November 6th, 2005
Don’t Shoot the Messenger … Er, Artist
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
I probably don’t have to mention the Sony news from the past week. Customers at Amazon.com have used the retailer’s rating system to reduce the rating for the Van Zant album, “Get Right with the Man,” from 3 1/2 stars to 1 1/2 stars in just a few days.
The comments given with the reviews have, not surprisingly, focused on the copy protection and not the album content.
According to a story by TechWeb, sales of the album have been unaffected, rising from 1,299 to 1,113 from Thursday to Friday. However, looking at Amazon’s website at the time of this writing, I see the sales rank at 2,787, so I’m not sure what to think.
We Say: It’s certainly not Van Zant’s fault that this hit the news, so it wouldn’t be fair if sales are affected. Does anyone remember the steps The Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters and Switchfoot took earlier this year, posting ways around the copy protection on their albums? A lot of artists are very unhappy with the effect copy protection has on their fans; I hope we see music companies take some positive steps in the future.
David Johnston says:
Yeah, I do feel sorry for the artists who, I’m sure, didn’t know or want this kind of stuff on their CD’s. It’s not their fault that Sony was stupid about their DRM. I think the best solution to this is class-action suit against Sony by the owners of the affected CD’s.
November 6th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
Are Music Artists Paying For Sony’s Copy Protection Fiasco?
Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes: I probably don’t have to mention the Sony news from the past week. Customers at Amazon.com have used the retailer’s rating system to reduce the rating for the Van Zant album, “Get Right with the Man,” from 3 1/2…
November 7th, 2005 at 5:20 pm
Steven Didier says:
I too feel sorry for the artist, I would hope that they will end their association with Sony as soon as possible.
I personally refuse to purchase equipment or material that supports this type of DRM, Sony in particular. And would hope that others do likewise. I support the artists through concerts and legal downloads ie: iTunes
November 8th, 2005 at 12:08 pm