The Beastie Boys' new CD, To the Five Boroughs, has DRM on it that prevents you from ripping it or making a copy for your car. I got the MP3s last week — it's a great album — and was going to buy the CD while I'm in the US this week, but now I think I'll just erase the MP3s and not bother. If the Beasties wanna treat me like a crook, I don't want to be their customer.
Note that the only thing that this DRM is doing here is pissing off the honest fans who want open CDs; the DRM on the CD didn't stop my source from making me a set of MP3s. In other words, if you plan on listening to the new disc on your iPod or laptop, you're better off downloading a copy made by a cracker and posted on Kazaa — if you buy it in a shop, you're going to have to go through the lawbreaking rigamarole of breaking the DRM yourself.
I always hear record execs whining that they "can't compete with free" — but maybe the real competitive disadvantage is that they're selling a product that's less useful than the one being served up on P2P nets.
(Thanks, Jon!)
Update: Ian sez, "Hi, I'm not sure who posted re: Beastie Boys copy protection, but I just spoke with Mike D and their management and they wanted me to pass along that a) This is all territories except the US and UK — US and UK discs do not have this protection on them; b) All EMI CDs are treated this way, theirs isn't receiving special treatment; c) They would have preferred not to have the copy protection, but weren't allowed to differ from EMI policy."
