Your Next CD

Lars Ulrich was the keynote speaker in today’s announcement by a consortium of music publishers of a new initiative being implemented for all future music CD’s, beginning obviously enough, with Mr. Ulrich’s newest CD from his own band Metallica entitled Screw You.

Mr. Ulrich seemed particularly upbeat when he announced that “From this day forward, all CD’s purchased from retail stores and Internet businesses will be in a new, non-backwards compatible, encryption-friendly format called Holistic Onboard Linear Equalized Sound, or HOLES. Take that Napster! Who’s the moron now, be-yeetch?”

HOLES is considered by most experts in the field to be a better sounding music format that is copyright-safe and therefore more artist-friendly than regular CD’s, SACD’s or DVD-Audio Discs. HOLES allows for up to 20 discreet channels of uncompressed high fidelity sound and 4 independent channels of low end (subwoofer) information. Even though all these channels are not in use today, and most independent polls conclude that consumers don’t want 20.4 giant speakers in their living rooms, just having the ability to implement 20.4 channels in a music mix might allow for the growth of the new medium. At least, that’s what the consortium hopes that will be the case.

Musician, audio pioneer and sound engineer Thomas Dolby was quoted at the event saying, “20.4 channels? What the hell am I going to do with that, put each instrument in its own speaker? These guys are morons.”

Possibly the most anticipated part of the announcement of the new format came when Mr. Ulrich introduced the highly publicized, highly controversial new encryption technology that is the main reason for the new format. The encryption scheme, developed by a group of teenagers in Liechtenstein who are known only by the hacker name Vegonna Beritch, is thought to be virtually unbreakable unless someone were to actually try. Known as the Digital/Analog Music Notification and Activation Security System, or DAMN ASS, this encryption scheme requires that a whole new breed of playback devices be developed and deployed to the general public, as the new discs will not play on any devices currently available.

Mr. Ulrich is quoted as saying, “This is a win-win situation. The user will know that their CD isn’t a bootleg or an illegal compilation of songs burned to CD for them by their grandma, and we get to sell more CD’s and CD players at even higher prices!”

DAMN ASS HOLES discs are estimated to cost between $25 and $35 USD.

Much like Microsoft’s Windows Product Activation (WPA), DAMN ASS will allow any purchaser of a music CD to access the music on only one playback device. Should the owner of a DAMN ASS HOLES disc attempt to play their disc on another playback device other than the one originally used to activate the DAMN ASS HOLES disc, they will be asked to contact the issuer of the disc in order to re-activate their music CD. Should they fail to do so, or should the issuer decide that the user is trying to listen to the music illegally, the disc will fail to play at all.

Currently, there is some litigation pending on copyright issues between WPA and DAMN ASS. No one from Microsoft or the RIAA was available for comment in time for this story.

The new playback devices, known as Generally Optimized Devices, or GODs, will be able to play back encrypted CD’s only if they have a means of connecting to the Internet. For the sake of those devices without an Internet connection (for example, in an automobile), calling a toll-free number is also an option.

For example, should a teenager buy the latest CD from Metallica he or she could play that CD on his home GOD boombox, his GOD Walkman or his GOD car stereo but only one and not all three. GOD enabled playback devices will communicate with a central server residing in a rundown shack located somewhere in the heart of Alabama. Upon activation the GOD enabled playback device will communicate with this server and create a database entry of the user which will include, among other information, the users credit card number, Social Security number, address, phone number, shoe size, height, weight, hair color and past medical history.

Joey Smith, a high school student in Detroit, MI. says, “You mean I’ll have to buy the same CD four or five times just so I can listen to it in different places? And I’ll have to tell them all my personal info? That doesn’t make any sense! I’d rather not buy it at all and I’ll just tape it off the radio. Those guys must be morons.”

A spokesperson for the RIAA confirmed that the RIAA would maintain control over the database, the server and all users uploaded information. “This is to insure the general publics privacy and make sure no one ever gets hold of this information except our trusted business affiliates, governmental agencies, commercial partners and/or anyone who knows all the words to ‘Louie, Louie’.”

DAMN ASS HOLES discs and GOD DAMN ASS HOLES players will arrive in stores on April 1st 2002.

GeekMan Newswire, all the news that’s fit to fake.