EMI Chases Sony's "Screw the Artist" Crown by George Ziemann -- Jan. 6, 2006 "We have to walk the line at Sony between the needs of technology and the consumer, and the rights of the artist, which we feel very strongly about." -- Howard Springer -- Sony Corp. chairman and CEO The rights of the artist. It's all about the artist. Every time I hear a record exec or RIAA spokesthing say this and point out that these guys are lying out their ass because they screw virtually everybody, some moron will jump up and say, "Ya know, I'm so sick of hearing about musicians getting ripped off by the record labels. It's been going on for decades. If they're stupid enough to sign a major label contract, then they deserve what they get." Get caught cheating a bank and you have to pay it all back, but skim millions from Paul McCartney's royalties and you only have to give him a fraction of what you tried to make off with. No one does anything about it and it continues. Sony can't find the Bay City Rollers' original contract, so they just can't figure out how much to give any of them. They've got about $80 million in a special account and if archaeologists recover the original document before all of the members die, well, they'll think about handing some of it out. Sony's XCP "copy protection" loaded with spyware made certain that Neil Diamond, Santana and the 50 other artists whose product was released in the last 18 months and poisoned with XCP will collect no royalties. What they'll get are chargebacks for the billions Sony spent on "new technology" and probably all the costs associated with the fiasco. EMI apparently decided to go one better with Coldplay's X & Y. Even if you like Coldplay, here's what you should know before you drop cash for one of these sad excuses for an audio CD. There's an insert that comes with the CD to let you know the truth, but you won't see it until AFTER you purchase it and open it. IF (and that's a big if), the copy protection works like SunnComm designed it to (which would be a first), it can't be copied onto a CD-R or hard disk. It can't be converted to an mp3. Supposedly. That's what EMI paid for anyway, so they might as well put it on the label. Truth is that saying "it can't be copied" is merely a challenge to the hacker community to get it out on p2p as quickly as possible. It's certainly already out there, in the mp3 form that you can't make with the CD. "In order for you to enjoy this high quality music," the "special technology" they used may cause it not to work properly if your CD player: Has the ability to burn to an mp3 file Has CD-R/RW functions Has hard disk recording capabilities CD-R/RW players used for music Portable players, DVD players, CD/LD convertible players, Game players If you've got "satellite guidance systems" in your car, it probably won't play there either and if you car stereo has recording capabilities, that could be a problem, too. Want it on your iPod? Forget it. "This CD does not support Macintosh PC software." As if a Mac was a PC. In other words, this product is so far removed from the audio CD standard that it will be incompatible with almost everything. Think before you buy this because "Except for manufacturing problems, we do not accept product exchange, return or refund." That'll sell a ton of records for Coldplay, won't it? It's all about the artist, you know.