The Last CDs?

Although I already had a preference toward the UK edition of Aerial, I was dismayed to realise that a) I had no choice, if I wanted Kate’s new music in our iPods, since Sony/BMG (who releases her post-Hounds of Love discs in the United States) is openly crippling their releases and b) after this one, I won’t be able to enjoy EMI releases either, as they are employing their own brand of copy-protection on all worldwide releases from now on. Mac users have generally escaped this problem, but some of EMI’s earlier applications of DRM encoding have blocked our way (specifically, the first disc of the 2-disc version of Roxette: The Pop Hits). (The inconsistency with the copy-protection on EMI discs is interesting as both discs displayed the partitioned disc with the proprietary player, but only one prevented iTunes from playing or importing music. A few other examples permitted playing, but not importing.)

The previous SunnComm MediaMax protection, seen on Sloan’s A Sides Win: Singles 1992–2005 was easily dismissed by Playlist’s Christopher Breen, who, among many others, advised buying a Mac as the way to circumvent this war against iTunes, as did MacDailyNews. While a comforting thought, thousands making the switch will not dissuade companies like Sony/BMG. The immunity of Macs is likely to be transient.

Even though the danger remains primarily Windows-based, the issues go beyond inconvenience, since copy protection has been shown to degrade sound quality (and in some, if not all cases, actually functions by degrading sound quality on the assumption that a standalone player’s error correction will compensate for it).

The result of all this now, of course, is many thousands of angry consumers and the first of several class action lawsuits. The contempt for their most dedicated audience, collectors and enthusiasts, is becoming genuinely troublesome.

DRM, left unchecked, will wind up imploding what’s left of the recording industry.

This would have been John Lennon’s 65th birthday.