Radiohead in LA Times
An article appeared in today’s edition of the LA Times containing Radiohead’s attempts on preventing piracy on their upcoming album, Kid A. Below is an excerpt:
“Before Radiohead’s “OK Computer” was released in 1998, cassette copies were sent to the press, radio programmers and retailers in portable tape players that had been glued shut.
Now, advances of the same band’s “Kid A,” due for release Oct. 3, will be sent to select writers, programmers and retailers stored electronically in Sony VAIO Music Clips–pocket-size digital players that look something like fat fountain pens.
The cassette was a gimmick designed to emphasize that the album should be listened to as a whole in one session.
The new package, say representatives of the band and Capitol Records, is born of necessity–to guard against Internet pirating. The music files are encoded to prevent them from being copied or transmitted via the Internet.
OK, it’s a gimmick too, although the devices–at a cost of more than $200 each–will only be loaned, not given, to writers working on reviews and stories. But with Radiohead, the gimmick is not the hook, given the great support the band has long had among critics.”
Click here to read the rest of the article…
[many thanks to Ed]
