New Tactic for Keeping New Music Offline

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New Tactic for Keeping New Music Offline

17 Sep 02 - 04:19 PM (#786087)
Subject: New Tactic for Keeping New Music Offline
From: wysiwyg

Boy, I guess some folks are serious about keeping music from being hung up on the internet to hear for free, or copied and distrbuted to pals. Just heard about this on a mail list I belong to.

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MEDIA TALK
Epic Records Takes Steps to Seal Its Newest Music
By CHRIS NELSON

The Epic Records Group, a unit of Sony Music, is approaching the sticky problem of pre-release music's being traded online with an even stickier solution.

Writers receiving review copies of two soon-to-be-released albums-- Tori Amos's "Scarlet's Walk" and Pearl Jam's "Riot Act"-- are finding the CD's already inside Sony Walkman players that have been glued shut. Headphones are also glued into the players, to prevent connecting the Walkman to a recording device.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL STORY (The NY Times Online requires you register to read the article online.)

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Oughtta be a song challenge in there somewhere! *G*

~Susan

17 Sep 02 - 05:12 PM (#786145)
Subject: RE: New Tactic for Keeping New Music Offline
From: McGrath of Harlow

I don't think that would defeat anybody who wanted to copy them. For example just cut the headphone cable and fit a jack on to it to feed into your computer.

Easier though to say "Sod this for a game of soldiers" and review somethimg else.

17 Sep 02 - 06:58 PM (#786206)
Subject: RE: New Tactic for Keeping New Music Offline
From: wysiwyg

Yeah, I was imagining or own musicmic, how he'd react to a CD if it arrived like that. One either is or is not a person of good faith. This stratagem is an insult, but I think most of the reviewers probably find it fairly amusing.

~Susan

17 Sep 02 - 08:08 PM (#786256)
Subject: RE: New Tactic for Keeping New Music Offline
From: Joe Offer

Well, here's the whole story. I can't say I blame the music publishers. When they give out prerelease recordings for free, I think they have a right to do what they can to prevent copying.
-Joe Offer-

Epic Records Takes Steps to Seal Its Newest Music

By CHRIS NELSON

The Epic Records Group, a unit of Sony Music, is approaching the sticky problem of prerelease music's being traded online with an even stickier solution.

Writers receiving review copies of two soon-to-be-released albums - Tori Amos's "Scarlet's Walk" and Pearl Jam's "Riot Act" - are finding the CD's already inside Sony Walkman players that have been glued shut. Headphones are also glued into the players, to prevent connecting the Walkman to a recording device.

By locking up the discs, Epic hopes to keep writers from converting the music to MP3's that can then be traded over the Net. But even a "glueman" player is unlikely to deter a diehard critic.

"I'm a pretty big Pearl Jam fan," said Bart Blasengame, a staff writer at Details magazine who was sent one of the contraptions with "Riot Act" inside. "I brought this discman home with me, and I found a way you could go in the back of the CD and, like, pop it open. So I got the actual disc out."

Mr. Blasengame said he had no intention of making MP3's . "At the same time, if I want to give it a proper review, I'm going to listen to it how I want to listen to it - and in my stereo is where it sounds best," he said.

For several years, prerelease music has turned up online before it reaches stores, distributed without permission by journalists, radio employees, record company employees or other sources. This July, for example, a six-song sampler from Ms. Amos's upcoming album was shipped to writers the old-fashioned way. The songs soon appeared on file-sharing services like WinMX.

The Recording Industry Association of America blames Internet music-sharing for declines in CD sales, though proponents of MP3 trading dispute the group's arguments.

A Sony spokeswoman confirmed that the glued players were being used to combat piracy, but would not talk about their effectiveness or responses from writers.

This is not the first time prerelease music has received the glue treatment. Gil Kaufman, a freelance journalist in Cincinnati, said he owns a prerelease copy of Radiohead's 1997 album "OK Computer" that is glued into an Aiwa player - an Aiwa analog cassette deck. That makes MP3 conversions a bit more difficult.

17 Sep 02 - 08:57 PM (#786299)
Subject: RE: New Tactic for Keeping New Music Offline
From: Barry T

A pretty darn good publicity ploy if you ask me!

17 Sep 02 - 09:30 PM (#786322)
Subject: RE: New Tactic for Keeping New Music Offline
From: wysiwyg

Joe, I agree, I just find it a hilarious business decision.

At a meeting: "I know! We can...."

"Right, let's do it then."

It's just so hard to imagine!

~Susan

17 Sep 02 - 11:12 PM (#786372)
Subject: RE: New Tactic for Keeping New Music Offline
From: Stephen L. Rich

...and the Universe continues to deteriorate.

18 Sep 02 - 12:06 PM (#786738)
Subject: RE: New Tactic for Keeping New Music Offline
From: GUEST,Les B.

I agree with Barry T. - Look how many of us perusing this thread have now heard about these artists, even if we haven't heard the music. A wise PR person knows there's no such thing as bad press.