No Rock And Roll Fun

LOCKS DROPPED: CNET reckons that the big labels are starting to cool over plans to introduce copy protection in the US. Mainly because they're a bit scared that the press backlash when they bugger up people's machines, of course; what's interesting is the defence that BMG's vice president of new technology has advanced for why they're continuing to plough ahead with using Europe as guinea-pig continent:
So far, European consumers have been slower to take up playing CDs in computers, as opposed to in conventional CD players, Haussler said. That's made it easier for labels to introduce copy-protection technology without as much fear of a backlash, although growing PC penetration in Europe is now making the markets more similar, she added.
In the United States, "it's actually a really big political and legislative issue," Haussler said.
Uh? Of course, what they reallyty mean is not that we here in Britain still use proper record players rather than our CD tray (which is arrant wasp toss, of course) but just that in Europe there's not the same keenness to enter into class action lawsuits - nobody this side of the Atlantic saw a penny back from Milli Vanilli, you know - and so they'll be happy to press on.