James Delahunty
16 Dec 2005 12:14
The battle between artists and Sony BMG over the use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) copy protection on audio CDs just got even more interesting as some more artists have decided to act. This time it is My Morning Jacket, who's album "Z" is copy protected. They are doing their very own recall of the CDs and get this... they are burning unrestricted copies of the CDs themselves and sending them out to fans. Oh I wonder how Sony BMG feels about that.
It would appear that their actions are actually clear violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), even though it is a CD with their own work on it. They aren't the first to make their thoughts heard on DRM either; Foo Fighters, Switchfoot and Dave Matthew's Band have all done so but none of them have actually burned copies of CDs for fans.
Sony BMG is re-evaluating copy protection on CDs following the XCP DRM nightmare that has only died down a bit recently. Immediately following the XCP situation, MediaMax became a problem also when a vulnerability was revealed. However, more artists standing against DRM is a good sign and if more artists make their thoughts heard, then Sony BMG might just cave in to the pressure.
Source:
ZDnet