NEW DELHI, INDIA- Upon the release of Coldplay's new album in the Indian market this past month, eager listeners discovered something of a problem. If played in anything other than a standard CD player, the disc reportedly emits an hour of complete silence.
Computers and car stereos all over the South Asian country are experiencing the same problem, unable to pump out the steady stream of inoffensive quasi-rock to which fans have grown so accustomed. Even though the license agreement (only visible once the disc has been purchased and opened) says that opening the case renders it non-returnable, record executives have graciously agreed to refund customers for the defective discs.
So far, however, few if any have come forward to take them up on the offer, a fact that EMI Music Group's Alain Levy says the company had planned on from the beginning. "Complaining about a DRM'd Coldplay disc is like leaving a store with a faulty moped," Levy told reporters. "You could return it, but then you'd have to admit that you bought it in the first place."
For critics of the record industry, the issue at hand is bigger than just a few hundred thousand defective CD's or even concerns that these invasive copy protection schemes could spread to the British and American markets. The most chilling aspect of all of this, they say, is that record companies like EMI are calling out fans of flaccid pop-rock for public humiliation. Indeed, leaked company documents seem to indicate that the incident in India was an experiment of sorts.
Source: ridiculopathy.com
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