New Beastie Boys album has secret copy protection

[Timmychuck]

I don't know this may have been in this forum before,
but read this.

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2004Jun/gee20040621025641.htm

[gitreel]

There are ways around this, but they don't think about that when they put that stupid azz protection in there.

[Gazorgan]

AutoPlay is a dangerous thing, you should disable it by default.

Also, get a lawyer, since they installed software on your computer without your consent, which is illegal by the way!

[Nilfennasion]

This is what those of us who will never buy mainstream again call "selling out".

[ViRaL1]

Might be worth buying the CD just so I can sue the record label.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Yeah most labels will eventually have this copy-protection but as others have said it's easily defeated by holding the 'Shift' key when inserting or disable autorun.
http://news.com.com/Labels+to+dampen+CD+burning%3F/2100-1027_3-5224090.html

[Timmychuck]

How do you disable autorun?

[gitreel]

How do you disable autorun?

read moviegeek's post

[Nilfennasion]

Even with autorun disabled, the fact of the matter is that they are trying to install software on your computer without permission. I thought it was illegal to even try.

[Thorn]

These guys classify it as a virus:
http://www.theregister.com/2004/06/23/beastie_boy_cd_virus/

...we have here a media company infecting users' machines silently with a file that affects a computer's functionality, without first obtaining informed consent...And a file that alters a computer's functioning without the owner's informed consent is the very definition of malware. Because this malware can be transferred from machine to machine on a removable disk, and requires user interaction to spread, it is, quite simply, a computer virus.

[Nilfennasion]

They put excited teenagers in prison for writing virii, so why not record company execs?

[Faustus]

My understand from a recent discussion before seeing this news is that there were 3 versions of the Cd.

1st was in Japan and had a special track as well as the copy protection
2nd was everyone else but the US and did not have the special track but DID have the copy protection.
3rd was the US and has a music video, but no special track and NO copy protection.

BTW its a good disc that ripped fine on both my PC and Mac