No Rock And Roll Fun

CH-CH-CHECK IT OUT: The Beastie Boys at least deserve respect for taking the issue of DRM seriously, even if their statement on the subject on their website is slightly flawed:

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

Big wow. This, of course, is like saying "Well, we don't torture prisoners at home."

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).

Let's leave aside that, actually, the UK is in Europe - in what way is this meant to make us feel better? If it's a good policy, why is it not in place in the US and the UK; if it's a bad policy, why is it being inflicted on Europeans? And why is it so important that other major labels do it? Are we now in kindergarten - "Michael, why did you break Thomas's computer?" "Well, Vivendi did it first..."? And if following other label's leads is such a fine thing to do, why not follow Universal's lead in Germany and abandon copy protection for the wrong answer to the wrong problem it is?

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.

Tee-hee... most droll, Mr. D. Interesting that, once again, the denial is of something that there was never initially an accusation of; like EMI, the Beasties are looking sheepish and saying "We never did anything with spyware", when in fact the question was over if anything at all is installed on the user's computer without their knowledge or permission. Even more interesting: the Beastie Boy's claim that everything is held in RAM is in direct contradiction of EMI's statement that "It also temporarily installs a graphic "skin" for the player."

All this upset and confusion and looking like tossers; and it all could have been avoided so easily. It's lucky the Beastie Boys have never espoused sampling or anything, isn't it? Just think how stupid they'd be looking right now.