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."

Comments

Illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was under the impression that installing software on the user's computer without asking is illegal?

This is Illegal in Minnesota

[Kope]

I personally hope that a CD I buy installs something on my computer. Really. 'Cuase I'm walking into the DA's office and demanding prosecution under 609.88 the next day. And as a highly paid professional, I know I can bill my time that any 10 second problem will turn into the maximum allowable penalty pretty darn quick...

609.88 Computer damage.

Subdivision 1. Acts. Whoever does any of the following is guilty of computer damage and may be sentenced as provided in subdivision 2:

(b) intentionally and without authorization or with intent to injure or defraud alters any computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, or any other property specifically defined in section 609.87, subdivision 6;

Subd. 2. Penalty. Whoever commits computer damage may be sentenced as follows:

(a) To imprisonment for not more than ten years or to payment of a fine of not more than $50,000, or both, if the damage, destruction or alteration results in a loss in excess of $2,500, to the owner, or the owner's agent, or lessee;

(b) To imprisonment for not more than five years or to payment of a fine of not more than $10,000, or both, if the damage, destruction or alteration results in a loss of more than $500, but not more than $2,500 to the owner, or the owner's agent or lessee; or

(c) In all other cases to imprisonment for not more than 90 days or to payment of a fine of not more than $700, or both.

Oh, except on music CD's

[Jadecristal]

From Microsoft's description:

Turns off the Autoplay feature.

Autoplay begins reading from a drive as soon as you insert media in the drive. As a result, the setup file of programs and the music on audio media start immediately.

By default, Autoplay is disabled on removable drives, such as the floppy disk drive (but not the CD-ROM drive), and on network drives.

If you enable this setting, you can also disable Autoplay on CD-ROM drives or disable Autoplay on all drives.

This setting disables Autoplay on additional types of drives. You cannot use this setting to enable Autoplay on drives on which it is disabled by default.

Note: This setting appears in both the Computer Configuration and User Configuration folders. If the settings conflict, the setting in Computer Configuration takes precedence over the setting in User Configuration.

Note: This setting does not prevent Autoplay for music CDs.

Strange

[vandan]

Tripple J ( youth national radio network in Australia ) reviewed the CD recently and said that many of their songs had political statements against the bullshit greed and right-wing idiology running rampant through the current US government.

Strange that they are critical of their government yet side with the record companies on this issue. Maybe they don't mean what they say? Or purphaps the record company pulled this one of them without telling them?

I certainly won't be buying it anyway. I'll add it to the not-worth-buying-but-good-download-potential list.

Re:Silently installing DRM eh?

[SamNmaX]

Technically, if your product silently installs software without the users knowledge, wouldn't that put it in the same league as spyware, as defined by some of the more recent bills passing through Congress?

Even though this may be technically spyware, it could also be technically illegal to remove due the DMCA. So basically, you put a cd with this type of crap on it, and since it's goal is copy-protection, anything that could get around it, including say, the ability to remove it if it attempts to stick on your system like a virus, could very well be considerred 'circumvension'. I'd be curious to see how such an argument would hold up in court.

Re:Heh

[Build6]

It's a little ironic that it's being done with a Beastie Boys album. Historically the primary "copyright", or "theft" issue with songs is sampling.

They were hit in the past for sampling from AC/DC's song "Back in Black" for their 1985 single "Rock Hard", which was supposed to appear in their "best of" anthology release, but couldn't because AC/DC refused them permission to sample. It seems a little incongruous for them to be shipping out DRM also.

The Liner Notes

[cammoblammo]

Given the EULA that these things will attempt to pass off on us, I wonder if they can (pseudo-legally, at least) get around *nix type security arrangements?

Hey! Buy this great CD! It rocks! It jives! It's phat. It's good, and reeeaaalll bad! Stick it up the establishment, throw down your oppressors and ROCK!!!!

