Copy protection

First a question for the music industry: "What the heck are you doing?"

Yesterday MJ gave me a present; the CD Fleshwounds from Skin. Of course I was really happy with it, but I immediately noticed a big label on both sides with the words COPY CONTROLLED. In the specifications I read that this CD would work in any CD-player, the latest Macs and PCs with minimal Pentium II, 233 MHz and 64MB RAM. I am perfectly happy with my Cyrix P133+ with 48MB RAM, and until now I was able to play any CD I liked. Of course I tried to play the CD, but my computer could not find the CD. :-(

I really like buying CD's; I prefer to buy one to using a copied CD. Because for me the CD is more than just the disk with the bits and bytes. I like to look at the artwork in the booklet, and no inkjet printed paper gives me the same feeling as the original CD. And because I usually buy older CD's, I never feel that I pay a lot --- of course I wouldn't complain if they became cheaper. So I buy the original CD's because of the better quality of the total product.

But now the record companies are throwing in their own windows, because they decrease the quality of their product. And why would I want to pay a lot for something that is broken? I don't have any problem yet, since there are so many old CD's out there that I still want to buy. But I can assure that I am never ever going to buy a copy protected CD anymore. Not because I want to copy it --- which I feel is my right --- but because it is essentially a broken product.

You can read more about copy-protected CD's at Kuro5hin or if you truely want to know everything you can go to the UK campain for Digital Rights.