audio CD be a convenience for the listener? Where's the time you put in the CD in your favorite cd player you like to listen to the music you like ? The time of putting your cd in your car cdplayer, cd-rom drive or professional CD player is over and it's only getting worse, looking to this example of the latest CD I tried to rip for my friend.

    I used to buy 2 to 5 cd's a month, since I am not sure anymore which cd's work or not I started buying more vinyl again, but hell, I do not want to buy ANY releases of the same producers that cripple the audio CD's I have bought for 20 EURO or more!

    The recording industry has lost at least 600 EURO last year only because I do not want to buy or use cd's anymore.. what's the use to buy a cd if I can't use it?

    I have built up a nice record collection of +30000 vinyl records and +2000 cd's. Probably the collection of my cd's will not be updated anymore as protest to this kind of behavior towards the consumer. I currently have about 62 cd's of the last 2 years that I cannot use at all unless I rip it and copy it. This is about 1200 EURO/$ I have lost because I cannot use them as DJ.

    This will conclude the recording industry will not get MY money of minimally 720 EURO/$ per year anymore, which I will spend on independent vinyl recording companies which are not related to the ones that cripple MY cd's I have bought with my well-deserved money.
    • I have made a post about this matter on my personal site ; since it's something I am quite annoyed of... It's updated to a full article/rant.
      ---
      My soulmate wanted to rip the CD to put on his Archos Jukebox, since he is not using CD's anymore but still buys them to be legal and to have the full version.

      Since I have put in the CD I can't run my company invoice system anymore, can't do anything at all with that cdrom drive, can't even play a game. Every time I put in the CD it cannot be recognized by my syste

  • I was hoping... (Score:4, Funny)

    by illumin8 ( 148082 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @07:38PM (#9539821) Journal
    This Macrovision technology does NOT install spyware or vaporware of any kind on a users PC.

    Damn! I was kind of hoping it would install Duke Nukem Forever when I stuck it in my drive...

  • Almost pregnant... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Archfeld ( 6757 ) * <treboreel@live.com> on Saturday June 26, 2004 @08:44PM (#9540053) Journal
    What if you are a laptop user and regularly use the SUSPEND TO DISK function which copies the current RAM image to disk ? Does this imply I can got to the EMI building and just HANG OUT in the lobby and discourage people from entering and using the facility as long as I have a home else where ? If I write a virus in a run time environment, ship it to a server and it never writes to disk that IT IS LEGAL, in Europe at least ?....

    *thinks perhaps the brownies were a bit to strong this time, and wanders off mumbling to himself*

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