Epic Records has taken a drastic step to prevent two new albums from being pirated online before their official release; sealing or gluing the reviewers portable 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 (Release date of 12th November 2002) and
- Scarlet"s Walk by Tori Amos (Release date of 29th October 2002). ( I think I saw both of these these on USENET the other day ;) )
A spokeswoman for Epic said "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."
With new albums appearing on file sharing networks such as KaZaA, Morpheus and Grokster early, it is starting to alarm record companies. One recent example was with Eminem"s The Eminem Show, which suffered this early release on file sharing networks fate prior to release in May 2002, so much so, that the album"s release date was brought forward.
As Jim Peters, of the UK lobby group Campaign for Digital Rights (CDR), says this latest measure reflects the difficulty of trying to control listeners" use of digital music. "It"s a sign of desperation. I think its time for them to start rethinking their business model because it"s getting ridiculous."
Record companies are trying other methods to lure listeners away from downloading pirated songs. Universal, for example, plans to issue a unique code number with each CD copy of Bon Jovi"s new album Bounce. This will provide access to a web site with information on priority concert tickets, as well as previously unreleased tracks. ( This one is definatly on USENET ;) )