Anyone else think this is going too far?

So I decided to buy Silvertide’s Show And Tell tonight because I like their rockin’ Philly style. I pop it into my computer to put it into iTunes, and what comes up but an unfriendly little license agreement by BMG? Ok fine, whatever, I can understand if you feel the need to make someone “sign” something, even though they technically come into an agreement when they buy the CD, and making them read another one is redundant.I click “agree,” because I just want to be able to listen to them on my iPod. Now the CD wants to download some “harmless software” to my PC.

WTF?

Let me get this straight – in order to listen to a CD that I bought and own legally, on the only sound system I have hooked up right now, I need to install an unknown bloated piece of crap software? Apparently, yes. I’m not allowed to listen to a legally-owned CD on a legally-owned piece of software, on a legally-owned personal computer.

Fine. I install the software. Now, I can’t play the songs in any media player on my computer because they sound distorted. The only way to listen to them on my comp is to “download” WMA versions. But of course, those are protected and can’t be converted into iTunes. I’m forced to use Windows Media Player, which defeats the purpose of transferring the songs onto my MP3 player, or using them in a mix.

Great. Not only did BMG install some invisible spyware-like software on my comp, but even after doing so, I still don’t have access to the songs I own fair and square.

Thanks to you BMG, my IT boyfriend spent 45 minutes researching how to crack a CD that I paid you money for. Good business practice!

I’ll tell you this – if I had noticed the sticker on the front with the following text, I would have thought twice before buying it: “This CD is protected against unauthorized duplication. It is designed to play on standard playback devices and an appropriately configured computer (see system requirements on back).” These requirements, by the way, are too small to read.

I know all of this is nothing new, hell, apparently you can’t put certain CDs into Macs without their copy protection destroying the drive. But this is the first frustration I’ve had with it myself, and now every time I go shopping I’m going to look for one of these stickers or an FBI Anti-Piracy Warning. If it has one, there’s no way I’ll buy that album. It’s just not worth it. Very intelligent business practice I would say, wouldn’t you?