No Longer a Fan...

[TomFulp]

For a long time now, I've wanted to see the entire recording industry come crashing down into bankruptcy... And tonight is no exception.

I'm back in San Diego for the next two and a half weeks. If you've missed the stories from the previous trips - I basically sit in a loft all day and work on Alien Hominid. Sitting in a room all day can become a bit dull, so I like to go out and buy new music to listen to.

I don't have a car here in SD, and I don't know where any of the smaller record stores are, so I do my shopping at Borders. I pay out the ass for CDs.

Tonight I bought three CDs... The new Zero Seven ($17.99), the new Air ($18.99), and the new Beta Band ($14.99).

I come back to the loft and pop in Zero Seven. In their lame attempt to prevent piracy, they don't let me access the tracks directly - the CD instead launches a player to play them for me. However, the player doesn't work... I'll be 40 seconds into a song and it is still dead silent - and yes, I turned up the volume on the player. It apparently just isn't compatible with my PC or something.

So I toss Zero Seven aside and pop in Air. Air doesn't even attempt to open a player - instead I get a program that offers me a choice of three screen savers (actually, one screen saver in three resolutions). I try to fiddle around and "hack" my way into the song files, but alas, I'm not that savvy with this stuff. So I tossed aside Air and popped in the Beta Band.

Thankfully, the Beta Band worked. Not only was it the only reasonably priced CD (if you can call $14.99 reasonable), it is the only one I will be able to listen to for the next two and a half weeks. I won't be buying a CD player just to listen to those piece of shit Air and Zero Seven CDs.

So congrats Air and Zero Seven, you've lost a fan. I don't care if you are trying to prevent piracy, you are being dipshits about it and I will never buy any of your crap again. As for Beta Ban... Still a fan. Thanks, guys!

[Ozcar]

God :|

They lost maybe one of their best/biggest/oldest fans in the world...

But is ok Tom...there are a lot of bands to be Fan :D

[Disgruntled-Postman]

people in the music industry make so much money already, they're all a bunch of jerks for being so up tight about piracy.

[Rabid-Echidna]

I was aware that they were coming up with new ideas, but making shoddy programs that play the encrypted CD songs is just a load of crap. Did they not even think to check whether or not it would actually work on the computer before they released the CDs? I think they deserve to lose fans.

[TanukiMario]

I wonder why it didn't work..? Mabey there was sumthin' wrong, but I'm not a comp person... Bleh.

[JerkClock]

Ah yes carrot we all feel your pain. Frankly am for anti-piracy but not when it degrades the quality of the product, some people are stupid though and don't see what they're doing until it is too late. Then they lose fans as a result. What can you say? They're dumbasses

[BaronVonBadGuy]

At 5/11/04 11:38 PM, TomFulp wrote: So congrats Air and Zero Seven, you've lost a fan. I don't care if you are trying to prevent piracy, you are being dipshits about it and I will never buy any of your crap again. As for Beta Ban... Still a fan. Thanks, guys!

Holly shit, thank you for the information, while I have never had any problems with any CD's, even witht he new Zero7 CD, I did not know the beta band made a new cd!
I will have to check it out, Beta Band rule!!!

Mike

[Radant]

thats very odd. i say you report the CD manufacturers to the Better Business Bureau :) take 'em to court and get your money back.

[Locriology]

It's usually the RIAA who sets those kinds of security measures; they're the ones who get most of the money, after all. It's all just a commercial conspiracy.

[rangi]

Just buy the new steriogram instead.

GO ya kiwi rock.

[OriginaleLMo]

Go buy a new radio you cheap fuck lolol. I jk thanks for the free site btw.

[TheShrike]

And they wonder why sales have been on the decrease... Sad, really.

I get all my music from friends, or internet radio anyway.

[Jen-the-Great]

I refuse to buy any copy protected cds. If they're going to make me pay, I should at least be allowed to make a copy for my computer.

I always figured cds would be cheaper in the States. A cd is usually about 13-17 bucks Canadian here. I guess I won't be going to the States for shopping anymore.

[FF7terra]

Not only that but they often times make the quality of the music so lossy on those anti pirate cds that the songs themselves are worthless.

You DID get your money back right?

[StarCleaver]

That sucks Tom. I guess i just listen to the right bands because i haven't had any trouble with shit like that. I can copy my cds and listen to them in Windows Media Player (or whatever) just fine.

Also, i go to Sam Goody and the prices aren't that bad. About 16 bucks for brand new stuff and about 12 or 13 for older stuff. I can't really remember cds being that much cheaper at our local store here, even before all the RIAA shit.

[AllMightyBruce]

well thats kinda corperate america for you.

[DJ-Hewi]

Fuck the RIAA and music stores. I only support bands the not only make good music, but hate the RIAA for all thier stupid shit. I say, return the CDs, write a letter to the BBB, and send the RIAA 1 billion AOL cds and tell them to cram it up thier asses.

[Obsidian2333]

WE need to burn the record stores prices for cd's are out of control

[AntiTanner]

The thing is, the band might have no idea their CDs are copywrited. Its usually the label doing dumb shit like that.

[hukedunfonikswork]

I know how that can be, forking out 70-100 bucks sucks if u have a comp that can't support the players on the cd's. Happened to me.... TWICE!!!

[pierrot-le-fou]

Well, what else can you expect from bastards?

[Locriology]

When I buy a cd, I feel like I'm paying for rights to do whatever the hell I want with it. It's just stupid that they won't even let you copy it to your own damn computer.

[SteveGuzzi]

I'm pretty sure that if you hold SHIFT when inserting the disc into your computer, it'll prevent the built-in player software from running...but as for accessing all the songs, I don't know man. If I couldn't just extract the audio tracks with Nero then I would probably put the CD in a regular stereo, hook up the line-out from that to the line-in on the computer, and then record each track and encode them to MP3...all for the satisfaction of uploading the album to a filesharing service and nullifying their whole copy-protection scam in the process.

[Painbringer]

I think there may be an option to play it in analog mode, but I've only found that out on my old AMD K6.

[Dopefish]

bleh, i know exactly what you mean tom. i cant stand how cds have that crap on them now. i just end up downloading the same damn songs instead so i can actually listen to them while at the pc. what a bung of bullshit.

[OVlez]

I've never heard of that before, what shit do people come up with these days? Programs in CDs that open a whole different player to prevent piracy? Why don't they just stop selling their albums while they're at it?

[drew146]

first off, some of the people woh posted here just seem like they are kissing ass because Tom was the creator of NG, but besides that, goto http://downhillbattle.org , if you're so adament about this damn piracy shit, take some action, i've already printed out like 6 sheets of their stickers and are helping them with some neqw stories they're doing, what are YOU doing to help take part in the corruption of the system? And i dont noe who the fuck those bands were that Tom mentioned, but have you heard Machinea Supremacy, they're not a bunch of copyright whores, you can dl they're whole album form thier website; google it and thats all i have to say

[swaenK]

I wouldn't get mad at the bands (even though they too are money hungry fuckers) it's more about the producers. I guess I could be a cause of all this shit, me never buying CD's. The last CD I bought was Linkin Park. Woop deh woop.

[DizzyBum]

That... is retarded. The RIAA gets a new reason to die!