pat loughery

Yesterday I picked up the new solo album by Trey Anastasio, formerly the lead guitar player and vocalist of Phish. I bought it at Best Buy along with some gear for podcasting. I finally sat down today to rip the tunes on my laptop and move them to my iPod (I no longer have a home stereo, and the CD player in the car skips like crazy, so the iPod is my main musical device.)

This CD has the *feature* of being copy-protected such that iTunes won’t even recognize the existence of the CD. Although the CD back text says that Windows Media Player 9+ can, my WMP10 can’t either. You have to install the built-in software on the CD and let it copy a protected version of all the songs to your hard drive – still not viewable in iTunes for synch to the iPod. Sony-BMG are doing because of a turf war between Apple Music and the record industry, and who’s screwed in the process? Me. And you. Yes, copy protection helps the record company. Good on you. Don’t screw me in the process.

What do they think is going to happen next? I have two choices: burn a new CD from WMP, then import the new one into iTunes, or return the CD to Best Buy and simply buy the entire set from iTunes directly. Either way, it’s a pain for me to do, and I’ll certainly avoid buying Cd’s from Sony-BMG in the future.

I hope the gang there at S-BMG is finding this rant in their regular web searches. You folks have lost a customer who LOVES buying music. I’ll still purchase my stuff legally like I ALWAYS do, but it will be through iTunes, your enemy.

More info in this rollingstone.com article