Dear Record Industry

Fuck you.

Today seems like a good day to give a shoutout to our dear friends at most music labels. And of course it’s related to some haywire copy protection scheme.

I don’t even buy that many CDs anymore, it’s iTunes all the way. The CDs that I do buy are purchased in Germany – somewhat obscure bands that I can’t get here. One trip to the store per year, no easy way to make a return. So I expect those CDs to work! And “work” means iPod. End of discussion. People listen to music a certain way these days, and I don’t even have a working CD player in my home office (or car!) anymore.
So of course one of the CDs that I bought over xmas last year, Deine Lakaien‘s latest offering “april skies”, is copy protected. It’s advertised on the CD, but devoid of any other purchasing options (iTunes America doesn’t carry the band), and considering the fact that I was able to rip all other “copy controlled” CDs, I decided to get the CD anyway.

I can’t rip the CD.

iTunes 6 seemingly did it once, but the songs were stuttering all over the place. After that – nada. iTunes 7, which I hoped might finally fix the problem, won’t even acknowledge the inserted CD. Might be that the first rip installed some hidden DRM files somewhere on the machine that I can’t find, but I won’t reinstall the entire computer based on that theory.

So congratulations Capitol Records, you have created a copy protection scheme that works! I can’t rip this CD of yours. You also lost a customer – for good. This isn’t some flavor-of-the-day band that I decided to give a try and hey, if it doesn’t work no big deal. This is one of the oldest groups I have listened to. Over 15 years. I have all albums in my CD rack. And this experience has spoiled my entire history with the band, because I have to assume that I won’t be able to listen to this or any of their future albums

So this might be it. I can’t even laugh at the irony of those “Don’t copy this CD, it takes away money from the artists!” statements inside the jewel case. I don’t see why I should support a record label that punishes me for purchasing their stuff, so I won’t. I got a pretty good memory when it comes to things like this. Of course it won’t be more than a drop in a bucket, but at least it will make me feel a bit better.