Profile used our newssubmit to tell us about an interesting column by Mr. Roger Ebert about Universal's idea to implement copy-protections on their discs to prevent people from copying the disc to other CDs or saving its contents to the hard drives of most PCs:
 "This year, Universal's music division plans to use a new copy-protection scheme that excludes its discs from being played at all on "Macs, DVD players, and CD-compatible video game consoles." This according to Peter Cohen of MacCentral, who also reports that the plan will block discs from being copied to other CDs or being saved to the hard drives of most PCs in the MP3 format. The first disc to get this treatment is More Fast and Furious: Music From and Inspired by the Motion Picture, a title that will live in infamy. |
That the CD itself has been ripped off from other CDs (it is a compilation of tracks having little connection to the movie or one another) is a delightful irony. That Universal has copy-protected it, and blocked out Macs and DVD players altogether, has to be the worst marketing decision in consumer electronics since the original DivX format (which was Circuit City's widely hated, intrusive pay-per-view system). It confuses fans with pirates. My guess is that no musician or band still actively engaged in trying to build an audience will want to come anywhere near it."
You can read the full column on YIL.com. Interesting reading since he has some very good points although I doubt Universal will see things the same way Mr. Ebert and we do...
Source: YIL|Column
