Cheap Thrills 11.03.05

Get 'em while they're hot!

• Calexico - Black Heart
• Wolf Parade - I'll Believe In Anything
• Ben Folds - Protection
• Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine/Get Him Back
• Dar Williams - When I Was A Boy/Empire/Blue Light of the Flame/Comfortably Numb (w/Ani DiFranco)
• Spoon - Everything Hits At Once
• Goldfrapp - Lovely To See You
• Elvis Costello - My Funny Valentine (live)
• Spoon - Chicago At Night
• Cowboy Junkies - a bunch of assorted live tracks including Powderfinger, Sweet Jane and Dead Flowers
• Arctic Monkeys - Chun Li's Spinning Bird Kick
• World Leader Pretend - Bang Theory/Punches

Thanks to today's contributing bloggers. Please support their blogs! To hear these artists and more, click here.

Disclaimer: These links are intended to help promote artists that Musical Justice plays. None of the MP3 are actually provided or hosted by us. In the event that you are one of those artists and would like us to remove any links, please contact us and we will do so ASAP.

Sony BMG Fallout Continues

Wired Mag speaks out on the recent Sony BMG copy-protection debacle. Didn't I say that they're gonna get sued?

By deliberately corrupting the most basic functionality of their customers' computers, Sony broke the rules of fair play and crossed a bright line separating legitimate software from computer trespass. Their actions may be civilly actionable.

Sony may even have committed a crime under the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which can carry fines and prison terms for anyone who "knowingly causes the transmission of a program ... and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage, without authorization, to a protected computer." Corrupting Windows so it misreports the contents of a hard drive sounds a lot like "damage," and the click-wrap license agreement on the Sony disk amounts to pretty thin "authorization" -- disclosing only that "this CD will automatically install a small proprietary software program ... intended to protect the audio files embodied on the CD."

The Money Shot 11.3.05

Coke, vicodin and the end of rock radio...

Jack & Coke
The Money Shot: "I've been offered the opportunity to write a song in a way which interests me as a songwriter. I certainly wouldn't want a song that I'd already written to be used on a commercial. That seems strange. "But to be asked to write something particular along one theme of love in a worldwide form that I'm not really used to appealed to me. I've written a song and I wrote it really quickly and it's an interesting commercial that's been made. I was inspired by the commercial."

Queens Take London on New DVD
The Money Shot: "I took enough Vicodin to kill a small child," he says with a laugh. "I didn't want to cancel again. That would have been seven shows, and people start using the word 'curse' after that."

Morrissey's Producer Brags on Next CD
The Money Shot: "I am two-thirds of the way through one of the best albums I've ever worked on, with not only Morrissey at his best, but the plot has twists and turns which somehow involve film composer Ennio Morricone and an Italian children's choir."

Shout Out Louds Hit the NY Times
The Money Shot: "I really like pop music," Mr. Olenius said, "but you have to damage it a bit to make it something new."

Sun-Times Reviews Wilco Benefit
The Money Shot: Not so long ago, the image of Tweedy grabbing the mike stand and just singing was unthinkable: He was the greasy-headed, frog-throated frontman of a roots-rock band. Here, though, he seemed vastly more comfortable with his backing players, more trusting of his urge to let space into his songs, and -- not least -- more adept as a vocalist. The greasy head remained.


and finally...

The End of Rock Radio?
The Money Shot: Unlike his bosses at Infinity, the acerbic Carolla believes K-Rock's switch from rock to talk is part of a larger trend that's likely to continue. "I don't know what year folks are living in," he says. "If you want to hear music, get an iPod. If you want to hear talk, get a radio. That's my feeling." (Or maybe a computer and Musical Justice?)

Bidding For Britney
The Money Shot: The London-based record producer/manager has taken to eBay to auction off his share of the Britney Spears single "Everytime." By his estimation, it is the first time someone has used the site to sell a copyright interest in a certified hit by an A-list artist. "I thought this would be a groundbreaking thing to do," Adams said Tuesday.

To hear these artists (except Britney) and more, click here.

Are Sony BMG Copy-protected CDs Hiding Hackerware on YOUR computer?

