bon jovi fights piracy

I know that a lot of people have been searching for signs of intelligence amongst the recording industry.

The best way to fight piracy is to:

1. Superglue shut advance copies of CDs in Sony Walkmans'


2. Produce CDs that don't play on computers, and can crash some computer systems.


3. Sue everybody


4. Give people something with their purchased CD that they can't get with a pirated copy, or a download.

And the winner is Bon Jovi, with D. Give people something with their purchased CD that they can't get with a pirated copy, or a download.

I think that the plan from Island Records is a good one. Here's a portion of the press release from their web site:

Bon Jovi felt compelled with the release of Bounce to again give back to their fans and reward them for going out and purchasing the album. In addition, they wanted to address the decline in album sales which is growing increasingly more prevalent due to piracy and file sharing. The belief is that added value benefits offered through "American XS" will give Bon Jovi fans incentive to go out and get the new album legitimately. The "American XS" serialization is a benchmark offer, introducing the concept of the 'living album', giving fans a real, on-going relationship with the artist. It's a win-win situation for the consumer and the music industry - the consumer gets real value for the purchase price and the industry benefits by having consumers in record stores.

I also think that these guys are just brushing the surface of what could be included with a non-pirated copy of a CD. Hopefully, this move by Bon Jovi and Island Records will inspire some creativity amongst other record labels. (link to Bon Jovi's American XS page via slashdot, which has some interesting comments worth reading on the subject.)