I posted my complaints about the state of online music vendors late last year. Cory Doctorow, sci-fi author and EFF spokesperson, recently gave a really good talk about some of the issues surrounding this at Microsoft. He explains the background and issues very clearly, I think. I decided to post this as the discussion list for EFF-Austin got its most lively traffic in months over the DRM measures that may or may not be included on the new Beastie Boys CD. No official word on their site, but this post in their forum and a response to the BoingBoing post seem to say that it doesn’t affect the US or UK release and that The Boys didn’t have a choice in the matter.
Either way, I don’t think I’m all that interested in the new album. I was disappointed with Hello Nasty and only liked slightly more of Ill Communication. The Boy is a fan of the new single, but when given the opportunity to buy the new CD for $9.99 at Best Buy, I passed.
Finally, their site has a note indicating that it’s under construction, but it’s pretty crappy. The information is all over the place and somewhat incoherent. If I were them, I’d have a link about the copy protection on the homepage.