No Rock And Roll Fun

EMI DENY SOMETHING OTHER THAN WHAT'S BEEN ALLEGED: EMI have responded to the online complaints about the unrequested software on the non-US/UK versions of To The Five Boroughs by telling New Scientist:

"There is no spyware on the discs."

Which actually misses the point somewhat - the original complaints weren't about there being spyware on the discs, but the discs installing software without giving the owner of the computer any indication something is about to added to their machine. Which is viral malware, however sweet and innocent EMI might think it is - they claim all it does is "provide the start, stop and volume buttons" needed to hear the non-standard format the tracks are encoded in. We're a little puzzled here, as EMI report that the player itself is stored on the disc and never actually downloaded onto the PC (which seems in itself to be a scientific nonesense - how does the CD process it? Surely it has to be copied to the PC before it will work, even if only while its running) - so why do the start and stop buttons need to be separated out from the player? EMI also says "the software is uninstalled when the CD is removed", which we just don't believe - and again, software uninstallation should be a transparent process, not something happening in the background.