My band Hyannis has two shows coming up this month. The first is at 8PM, October 27th at The Foundry. The second is a 21+ show at O’Leavers on November 4th at 9PM, opening for A Tomato A Day at O’leavers. Both should be pretty cheap, so come check us out if you can!
My band Hyannis’s CD’s are in, drop me a note if you want one for the low low price of seven bucks.
Update: You can also pick one up at the Antiquarium, Drastic Plastic, or Homers.
Last Fall, the nice folks over at Sony/BMG released some CDs containing XCP and Suncomm MediaMax copy protection software. This was all well and good for a while. You couldn’t do what you wanted with your CDs because Sony decided they don’t want you to make more than 3 copies of your CDs or rip them in any program other than Windows Media Player, leaving us iTunes user out in the cold.
Then last October someone noticed that the XCP software secretly installs itself on your computer, sends back information to Sony, and breaks your computer if you try to uninstall it! The software is installed like a “rootkit”, which basically hides itself from your operating system so you can’t see it, so it can perform malicious activities. The MediaMax software also spies on you, even if you click “no” on the EULA (end user lisence agreement) page. It also turns out that both programs have massive security flaws that open up your system to viruses!
Oh, about that EULA I was talking about. If you said “yes” to thier agreement:
1. Sony-BMG can install and use backdoors in the copy protection software or media player to “enforce their rights” against you, at any time, without notice”
2. If you move out of the country, you have to delete all your music.
3. You have no right to transfer the music on your computer, even along with the original CD.
Wonderful!
When asked about it, Thomas Hesse, President of Sony BMG’s global digital business division said
Most people, I think, don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?
Why should you care if Sony is spying on you and crippling your computer?
Anyways, the EFF sued and won, so if you bought any of these Sony/BMG cds last year, you can get a DRM free replacement, and either 7.50 cash and a free album download from the music service of your choice (itunes, Wal-mart, Sony Connect), or 3 free album downloads from a music service of your choice. So if you own any of those CDs, go take what Sony owes you!!
I got my iPod less than a year ago, and already my batter life is down to about 5 hours. For most people, that