VH1 Selling Music Online Before Its Released

from the yeah,-keep-trying dept

VH1's big move into online music is a deal with some record labels to release some music early - before the CD has been released. People can buy the album prior to its release and be able to listen to the music and have access to cover art and liner notes. Then when the CD comes out, it will be sent to them. It's not a bad idea overall, but as expected, they're going a little overboard on the digital rights management side of things. They seem pretty sure of themselves in the quotes that say that not only will the songs be "encrypted" but they will be "heavily encrypted" (oooh scary) and it won't be possible to record the songs. First of all, I'm sure that someone will figure out how to record the songs. More importantly, however, is that this really just makes it more of a pain for the legitimate customers who paid for the songs.
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