beastie link

reposted from boingboing to newsgrist.typepad.com:
http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2004/06/beastly_beastie.html

New Beasties disc has DRM – Fight! For your right! To cooo-oopy!
By Cory Doctorow
Friday, June 11, 2004
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/06/11/new_beasties_disc_ha.html

The Beastie Boys' new CD, To the Five Boroughs, has DRM on it that prevents you
from ripping it or making a copy for your car. I got the MP3s last week – it's
a great album – and was going to buy the CD while I'm in the US this week, but
now I think I'll just erase the MP3s and not bother. If the Beasties wanna
treat me like a crook, I don't want to be their customer.

Note that the only thing that this DRM is doing here is pissing off the honest
fans who want open CDs; the DRM on the CD didn't stop my source from making me
a set of MP3s. In other words, if you plan on listening to the new disc on your
iPod or laptop, you're better off downloading a copy made by a cracker and
posted on Kazaa – if you buy it in a shop, you're going to have to go through
the lawbreaking rigamarole of breaking the DRM yourself.

I always hear record execs whining that they "can't compete with free" – but
maybe the real competitive disadvantage is that they're selling a product
that's less useful than the one being served up on P2P nets. Link:
http://www.beastieboys.com/bbs/showthread.php?t 128&highlight=copy+protected
(Thanks, Jon!)

Update: Ian sez, "Hi, I'm not sure who posted re: Beastie Boys copy protection,
but I just spoke with Mike D and their management and they wanted me to pass
along that a) This is all territories except the US and UK – US and UK discs
do not have this protection on them; b) All EMI CDs are treated this way,
theirs isn't receiving special treatment; c) They would have preferred not to
have the copy protection, but weren't allowed to differ from EMI policy."