Having not been an employee for more than 20 years, I’ve missed out on certain things in the workplace like “bennies” and “perks.” Like “vacation” and “personal days”—what a concept. One of the “perks” in working at Utne is being able to regularly root around in the media bins. Of the tonnage of media material that passes through the magazine’s offices, the material that isn’t retained for the Utne library makes it into these media bins, where it is quickly picked over by the staff. The quantity of the materials that make it into these bins is just short of alarming.
While scavenging through a bin of audio CDs while waiting for a meeting with the publisher, I came across Eric Clapton’s 2002 release, One More Car, One More Rider. Don’t bother; Clapton is one of the planet’s best guitarists, but this release plainly sucks rocks. “Reptile” sounds like bad elevator music, if you can believe that. But that’s not the point of this missive. The copy of One More Car, One More Rider in the Utne bin was a promotional copy with generic packaging and this nice little addition:
“Please note: This CD has been individually watermarked with a unique identification number embedded in the music. This number is traceable directly to the authorized recipient, which allows us to identify the source of any unauthorized copies or other reproductions of the music contained on this CD. The watermark is not changed or destroyed by extracting clips of the music, or by using any compression technology such as MP3. The sound quality of the audio playback is not affected. This CD is intended to be listened to solely by the authorized recipient and no portion of its contents may be copied or reproduced in any manner, nor made available in any manner to any third party (whether by means of streaming, so-called ‘peer-to-peer’ networks or otherwise). This CD should not be played in a computer. Thank you in advance for your understanding… Enjoy!”
Wow. This is wrong in so many ways, I don’t know where to begin. First of all, a confession: I haven’t purchased an audio CD in more than three years. Call it an informal boycott, or maybe it’s just a more formal rejection of pop culture, but I’ve been out of the loop for a while. The last audio CD I purchased was one of the Dick’s Picks releases from the Grateful Dead vault (back when it was still a family business). That should tell you that I’m not exactly in the target market demographic for today’s hot sounds.
I’m assuming this “watermark” technology is somehow different from last year’s audio CD copy-protection that I thought was dead on arrival. The Clapton CDs appear to be normal audio CDs: there’s no interrupting band on the media itself, indicating no data resides on the disc; only audio. But I’m not going to stick it into my computer to find out.
Technical issues aside, here’s the bit that really turns my crank: “... This CD is intended to be listened to solely by the authorized recipient and no portion of its contents may be copied or reproduced in any manner…” The legal department of Reprise Records (a junior member of the AOL Time Warner megalith) should slither out from under its rock into the light of the current century. Intended to be listened to solely by the authorized recipient, indeed. “Officer, arrest that man! He was surreptitiously listening to my CD! Off with his ears!”
I have to assume that the consumer versions of this Clapton release don’t carry the watermark. After all, the discs are stamped with the “Compact Disc Digital Audio” trademark, and we’ve already been around that particular block. Surely you all aren’t putting up with this kind of crap. Are you?
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