Dub dot dash

One drop
Sony BMG's president of global digital business Thomas Hesse was interviewed in Tuesday's NZ Herald's by Peter Griffin. Hesse talked about DualDisc releases, and also their plans to introduce copy protection to all Sony BMG releases by the end of the year." Users can burn three additional CD copies for their own use and store the music files on their computer in a protected format from Microsoft." Thanks, Bill Gates.

"But already the technology has fallen victim to that constant bugbear of the industry - disagreement on technical standards. "There's a slight wrinkle to it in that currently the Apple Fairplay digital rights management isn't connected to this system," Hesse said. That cuts users of the iPod music player, out of the Sony BMG picture."

But is it the same copy protection software that EMI have been using? As reported in Australia, there are some problems with that... see Sunncomm or Sunncon? article (scroll down). Tip of the hat to Jesse for that one (via the NZM forums, my new addiction).

Speaking of EMI's copy protection, Salmonella Dub (who are licensed to Virgin EMI NZ) have just reissued their One Drop East + Remixes 2 cd set (originally released nov 04 with copy protection) but without copy protection. Did the band persuade EMI to drop the copy protection for this reissue, or is it off the agenda for all EMI releases?

ADDED: From The Register (UK) on June 21. "Both Sony-BMG and EMI have made statements this week that most of their CDs for their major markets will have copy protection placed on them. Sony BMG is a customer for SunnComm while EMI is using the Macrovision CDS 300 technology."

PLUS... Russell Brown interviews Thomas Hesse for his column in the Listener. "... Hesse visited recently as a guest of the Record Industry Association of New Zealand to talk about the music industry's quest to exploit the possibilities of the networked, digital world while defending itself from illicit copying and piracy. And, in the words of one local industry figure, "to say the things we can't say".


Beat Rhythm Fashion
The latest issue of Macguide magazine features editor Mark Webster ruminating on long gone local band Eight Living Legs. He recalls their brief recording career, which amounted to a few songs on an split EP (which featured Mark's band Flak on the flip, something he modestly leaves out of his editorial). Now Failsafe Records have included 2 CDs by that band as part of its mammoth reissue of NZ music - 30 CDs in 30 Days.

Mark notes that Failsafe main man Rob Mayes has used a Mac with Protools and Photoshop to salvage the audio/pics for this release. One that I'm looking forward to is a CD from Wellington band Beat Rhythm Fashion, who released one of my top five all-time great NZ singles, Turn of the century way back in 1981, when the turn of the century seemed like a long way off. There's aCD of studio recordings, and two CDs recorded at live gigs by the band.

Other reissues include YFC, Children's Hour (both of whom are reforming for a few live shows), Pop Mechanix, and Dolphin.