When everyone buys their legitimate copies of the new Beastie Boys album, don’t go expecting to copy it onto your iPods or computers because it won’t work. Apparantly the band has added some digital rights managemen allowing the CDs to not play in your computers.
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. (full story)
Discuss this thing here, in our message board.
In other news, did anyone else notice the G I G A N T I C FBI symbol and warning on the back of the new Sonic Youth album, warning us about not copying the record? There’s a smaller one on the PJ Harvey album, too.
I am thinking that maybe we should just not have any album artworks at all, just a barcode!! The RIAA can also sell different versions of an album. “This CD Only Plays in Car Stereos” and “This CD Only Plays in Walkmen” and “This CD Only Plays in 1996 Boom Boxes.” WHILE WE’RE AT IT, I hope the RIAA can develop technology that makes the CD self destruct after one listen.
That will make everything better in the world.
UPDATE: Some people are saying this DRM is not on the US and UK releases, while others have said they’ve purchased US versions and they’re not working in computers. So stay tuned on this one.