Thursday, November 17, 2005

Big Day Out: good news, bad news
The 2nd announcement of acts for BDO 2006 brings heaps more hiphop - Common, Jean Grae and Edan, and throw in UK indie darlings Go!Team and it's all good. EXCEPT that M.I.A. is playing most of the OZ BDOs but not coming over to Kiwiland. Suckville!








latest from Boing boing..Latest Sony news: 100% of CDs with rootkits, mainstream condemnation, retailers angry

From the New York Times...
CD's Recalled for Posing Risk to PC's

The global music giant Sony BMG yesterday announced plans to recall millions of CD's by at least 20 artists - from the crooners Celine Dion and Neil Diamond to the country-rock act Van Zant - because they contain copy restriction software that poses risks to the computers of consumers.

The move, more commonly associated with collapsing baby strollers, exploding batteries, or cars with faulty brakes, is expected to cost the company tens of millions of dollars. Sony BMG said that all CD's containing the software would be removed from retail outlets and that exchanges would be offered to consumers who had bought any of them.

A toll-free number and e-mail message inquiry system will also be set up on the Sony BMG Web site, sonybmg.com. "We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause our customers," the company said in a letter that it said it would post on its Web site, "and are committed to making this situation right..."

Market research from 2004 has shown that about 30 percent of consumers report obtaining music through the copying and sharing of tracks among friends from legitimately purchased CD's. But the fallout from the aggressive copy protection effort has raised serious questions about how far companies should be permitted to go in seeking to prevent digital piracy.

The recall and exchange program, which was first reported by USA Today, comes two weeks after news began to spread on the Internet that certain Sony BMG CD's contained software designed to limit users to making only three copies. The software also, however, altered the deepest levels of a computer's systems and created vulnerabilities that Internet virus writers could exploit...


AND how many of these CDs are in New Zealand stores? Anyone?


pee&poo.jpg

via Gizmodo "For heaven's sake, could it be that only a Swedish designer could get away with making plush toys that represent pee and poo, and have them called cute, cuddly and unique? Pee & Poo toys have been sold solely in the Swedish market thus far (I don't even want to know what Laura Bush would have to say about this) and coincidentally, have completely sold out. Designer Emma Megitt was obviously way ahead of her time, though I mean, who wouldn't want furry human waste hanging around their home? Plushy, stuffed furry human waste, I mean, not the real kind. We all have that lying around, don't we?"PEE & POO TOY

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hopefully this is the first of many public humiliations for DRM installing companys - how much damage has SONY done to their 'brand' in the name of what?
Stopping "pirates" who can easily download their SONY music from a russian website anyway...

I find it hard to sympathise with the users though - anyone who owns a CD by Celine Dion or any of the other totally lame SONY DRM'd artists really does need a musical taste transplant from someone with a real brain/heart!

can some pissed off hacker please create a killer virus equivalent to the theoretical asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, so as to do the same to the record label equivalents such as SONY? please????

Anonymous said...

check this
BEAT DIGGIN DOCUMENTRY
"Diggin' in the Crates"
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=32G20MFC

Anonymous said...

This is a major humiliation to Sony and a major setback to the company in terms of profit and credibility. A lot of people were pissed off when this happened, and the fact that Sony took such a long time before they acted on it do not decrease the level of irritation and annoyance of the users.