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4. A II 3 e vii) THE USER AGREES, IN THE EVENT OF SECURITY SYSTEMS ON MUSIC SYSTEM BLOCKING THE INSTALLATION OF SAID MUSIC PROTECTION SOFTWARE, TO SUPPLY AS NEEDED ALL PASSWORDS, ENCRYPTION/ DECRYPTION KEYS, USER NAMES, OPERATING SYSTEM DETAILS, CREDIT CARDS NUMBERS AND ALL OTHER INFORMATION NECESSARY TO INSTALL AFOREMENTIONED ON THE AFOREMENTIONED MACHINE OF AFOREMENTIONED USER, HERETOFORE AFOREMENTIONED.
4. A II 3 e viii) IN THE SITUATION THE SAID MUSIC PROTECTION SOFTWARE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE OPERATING SYSTEM, APIS, REGISTRATION DEVICES, OR OTHER SOFTWARE OR HARDWARE FEATURES OF THE COMPUTER ON WHICH THE SOFTWARE IS TO BE INSTALLED THE USER AGREES TO REMOVE ALL SOFTWARE FROM THE COMPUTER, INCLUDING OPERATING SYSTEMS, AND AGREES TO INSTALL THE PRESCRIBED OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARE WHICH CAN BE PURCHASED VIA WWW.MICROSOFT.COM. ANY NECESSARY SOFTWARE PURCHASES, SYSTEM UPGRADES, OR OTHER CHANGES IS THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE USER. THE PUBLISHER WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ASSOCIATED COST.

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Yeah! Rock on!

I'd like to thank my girl, my wife, my manager, and most of all God who made all this possible.

Re:Heh

[Zro Point Two]

According to North American Law (Canada and US), aren't viruses against the law? And don't virus writers go to jail (or at least get heavy fines) for writing thier viruses?

Asside from the Windows bashing, the parent post has a good point (and btw, this "virus" isn't windows only...) it is a virus... If I don't know it's installing, and it disables some sort of functionality of my computer (even if that functionality can potentially be used for wrongful doings), then it is a virus, and should be dealt with as such...

I havn't hit the record store yet to pick up my copy, but, does it have a BIG ass warning on the back? If so, then, that will be thier leagal loophole. And if that is the case, are music disks (not actually a CD because of the error bits tossed in here and there) going to start coming with EULA's that you have to "agree to" by breaking the seal? Heck, why not encrypt the cd, have it access a server on the net where you put in your geographical location, favorite color, age, job position, mothers maden name, and your address, and they send you a floppy disk that has a program that checks for the original cd, then sets an "ok" flag in some directory, that will allow you to access the second digital key (each time you want to play the cd) from the internet, makes you take two steps backwards, turn clockwise twice, then hold the left mouse button, the - on the keypad, F2 and F10 all at the same time in order to listen to it.....or just buy your copy, support the artist, then fire up any P2P software, download the files, and burn them onto a cd that you can listen to whenever, and wherever you are.

Let's keep this rant going...

The more complex the copy protection they put on to "deterr" piracy, the more of a one-upmanship contest it becomes, and the bigger the contest, the more people that play...and the more that try to crack it, the better the odds are that someone else will think the same way the software writer did when they wrote that specific copy protection routine.

Now, I'm not getting on any "high and mighty" bandwagon here...I don't buy all the music I listen to, I do download quite a bit to check out new bands, or to preview how an average band had decided to go with their next album, but if I do like the band (or album to be more specific) I will definately shell out my hard earned cash to buy the original. I've got some cd's that I've never actually put into a cd player (because I already had a downloaded copy) but I still bought the cd.

One last thought I have that you can mull over if you are so inclined is... People say that CD prices should have dropped by now...and to some extent, I agree, but that's my opinion, but there is also a flip side that I realize...SOME of the additional cash that I pay for a cd is going to research new copy protection schemes so that POSSIBLY someone won't be able to rip it and distribute it for free. Sure, I like the sounds of that, but I would prefer if they did more work on these skemes before putting it into production on a retail product. And even if they did manage to get the perfect scheme working that was transparant to everyone (with the exception of the warning that they can use as thier loophole), and would work on any device, and allow me to port to an iPod, backup cd, whatever, then what's going to stop the pirate from hooking the line out of a diskman to the line in on a soundcard and recording the cd and putting it up on a P2P network?

Mod me up, Mod me down, Makes no difference to me at this point, because you've already read what I had to say.