Sometimes you can download albums from file sharing networks that haven't been released to the general public yet. And altough Eminem's latest album that was leaked has proven that this certainly doesn't hurt the sales, the record companies are very disturbed by this trend.
One company has now distributed portable CD players to reviewer that were glued shut and also had the headphones glued to the device. This to prevent the reviewers to rip the CDs to MP3 files and distribute them on file sharing networks:
Epic Records Group has taken the drastic step of sealing CD players shut and gluing headphones onto them to stop digital copies being made from promotional albums. The albums involved are Riot Act by Pearl Jam and Scarlet's Walk by Tori Amos. |
A spokeswoman for Epic told New Scientist: "Obviously we have a problem with piracy and this is one of the ways we're trying to address it. We're trying lots of things."
New albums have appeared early on file sharing networks such as KaZaA, Morpheus and Grokster with a frequency which is alarming record companies. Eminem's The Eminem Show suffered this fate prior to release in May 2002.
These are of course drastic measures, but will they help ? Time will tell. I know that a lot of people will be laughing if the albums will appear on the file sharing networks before their official release. Read the entire story here.
Source: Newscientist.com