Sony BMG has reached a new low in their efforts to copy-protect their content. According to Brian Krebs at the Washington Post, that new Ricky Martin CD you just bought could be hiding a big nasty surprise in addition to music that sucks.

"Sony BMG has configured some of its music CDs to install antipiracy software that uses techniques typically employed by hackers and virus writers to hide the program from users and to prevent them from ever uninstalling it.

The CDs in question make use of a technique employed by software programs known in security circles as "rootkits," a set of tools attackers can use to maintain control over a computer system once they have broken in.

People may differ over what exactly a rootkit is, but the most basic ones are designed to ensure that regular PC monitoring commands and tools cannot see whatever has been planted on the victim's machine. Because rootkits generally get their hooks into the most basic level of an operating system, it is sometimes easier (and safer) to reformat the affected computer's hard drive than to surgically remove the intruder.

Sony's anti-piracy program installer pops up when you drop one of these content-protected CDs into your drive. If you agree to install it, there is no "uninstall" feature. Russinovich was able to use his knowledge of rootkits and the Windows operating system to zero in on the offending driver files needed to run the software. Unfortunately, he found that removing the program also erased the system files that power his CD-ROM drive, rendering it useless. "

Here's the blog of the guy who discovered the unauthorized program, Mark Russinovich. For those who might be interested, there is a way to disable the Autorun feature on your PC and keep a program from starting without your OK. Annoyances.org outlines it in this article.

When an Autorun-enabled CD-ROM is inserted into a CD-ROM drive, Windows automatically launches the program contained on the disk, whether you want it to or not. Similarly the audio CD player pops up whenever you insert an audio CD and starts playing it immediately. This is cute the first or second time, but soon gets infuriating. What's worse, is that if you double-click on the your CD icon in My Computer, the autorun fires up, instead of a folder window as you'd expect. This is especially irritating on slower computers, where you have to wait for what seems like an eternity for it to load some ridiculous welcome screen. Here's how to do it:

Any OS
If you hold down the Shift key when inserting the CD, the autorun is bypassed. (although it's not exactly graceful trying to insert a CD while holding down keys on the keyboard.)

There are more details on how to protect your computer from underdesired programs at that website link. There's also a more detailed examination of copy protection here by J. Alex Haldeman, a Princeton computer sciences student.

People wonder why there's a market for illegal downloads (or legal ones, for that matter)! As Krebs points out...

I understand Sony's desire to protect its intellectual property, and piracy certainly is a problem. But installing software that opens people up to further security risks and potentially destabilizes the user's computer can't be the best way to address that problem.

In truth, most antipiracy programs created thus far (and this one is no exception) place limits on legitimate users, but usually do little to prevent determined users from getting around the copy protection altogether.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this ends up in a major class action suit that goes all the way to the Supreme Court. Mark my words.

The Money Shot 11.2.05

Your daily Strokes and more...

Strokes Get Choosy
The Money Shot: The Strokes have selected the 14 songs that will be found on their third RCA album, "First Impressions of Earth." Due Jan. 3, the set is presently unsequenced but is generating early buzz thanks to the single "Juicebox," which climbed from No. 21 to a new peak of No. 16 last week on Billboard's Modern Rock airplay chart.

Depeche Yank First Show
The Money Shot: "Depeche Mode were excited to launch the tour in South Florida. However, they're not willing to jeopardise the safety of their fans, who would be putting themselves at risk travelling to and from the event under dangerous conditions."

Beck, Fire, Flaming Lips Light Up Vegoose
The Money Shot: Across the grounds, with a tent and deer onstage and his entire band dressed in Cub Scout uniforms, troop leader Beck serenaded the crowd with songs off every one of his albums: "Lost Cause," "Loser," "Devil's Haircut," "Sexx Laws" and the encores "E-Pro" and "Get Real Paid."

NIN May Go Dry in Toronto
The Money Shot: NIN, along with Queens Of The Stone Age and Death From Above 1979, play The Air Canada Centre on November 10. According to The Toronto Sun, however, the venue has been slapped with a Utah-esque liquor licence suspension, which prohibits it from serving alcohol at three future concerts.

To hear these artists and more, click here.