No Rock And Roll Fun

PLANNED FOR 2005: URINE SAMPLES BEFORE BUYING A CD: The RIAA really is hoping it's going to be able to force future music players to require a fingerprint scan before they'll play music. No, really, we're not making this up. Swedish inventor-firm Veritouch has shown the RIAA technology that would make it impossible to play a track without having it verified that it actually belongs to you by touching a finger to pad - which is wonderfully practical if you enjoy playing music in your car, or happen to have your living room laid out so you don't actually sit on top of your hi-fi. We're certain that, as with virtually all the other security devices, it won't actually work, but that won't stop them trying. So, if you're in the bath, you can't ask your wife to stick on that Faithless album, because she can't; you can't buy music as a surprise gift for anyone, because you'd have to secretly cut their finger off and sneak it to the store and have it sneakily sewed back on to their hand before they'd be able to play it. Much more seriously, with biometric data being - however ridiculously - being used to underwrite passports and state ID, do we really want a bunch of bumblefucks like EMI and Warner Music holding a huge database of our biometric information?