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_ _ _____ _ __ <*the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the uk> | \ | |_ _| |/ / _ __ __2001-11-09_ o join! mail an empty message to | \| | | | | ' / | '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / o [EMAIL PROTECTED] | |\ | | | | . \ | | | | (_) \ v v / o website (+ archive) lives at: |_| \_| |_| |_|\_\|_| |_|\___/ \_/\_/ o http://www.ntk.net/ >> HARD NEWS << strewth - kangaroos! She may be "Torn", but who'd have thought this also meant fashionably "pre-ripped"? NATALIE IMBRUGLIA's "White Lillies Island" album has beaten Michael Jackson to the public enemy number one spot by being the first major UK CD release to feature "Cactus Data Shield", a copy protection system which ostensibly prevents MP3 swapping by corrupting the table of contents so it won't play on PCs (or PlayStations, and some other DVD players as well?). However, in a bid to retain her Aussie indie-pop credentials, Natalie don't seem to know - or seem to care - what copy protection is for, and, in a bizarre bid to pacify PC users, the disc also contains a Windows app which will play the entire album from a chunked 42meg MP3 file - at a scorching 128kbps, hi-fi fans. They're not exactly "lying naked" on the CD - it's some weird proprietary format - but NTK reader MIKE GRAY has already successfully burned the files and the player onto a CDR, where they sound as "bloody awful" as they did on the original ("They couldn't even be arsed putting the track titles onto the files", he fumes). So: a CD which won't play under Linux or MacOS, but which is actually *easier* to pirate under Windows? That's what we call a "difficult" second album. http://uk.eurorights.org/issues/cd/help/ "Be" Ross Anderson - help defend the Red Book standard http://www.fatchucks.com/corruptcds/z.natalieimbruglia.whitelilliesisland.html - "Won't record to MiniDisc via optical-out". The fiends...
