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Fighting Music Piracy with Glue

Posted by chrisd on from the morons-morons-morons dept.

Scott Granneman writes: "The New York Times (Free Blah-di-blah) is reporting that Epic Records, in an effort to prevent reviewers from creating mp3s or even playing the preview CD in anything they don't control, is not disseminating the new Pearl Jam and Tori Amos CDs inside Sony Walkman players that are glued shut. Oh yeah ... the headphones are glued to the players too, to prevent any authorized output. A low-tech answer to a high-tech issue."

19 of 590 comments (clear)

  1. Wire cutting by nick255 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ummmmm. I guess they must be assuming journalists are not engineers, as otherwise they could just cut the headphone wires and them connect them to their favourite input.

    1. Re:Wire cutting by ChrisJones · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Then when reviewer returns the walkman with cut wires, Epic Records can ream them for being naughty pirates.

      --
      Chris "Ng" Jones
      cmsj@tenshu.net
      www.tenshu.net
    2. Re:Wire cutting by NeMon'ess · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You're kidding right? If the player doesn't have to be returned, than the reviewer can just break open the player carefully and get to the CD. The point of gluing them is to keep the tracks from going up on the net before the album hits the retail shelves. I'm betting the glue doesn't have a strength of infinity+1 and the players do have to be returned unmolested if the reviewer wants to preview any future albums from that company.

  2. Environment by buzy+buzy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I know they are only releasing a limited supply of these to journalists, but seams to me this is very environmentally unfriendly.

    Don't think a Sting preview will be released this way.

    Are there plans to reuse or recycle the returned CD walkmans?

    --
    If you get modded down for a first post... What do you get for a last post?
  3. So don't review it by mccalli · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Return the thing unreviewed then, siting 'technical difficulties'.

    Presumably other artists' CDs are put through the reviewers' own systems, set up the way they like them. Just say a fair comparison is impossible without putting these new CDs through that same system.

    Of course, if you're feeling vindictive, you could always slate them instead...

    Cheers,
    Ian

    1. Re:So don't review it by David+Gerard · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Record companies can only get away with this sort of thing in extremely few cases. Have you SEEN the piles and piles of CDs a reviewer typically gets? Do you know how little annoyance it takes to put a CD in the 'too much effort' pile?

      Record companies are filled with drooling fuckwits.

      --
      http://rocknerd.co.uk
  4. self destruct mechanism by z_gringo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now, they just need to develop something that destroys the disc, if you happen to force the cover open or remove the Headphone jack.

    --
    -- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
  5. Reviewing these CDs... by hattig · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So they are expected to review the CD's through headphones from a walkman?

    Doesn't that just strike people as being stupid? How will they get a subjective review of the audio quality? Are the music companies trying to hide poor audio quality from the reviewers by making them review the music through sub-optimal equipment?

    This is just a sad example of how paranoid the music companies have become...

  6. Why not digital? by gvonk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I want to know why a solid-state mp3 player couldn't be used? They could just build their own and put the songs in ROM and just have no input. Kinda like those little "tiger beat" or whatever players that just play Britney Spears and you can get them at McDonald's.

    I imagine building a custom player with built-in earbuds and only one album on it would be cheaper than this dumb glue thing.

    --


    El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
  7. Circumventing at any cost? by goldspider · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Just about every day I see the latest attempt by the media/software industries to prevent the theft of their product, and usually soon after see a circumvention of that attempt. Sometimes this involves some rather convoluted and really bizarre ways of getting at that tasty morsel.

    A lot of times these methods result in getting a much lower quality piece of software/media than if it were simply bought. A lot of times (mostly with software) the result barely works at all.

    So is it really worth it to copy some of this stuff at any cost? I can't help but think that sometimes it would cost less time and aggravation to just go out and buy the damn software/music CD/DVD. And don't give me that "information wants to be free" crap either. There comes a point when it's just not worth the time or effort to circumvent copy protection just because you can.

    --
    "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
    1. Re:Circumventing at any cost? by mat.h · · Score: 3, Insightful
      A lot of times these methods result in getting a much lower quality piece of software/media than if it were simply bought. A lot of times (mostly with software) the result barely works at all.

      Not so. Not in general. Back in the Amiga days, quite a few cracked games could be installed on hard disk, while the "simply bought" game couldn't. Sometimes the crackers did actual bug fixing. Today, in the copy-protected CD days, any CD-R can be played by the disc changer in my car, while there are "simply bought" CDs that can't. The industry has reached that point were the copy is not only cheaper, but also more useful than the original.

  8. Re:Wire cutters and some speaker wire... by Oculus+Habent · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What's to prevent someone from buying a bottle of acetone and unsealing the thing, then gluing it back together when they are done?

    --
    That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
  9. Maybe I'm missing the point... by chegosaurus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But if you number each player, send them out, and expect them to be returned, then by identifying the missing or broken players you could pretty much work out who it was that smashed their player open and put the music on P2P.

    Isn't that why they do it?

  10. Nothing really matters.... by mosch · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I think that's a risk the record company is willing to take. After all, Tori Amos and Pearl Jam are both bands whose cds are generally bought by rabid fans who'd buy a cd of /dev/random, as long as it says Pearl Jam, or Tori Amos on the cover.

    I can't help but wonder if the publicity around the stunt won't generate more press than the releases alone, after all, they just successfully told half a million slashdot readers that there's a new Tori Amos and Pearl Jam album coming out.

    1. Re:Nothing really matters.... by david+duncan+scott · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Looking through my collection (such as it is), I'm always struck by how many first albums there are. My theory is that the first album is the result of several years of work in front of small, vocal audiences and with friends who don't mind telling you what sucks.

      The second album, on the other hand, is done under pressure and under contract, and usually written a lot faster.

      --

      This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander

  11. Wave of Future by 4of12 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, my TiVo has recordings of copyrighted media inside of it, and it's likewise pretty hard, though not impossible, to get it out in perfect digital fidelity for archiving on other devices or to play on different players.

    I expect to see more of this in the future as hardware prices continue to slide. Media will become more and more locked into a particular device one way or another. Your next CD player could well require an Access card in it to enable it to play the latest CDs.

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
  12. What about Quality? by asv108 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm no music reviewer, but it seems to me if I were to review a new album, I would want to listen to the CD on the best stereo I have access to, not a little crappy discman with $5 headphones.

  13. This is not realistically a DMCA issue... by Tom7 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You should read the DMCA more carefully. The device has to be primarily designed for circumvention, and must not have any other commercially significant uses. Also, it would probably be hard to argue that glue is a "technological measure" as defined in the DMCA.

    The DMCA is a bad law, and I know you guys are half joking, but blowing it out of proportion like this I think does our cause disservice. Actually understanding what it makes illegal, and being able to hold intelligent conversations about it's implications -- that's what helps us.

  14. Just one question. . . by Fantastic+Lad · · Score: 3, Insightful
    With the world going to shit in a handbasket in more fascinating and varied ways that I can currently count, when somebody tells me that ass-wipe record executives are glue-gunning CD players closed with cheesey music stuffed inside the, I have but one question to ask. . .

    How is this in any way important, interesting, vital, relevant or worthy of consideration on any level whatsoever which is not petty, braindead, boring and totally fucking Prozacked up the wahzoo?

    This question has been brought to you by the ever-present, effervescent,


    -Fantastic Lad