Meteora Security

Discussion in 'News' started by Mark, Feb 15, 2003.

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  1. #1
    Mark

    Mark Canadian Beauty LPA Administrator

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    Here's an article which deals with the tight security Linkin Park have hired to protect Meteora from being released. The writer may branch out into different areas, but there's some interesting facts regarding LP's security measures. Enjoy:

    Pirate paranoia

    Since the advent of the unholy trinity of internet, MP3 and CD burner, the music industry has gone into piracy tailspin. Toby Manning feels like a hunted man

    Saturday February 15, 2003


    Playback control freaks: Linkin Park

    OK, this is getting silly. I'm being frisked by a man mountain; I've turned out my pockets, had my bag searched and my mobile phone confiscated. I'm starting to feel more like a felon than a mere music journalist invited to a "controlled playback" of the forthcoming Linkin Park album Meteora.

    According to music industry wisdom, however, inside every journalist there's a bootlegger trying to get out. Let's not get into how a mobile phone next to a speaker is going to achieve this - paranoia produces scorched earth policies.

    Journalists have access to music long before commercial release (Meteora isn't in shops for nearly two months) and an increasingly shorttermist market means first-week sales take all; ergo journalists are all potential fifth men.

    The microdot and mac approach made some sense when journalists were given physical promotional CD copies. Everyone likes to feel like Harry Palmer - reviewers didn't mind signing papers promising not just not to pass on Oasis's Be Here Now but not even to "talk" about it (so they couldn't tell people how rubbish it was perhaps?).

    Soon, however, promotional albums came with infuriating "dropouts", that faded out the track every minute or so (see Air, Roni Size) rendering them uncopyable. With typical street-smarts, rap went one louder utilising piracy poopers such as voiceovers ("Hits the stores October 2000" booms a voice on Murder Inc's Murderers album); squawking seagulls (Mobb Deep's Murda Muzik) and (I'm not making this up), on De La Soul's 1993 Buhloone Mindstate, mooing cows! If this deterred would-be bootleggers, it often deterred would-be reviewers too. Not such a good look.

    Since the advent of the unholy trinity of internet, MP3 and CD burner, the industry has gone into piracy tailspin. The Linkin Park security - complete with action-movie metal briefcase - was prompted by 4.5m copies of debut Hybrid Theory being downloaded from the internet. What no one can actually prove is any journalistic culpability: even the BPI admits studios or pressing plants are more likely leakers.

    Hunkering down, hiphop has gone one louder again and dispensed with promotional records altogether. If you read rap reviews at all nowadays, the record is likely to have been on the shelves for weeks. If we're lucky, critics get invited to Linkin-style one-listen "controlled playbacks", but canapes and free booze don't help you to digest the music.

    More ingeniously, Billy Corgan's new album was promo'd on cassette, the White Stripes on vinyl, formats tricky to transfer into digital information (although the vinyl's already on eBay for $200). A more hi-tech solution is the "watermarked" CD, which contains data that's traceable should a journalist choose to share it on the internet.

    There's just one problem. Like most journalists, I can barely exchange emails, let alone MP3s. The only files I transfer are made of cardboard and they're transferred from desk to drawer. Pity, I quite fancied a new career as a pirate. Better put that old bandana back in.
     
  2. #2
    Mark

    Mark Canadian Beauty LPA Administrator

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    4.5 milllion copies pirated on the net.....whoa. that would make them.....17x platinum, lmao.
     
  3. #3
    Bryan

    Bryan Guest




    When you think about that, thats pretty bad. 4.5 MILLION copy's Linkin Park and the Record Company got screwed out of. I think more people need to buy the CD's...expecially with Linkin Park haha.
     
  4. #4
    Mark

    Mark Canadian Beauty LPA Administrator

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    When you think about that, thats pretty bad. 4.5 MILLION copy's Linkin Park and the Record Company got screwed out of. I think more people need to buy the CD's...expecially with Linkin Park haha. [/b][/quote]
    i noticed. wouldn't it be amazing if they actually went 17x platinum? that'd have to be a record for a debut album.
     
  5. #5
    DèVî£ísHßãbÊ

    DèVî£ísHßãbÊ Active Member

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    hmm no wonder I haven't heard of anyone leaking it yet.
     
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