NEW YORK – Fingering consumers who play the same CD repeatedly as the latest threat to profits, Sony BMG music corporation is introducing new digital rights management (DRM) software that will limit the number of times CDs can be played by purchasers.
Beginning next Tuesday all new CDs released on the Sony BMG label—which is home to artists such as Fiona Apple, Bruce Springsteen, and Shakira—will contain DRM software that prevents them from being played more than one hundred times. The software, an offspring of the popular extended copy protection (XCP), also prevents owners from copying a CD more than once. Furthermore, a copy must be made within the first five plays of a CD’s “shelf life,” and said copying will render the original CD unusable.
Don McKee, a Sony BMG spokesperson, defended his company’s decision by pointing out that “in the past people had to replace their favorite vinyl albums because they become scratched and ultimately unlistenable after repeated use. People also had to replace their favorite cassette tapes, which could be depended on to lose tonal quality over time or to self-destruct when played in automobiles. Therefore, artists and record companies could rely on the repeated sales of albums to boost their profits. For example, as many as one quarter of the sales of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album are estimated to have been repeat sales.”
CDs, on the other hand, are impervious to normal wear and tear—and since they’re too small to be used for cleaning marijuana, fewer beers or loads of bong water are spilled on them. Thus, profits from repeat purchases have been reduced drastically.
Even if the future of music distribution raises questions, you can always discover more about the history of CD’s and many other topics at HistoricalTextArchive.com.
“We do not anticipate the one-hundred-play limit will be an inconvenience to most customers,” McKee continued. “As music pirates correctly argue, the majority of CDs contain only five or six listenable cuts anyway, so the likelihood of playing a CD one hundred times is slim.”
Consumer behavior research appears to support McKee’s claim. According to Chad Tanko, a television and entertainment industry analyst with Jupiter Research in New York, Rolling Stones CDs released during the last twenty years were played, on average, 12.5 times. Even CDs by artists favored by a younger demographic, Jessica Simpson for example, are rarely played more than thirty-seven times, much fewer by male purchasers.
Although prices of the new Sony BMG CDs are steep, $19.95, McKee points out there is an “economy of scale” for people who play a CD a full one hundred times.
“That works out to less than two cents a song for a standard ten-song CD,” he said. “That price is fair to music lovers as well as to corporations and artists.”
Next Oprah: Rod Stewart Introduces the New Oprah Music Club
© The fine fucking print: The editorial content on this page is fictional. It is presented for satirical and/or entertainment purposes only. We cannot be held responsible for the actions of anyone who takes this sort of shit seriously. We also do not wish to be held responsible for any copyrighted material that sneaked onto this page when we weren’t looking. If you can prove that anything on this page belongs rightfully to you, we will happily take it down and return the unused portion. No questions asked.
