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Beastie Boys' New Album Silently Installs DRM Code
nfsilkey writes "After more than five years, the Beastie Boys have released a new album. It seems that the retail disc is bundled with a copy protection autoinstaller which silently silently puts itself onto the listener's computer. Many listeners are up in arms and some are venting their frustrations on the band's website."
It's hard to believe that a band that has prided itself on pushing the envelope and being controversial would do something like this. These people obviousle cared enough to buy the CD, why would the record industry need to protect themselves from them? It's just another way for them to control what we can and cannot do, thereby infringing on my rights. When I can't even listen to my music without worrying about what programs may be being installed on my computer, we've let them go too far.
As a computer, I am amused by the faith you have in technology.
Lately people have been prosecuted for writing a virus, well, whoever wrote this needs to be prosecuted the same way.
1. It is malicious (prevents you from copying the CD as you noramlly would be able to.
2. It silently installs itself, masquarading as a
standard Audio CD (I'm sorry, 5" music disc)
How is that different than any other trojan horse?
I really do hope the courts do something about this passive signing away of your rights. I call it passive because the agreements define for themselves what agreeing to them means, so they are by nature fraudulent. So buying a product is a legal signature? So is opening a CD case, or installing software? They can put all the "Read the EULA"'s they want, but I don't see how any specific number of warnings suddenly merits compliance by law.
By reading this you acknowledge my right to use your computer to research how better to write future comments. Oh yeah you have to give me your stuff too if you break our agreement. By reading this sentence you have broken our agreement. The next bag of potato chips you open signifies your compliance to turn over all properties that can be used to drink out of.
And if they say no, the goddamned thing doesn't play, they take it back to the store and get a refund.
What this evil corporation is saying, is: "Fuck you. We own you. We own your computer. You'll take it and like it, because protecting our digital rights trump fucking up your piece of shit from Dell, you fucking Joe Sixpack sheeple. If you don't like it call your Congresscritter. Oops, we own it, too."
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Looks like maybe the days of "it's okay, nothing will ever infect my machine, since nobody bothers to write things like this for macs" are coming to an end.
...and you can thank your iPod for that one.
What bothers the hell out of me, though, is that it can be done.
How in the world can I trust *anything* that willy-nilly follows whatever orders someone else tells *my* machine to do, leaving me powerless to override? The most surprising thing to me is that business is taking this. Do they really think only "good guys" know where the unlocked back doors to the operating system are?
Stuff like this just convinces me further that anyone even thinking of using this kind of system in a business environment needs to have his salary and standing in his organization re-evaluated.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
The CD is the vector. Give it to a friend, it perpetuates. Direct-copy it, it probably perpetuates. Remember, worms perpetuate without user action. Viruses perpetuate with user action.
Seriously: How does someone so blatantly shortsighted manage to breathe?
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
And the message I get from this is:
Do not buy this album. If I want to hear it, download it instead.
Their instruction is just crystal clear. Yes; it sucks that Windows auto-installs crap off CDs, and yes, there's easy ways around that. But to arrive at that is to miss the point. The point is that if you don't want their DRM, don't buy the product... you can get the music for a nice $0.00, without rewarding their vile practice.
If people in the biz are reading this, please take note: DRM offends and insults and disrespects those who you're trying to sell to. You're only getting sales from the ignorant, and I'm working to reduce their numbers by telling as many friends / family members as I can to stop buying big label music. Flat out stop. Download, buy used, or go with small, respectable labels. (I do still buy, generally direct from small artists; the rest... fuck 'em. Not a dime to the RIAA from me.)
If you agree, you can help... simply assist as many people as you can to find alternatives to buying big label music. If people really want the latest Beastie / other-pop album, there's torrents, k-lite, etc... and the price is better. Is it wrong? Is killing in a war wrong? I'm working to destroy my enemy or change their stance here; that is the nature of war. You gotta fight... It may be company policy, but you're still sell-out bitches, Beastie Boys (and I love some of your work... oh, well).
In the 1980s. The software industry tried all this copy control nonsense with Commodore 64 software. Many companies did not survive the backlash. The record labels will not learn until everyone stops buying. Any business that alienates their customers deserves to fail. Vote with your pocket books. Stop feeding the hand that bites you.
That's Bigboo TAY! TAY!
"Autorun" is one of the most irritating features of Windows. It's easily disabled, but at the cost of losing "notification" when you insert or remove a CD, which means you have to manually prompt for a refresh sometimes. But it's better than some installer taking over every time you insert a program disk to refer to something or copy some files. Trusting to "pressing the shift key" to defeat it on each insertion is about as reliable as using the withdrawal method of birth control; pretty soon your PC is going to get knocked up.
What people don't also realize is that song swapping is an old tradition, which helps keep old groups alive and helps new groups become more popular through word of mouth. I would say that literally the majority of the classic rock and underground songs that I listen to, I would never have known about if it wasn't for the fact that I could give a group a try by downloading MP3's. Then provided that I KNOW that I'm getting more than a couple good tracks, I buy the CD to support the group