Hacking the Starbuck's Muzak Machine?

llamaluvr asks: "My friend is employed at a Starbucks coffeehouse, and he told me about a system they use for controlling what kind of music is played in the store. The machine can only play a particular type of CD, which contains 90-100 songs that "expire" after awhile, and is appearantly compiled/ produced by Hear Music, a subsidary of Starbucks. PlayNetwork is in charge of the the hardware. Anyway, he and his fellow employees are sick of Starbucks lame playlists, and they can't use normal CDs, as the machine tells them that the CDs are "expired". Does anybody know anything about how this system works? Is it at all possible to make a CD on your own that can be played on these machines?"

Comments

Let's examine the real issue

[orthogonal]

Starbucks's Muzak is slightly annoying, by not so much that it distracts me from my reading; nor is it loud enough to overpower my head phones.

I suppose it's somewhat "hip" music, picked by a demographer at Starbucks to appeal to their yuppie customers and above all not to offend customers or in any way frustrate those customers in their quest to give Starbucks $5.00 for a cup of coffee.

And that's a good thing. I'm no fan of corporate blandness or lowest common denominator marketing, but...

A Starbucks employee is often a pierced-nosed, tattooed counter-culture wanna-be, and there is no way I'm going to enjoy my Venti Mocha Frap listening to what that employee wants to hear.

I know this makes me sound old and curmudgeonly, but I've always been this way.

Report as fault .

[Martin Spamer]

they can't use normal CDs, as the machine tells them that the CDs are "expired".

Easy. Use Consumer Activism. Report a fault to the equipment supplier each time it refuses to play a CD. This drives up their costs, therefore their prices and reduces their competitiveness. Eventually Starbucks will get the message and start using not fault equipment.

Re:Hacking Star$s

[raju1kabir]

So if you hack thier machine and they find out and fire your friends sorry ass don't come bitching about it.

Why on earth would you think he'd "come bitching about it"? Unlike many posters here, the Starbucks employee in question displays the creativity, intelligence, and spark to want to understand how something works and how it can be changed, and therefore can be assumed to be intelligent enough to have a basic grasp on the potential consequences.

It's really sad to see all these "It's Starbucks' machine, you have no right to think about it or tinker with it" messages. More shocking still are those that claim it's "immoral" to tinker with it.

It's immoral to do something that will hurt someone.

The tinkerer receives no material advantage for tinkering, and the consequences for messing with it are pretty clear. Starbucks has a clear path of redress and we can be sure they'll take advantage of it if it suits them.

This is on par with photocopying your butt on the office copier. Is it smart? Maybe not. Is it funny or interesting? Maybe, depending on the context. Is it immoral? No.