My girlfriend bought me a CD yesterday. It was one I really wanted so it was a well appreciated gift.
Now, we have our entire 5-600 CD collection ripped and stored on a server in our home. There is no stereo in our living room, only iTunes. So obviously the first thing to do with a new CD is to rip it and store on the server.
But NO, there is this wonderful copy protection mechanism on the disc and I would probably need to go to some lengths if I wanted to surpass it. This means I will probably not listen to the disc a lot – our CD collection is stored away in boxes and I will probably not be keeping this one disc around to be able to play it – and by the way on a lousy custom built player that comes with the CD.
So, for me, this CD is flawed. After all, I’m pretty sure my girlfriend was buying me the music, not a piece of plastic – the bits, not the atoms as Nicholas Negroponte would say. And my bits are flawed. Usually when you buy something that is flawed, you can return it but the store will probably not be accepting my compaints in this case.
From now on we will be checking any disc we’re thinking about buying for signs of copy protection, and if it has one – we won’t buy it. It’s as simple as that.
All of a sudden the intended copy protection has become a successfully implemented purchase protection!
Nice one – music publishers. No wonder you’re going out of business. If we could only buy our bits without hassle, you would be doing great.
So, next time you’re in a CD store – check for a copy protection label. If its there, don’t buy the disc. You want to be buying the bits – not the atoms.